Here are the latest
thoughts from MorEvents.

A Global Company Comes Home (or, There’s No Place Like Home) - 03/21/2013

MorEvents has been very lucky to work in six out of seven continents around the world. We’ve traveled to and worked in over 50 countries amongst us in our 17 years in the business. That said, MorEvents is even luckier to call Colorado home.

Based out of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in Denver, we’re a diverse but like-minded bunch. We work hard, and play harder. We love the mountains in our backyard, and are often times running out the door to catch “one more run”. They say that people come to Colorado to ski, and stay for the summers. The statement is definitely true for me.

Personally, I’ve been able to work abroad for the company and our international clients, and while I love the travel, there really is “no place like home” as one of my beloved protagonists coined. We’ve worked with a variety of non-profits in the Denver-area, and those tend to be some of our favorite events – we have a sincere love of supporting our community and its initiatives. To be behind some of the good work being done out there, is refreshing at times. Managing a fundraiser for The Women’s Foundation of Colorado, or the annual benefit dinner for the Jewish Community Center, keeps us on our toes and our heartstrings invested in the community we live in.

Recently, we were lucky enough to earn a piece of business with King Soopers – the inaugural Wellness Exposition that will take place on October 5, 2013. We’re excited to share this experience with our new partner, and are eager to support their wellness initiatives. Taking care of our own staff and our families sits at the center of why we do what we do. It’s good to be home… and it’s always good to sleep in our own beds.

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Green Events (or, Mostly Yellow) - 02/19/2013

A very famous frog once said, “It’s not easy being green. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things”. An event planner can often feel the same way when attempting to plan a green meeting. Green meetings are nothing new, and green updates seem downright ordinary – we’ve all (or mostly, all) have switched to water stations instead of water bottles, increasing the visibility of recycling bins next to trash bins, and are comfortable using apps instead of printing out agendas and meeting notes for every business session. However, try as we may, it’s not all up to the mighty event planner.

Just the other day, I had to print out 113 pages of BEOs. I asked, just to check, “can I do an e-signature? Can we track changes and accept?” After all, if we’re all so green and attempting to be environmentally friendly, surely an e-sig will do. So not the case. I printed out all 113 pages, signed the ones I approved and scanned and emailed the ones back to the hotel. Chances are, my conference services manager printed them all, made the revisions I requested to the half of them, and scanned and emailed them back to me. And, you guessed it, the process started all over again.

As much as I understand health and safety rules, I still try to fight them. For example, I was hosting a breakfast where not one single bagel was consumed. That left no less than 35 bagels. I asked the hotel out of curiosity, if the staff in the back of house took them home with them so they didn’t go to waste. My contact told me that wasn’t allowed. So naturally I asked if I could wrap them up and take them to my brother’s college frat house not far away so they wouldn’t go to waste (what college student doesn’t appreciate free food!?) This hotelier nicely explained that wouldn’t be allowed for health reasons, spread of bacteria, et cetera… (insert eye roll here).

Naturally, like any green event planner, I wrapped them in as many napkins as I could find and shoved them in my purse to share with the masses.

It’s hard to accept rules like that – a real ink signature on a hundred page document, and not allowing certain foods to cross the doorstep of an event or meeting venue. However, if green meetings and events are really going to beyond ordinary, it needs to be an industry-wide partnership. The truth is, it is easy being green – but the movement can only go as far as the industry will really let us.

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Accomplishments (or, What did I even do today!?) - 01/23/2013

For an event planner, it’s sometimes a big pill to swallow when you only get one thing done in an eight (or twelve) hour day. We’re creatures of multi-tasking, fast typing, headsets, post-it notes, and track changes. Sometimes, when we are tasked with building HTML code for an entire website, creating a new font for a client’s rebranding, or reconciling one… stinkin… budget, we event planners tend to feel a bit down. What is it, that I actually did today?

The best day of an event for myself, is typically the last day. Not just because it’s over, but because I can actually see the fruits of my labor – what all of that HTML coding actually meant, and how excited consumers were over a re-brand. It’s those little moments when I stand back and say, “I did that”, that make the long hours, days and nights, worthwhile.

When you’re feeling too bogged down by the little things, here are some tips to bring any event or meeting planner out of the dumps:

1. Give them candy. Gum and chocolate work wonders. I really enjoy those little Dove chocolates with clever wishes on the wrapper.

2. Send a YouTube clip that will give your favorite event planner a break from the ordinary.

3. Turn on some tunes. Monotonous work like stuffing 5,000 name badges may weigh on the extrovert personality of many event planners, but incorporating some kind of entertainment always makes the stuffing go faster.

4. Bring caffeine. Coffee and Red Bull are an event planners best friends.

As I finish writing this fourth tip, I realize, “are event planners really that easy to please?” I don’t know. Maybe I’m making too many assumptions. We love what we do – the busy schedules, the new adventure and project every day, the flights to Gary, Indiana and Bali, Indonesia. As much as we may harp on the long hours, this is what keeps us going. I don’t know… am I making this all sound too sunny, or too woe-is me? What do you think?

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