Tackling technical event planning with Anca Trifan: Event Horror Stories [Episode 3]
EventLand’s brand new podcast series, Event Horror Stories, hosted by Marian Volkwyn, aims to be transparent and humanize the events industry by sharing real-life event stories. No-holds-barred – we want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly.
In our first installment of EventLand’s podcast series, powered by InEvent, we invited Anca Trifan, Founder & CEO of boutique events agency, Tree-Fan Events to share her event horror story. This woman-led event planning and production agency offer technical consultation, strategic event design, and production management for live, virtual and hybrid events.
Anca is also the host of the podcast “Events: Demystified” and has planned and produced many virtual events during the pandemic. She has managed to build a fulfilling and inspiring career in the events industry by wearing many hats.
In this episode, Anca shares the importance of rehearsal when planning hybrid events and why it is crucial to establish good work relationships with your clients.
Listen to her full story here:
Anca has been in the technical events production industry for 15 years and prides herself on her in-depth understanding of the technical side of events production by offering a boutique event production experience. This enables her to take a hands-on approach to events production.
Anca produced a two-day hybrid event, an in-person event with a virtual component. “For a virtual event, you rely on a virtual venue, the live-streaming technology, and the stream goes out in a flawless fashion. In a hybrid event, it takes all of that plus an in-person theme with AV (audiovisual) support,” says Anca.
Anca contracted a team that could help with the AV support, and having used them in the past; she had only received excellent service and support from them before. At this time, they had been experiencing some internal issues. During the pandemic, they had experienced an unexpected loss of personnel.
Anca had requested a team of five operators, and on the morning, she found out that instead of five, she would have only one guy, who would bring two more freelancers along to support him. The problem was that he had never worked with these freelancers before.
“Since we were making up for the lack of manpower, we had no time to rehearse,” recounts Anca.
“The day kicked off at 6 am, and I spent most of my time on a call training the audio guy, which I later found out was actually a lighting guy, so I’m training him on the fly. It was rough. It was painful,” says Anca reminiscent.
Find out how Anca managed the situation in “Tackling Technical Event Planning and Boutique Event Management “:
What Anca learned from this event horror story:
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!
According to Anca, you will inevitably encounter some troubles with a hybrid event. A rehearsal allows you to pinpoint some of those issues and work on them before the event.
Make peace with controlling what you can
As much as you want to have control over, some things are out of your control.
Think about how the client will perceive you
Troubleshoot and find a solution fast, but consider how the client will perceive you if they see you running around like a headless chicken.
Be open with your client
– Anca Trifan
You will have to have a conversation with your client about what went wrong. You can’t pretend that an issue never occurred; that will only hurt you in the long term. Rely on the relationship formed between you and the client.
People before production
If someone cannot perform to their full capacity because of a health issue, prioritize that person and find an alternative way to produce your event.
This episode of Event Horror Stories was brought to you by InEvent. Check out Episode 2, where we spoke to Beth Hernandez on The Silver Lining of Event Planning: Event Horror Stories [Episode 2].
Tune in for more podcast episodes by EventLand, by following EventLand on Spotify.
About the Author / Akeem Okunola
