Event Warriors (volume 1)

I wasn’t close enough to hear the details of The Request as it came from the mouth of The Client, but I recognized the body language as Cynthia assumed the classic client management pose – weight shifted to one side, head tilted slightly to the right, smile frozen on her face. I’ve been on the business end of an event clipboard enough times to know that pose by heart. So I gently edged my way closer to the periphery of the conversation.

“Of course we can do that!” I heard Cynthia say, by which she meant, ”I haven’t the slightest idea where this request is coming from, and it’s really screwing up my schedule – but I suppose it’s remotely feasible if I give up yet another hour of sleep.”

To which The Client responded with a broad smile, ”Whatever was processing in your mind, I love what came out of your mouth.” Laughter ensued throughout the small cluster of people privy to the exchange. Laughter because everyone knew exactly what had been processing in Cynthia’s head, laughter at the cleverness of The Client in restoring good nature to the conversation, and laughter because it was a rock-solid lock that Cynthia was going to get it done.

And there in perfect microcosm form is the life of the Event Warrior.

We were standing at the time in the middle of a combination football stadium, concert venue and high-end celebrity lounge. That in itself is not overly remarkable in the events biz, but the fact that this 5,000+ capacity structure was in the process of rising up literally out of the sand of Miami’s South Beach made the whole thing a little…well, non-standard, at the very least. And that was why Classic Party Rentals was there.

If the name Classic Party Rentals inspires visions of cardboard hats secured under chins by grey rubber-bands and a big inflatable bounce house full of sugar-crazed kids, well you couldn’t be further off the mark. If alternatively the name conjures up elegant courtyard weddings, your thoughts are much more on track – but only partially inclusive. If, however, you also envision the Kentucky Derby, the U.S. Tennis Open, the Academy Awards and the Lollapalooza Music Festival…well now you’re cooking. To quote Ray Romano’s character in the new TNT show Men Of A Certain Age, Classic Party Rentals is ”more than just balloons, you know”.

In fact, Classic Party Rentals is kind of like the Northwestern Mutual of the hospitality and entertainment world. If you’ve ever attended a high-profile event at a venue that’s been custom-built from the ground up, chances are your experience has been shaped by CPR. They are quite simply the invisible 800 pound gorilla of the events business. So for a Sports Fan such as yours truly, when the invitation came to ride silent shotgun on the recent build-out of several Super Bowl week event venues…well suffice to say I couldn’t get to Miami fast enough.

Which brings me back to South Beach, Cynthia, and the rest of the Event Warriors. I was shadowing Philip, one of my CPR hosts, as he took part in a site walk-through. The “instant stadium” was just one of four different site builds that he was managing on behalf of multiple clients, and despite the near-constant curveballs thrown his way, he maintained an aura of bemused calm – well, either bemused calm or severe sleep deprivation. Whichever it was, things were progressing more or less according to the detailed plans that he had been putting in place for months. And they had to, because at the stike of noon on Saturday the show had to go on. If he wasn’t ready until 12:05…well there’s no way around it – he would have failed. Such is the life of the Event Warrior.

Philip and Michael, my other CPR host on this visit, are kindred spirits of mine in that each of us has “held the clipboard”, done the last-minute scramble, cajoled the client and somehow or another pulled everything together in time to meet a concrete-hard deadline time for tee-off, kick-off, tip-off and pretty much every other iteration of “starting time” you may want to add. And then when the last participant or spectator has headed for home with a smile on their face, we’ve “taken it all down and evaporated” as Michael succinctly puts it. If somewhere in the back of your mind Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out/Stay” is starting to play I know you’re with me.

Event production is a lifestyle for which people are either ideally suited…or suited not at all. Lots of travel. Long hours. Tons of pressure. And although you are intimately involved in making world-class entertainment happen, you rarely see any of the event that you are there to produce. There is virtually no public recognition of your work, and very little glamour.

But there are the people you work with. Smart, creative people. Fun people who love to laugh when they work. People that you can count on to deliver; no questions asked, no matter what. On an event site, everyone has a specialty or special assignment, but when push comes to shove…well, everyone pushes and shoves together. Often times quite literally.

In fact, getting a venue ready for a competition is very much like being part of a competition in and of itself. Getting everything done just right, on time vs. immovable deadlines, and often within a rapidly changing operating environment – that’s the equivalent of winning the actual game you’re there to stage! Cameraderie naturally inhabits the DNA of the Event Warrior, and the resulting sense of teamwork that pervades each production site makes for very satisfying work  - assuming of course you don’t lose your mind in the process.

Toward the end of my visit, I asked Michael what he would do for a living if he couldn’t work in events. The subsequent stare and “blink, blink” would’ve done Homer Simpson proud. “I never really thought about it”, he said after a bit. “Maybe work for a charity?”

“Oh, won’t you stay, just a little bit longer. We wanna play, just a little bit longer…”