This post was written by Sara Turner, the Living Well in Communities Admin Officer. You can follow Sara on Twitter @turnersara99.

The day has come.

It’s something you have been planning (so much planning…) for weeks, if not months and it’s finally here!

For me, there’s usually a dash of excitement as you jump out of bed. Sometimes it’s the sleepless night, tossing and turning, panicking that you are going to sleep through your 3 alarms, or that you’ve forgotten something and need to get to the venue to put your mind at rest.

You have been hawk-like, watching Eventbrite, monitoring numbers and answering queries, making sure those registered have included all the relevant details, but most importantly spelt their name correctly.

It’s been weeks in the making. The previous days have been spent running around, from office to office, printer to printer, sorting agendas, delegate lists, handouts, Twitter hash tags, signs and not forgetting those dreaded, fiddly name badges that you have spent hours creating…that will inevitably end up in the bin.

The morning is always frantic, rushing around to make sure everything’s ready, that everyone has all the correct materials, that the certain boxes packed for certain rooms are all in place.

Sorting the name badges alphabetically, realising that you have forgot to print off your own in the hurry of it all. But (life-saver!) you have remembered to pack the label printer for any last minute attendees.

It does go smoothly though. The team knows exactly what they are doing, as they’ve been briefed several times.

Suddenly the doors open and a flood of delegates pour into the venue.

And just before it starts…

Speakers arrive late demanding that you make changes to their presentations, the customary IT problems (mics not working, presentations not loading, clickers not clicking, lost papers / glasses / people), and the ever-present slow WIFI…

You usher delegates to their seats, already fantasising about the quick sip of coffee you’ll grab to calm you down and also perk you up.

The day passes by in a blur and before you know it, it’s over.

Almost.

  

Though the event is finished and you can breathe a sigh of relief, the hard work isn’t done. It’s tidy up time. All those carefully packed materials have to be repacked . And all the notes / scribbles gathered and ordered in the hope that they will somehow make sense to you tomorrow when it’s time to produce the outputs.

And then: straight back to planning the next event!

You can read more about the events we’ve been involved in here.