My ideal career is event management because it combines strategic planning with creative problem-solving, teamwork, communication, financial discipline, and the immediate responsibility of delivering an experience for other people. I am especially interested in large international events such as sporting competitions, conferences, exhibitions, cultural festivals, and public ceremonies. Their visible success depends on work that begins months or years before the audience arrives: defining objectives, developing schedules, securing venues and permits, coordinating suppliers, managing budgets, designing audience journeys, preparing safety and contingency plans, and rehearsing operational responses. Event management appeals to me because it turns an abstract concept into a time-bound reality. Unlike routine work that can be revised indefinitely, an event has a fixed opening time. The team must make informed decisions under pressure and still protect safety, accessibility, quality, and the client’s purpose.
What the Role Actually Requires
An event manager is not simply a decorator or social organizer. The role involves project management across interdependent areas. Venue selection affects capacity, transport, accessibility, security, catering, insurance, and cost. Program decisions affect staffing, technical equipment, rehearsal time, crowd movement, and communication. A change in one area can create consequences throughout the event system. The manager must therefore maintain a central plan while allowing specialists to lead within their expertise. For a major sporting event, the work may include athlete services, accreditation, broadcasting, ticketing, hospitality, transport, medical response, volunteer coordination, ceremonial production, sponsorship, and legacy planning. I would enjoy this complexity because it rewards people who can see both the full event and the operational detail that determines whether the plan works.
The Work Environment I Would Seek
I would prefer to work in an organization where planning is collaborative but accountability remains clear. A supportive manager would explain priorities, invite challenge, delegate meaningful responsibility, and intervene when risk or conflict exceeds the team’s authority. I would not expect a passive manager, because large events require timely decisions and visible leadership. The ideal supervisor would instead be calm, proactive, ethically consistent, and willing to listen to specialists. Such a manager would create psychological safety so that employees can report a weak supplier, unrealistic schedule, or safety concern before it becomes a crisis. I would also value an organization that treats temporary staff, volunteers, contractors, and junior employees with the same respect shown to senior clients. Events are delivered through distributed labor, and a culture that ignores less powerful contributors eventually damages quality.
Expectancy and the Motivation to Perform
Expectancy theory helps explain what would motivate me in this role. Effort is more likely when I believe it can produce strong performance, performance is more likely to be sustained when it leads to valued outcomes, and those outcomes must matter personally. My expectancy would be strengthened by clear objectives, access to reliable information, realistic authority, training, adequate staffing, and equipment that works. Motivation would decline if management demanded flawless delivery while withholding decisions or resources. The connection between performance and outcome must also be credible. If excellent work is ignored while visibility and favoritism determine promotion, the motivational system becomes weak. I would value recognition, increased responsibility, professional development, fair compensation, time off after intensive delivery periods, and opportunities to manage more complex events. These outcomes would have high valence because they support both professional growth and a sustainable working life.
Learning the Profession
My development would require more than enthusiasm. I would need competence in budgeting, contract management, procurement, scheduling, stakeholder analysis, marketing, risk assessment, technology, accessibility, and post-event evaluation. Practical experience is essential because many event decisions depend on timing, venue knowledge, human behavior, and supplier reliability. I would begin by supporting smaller projects and taking responsibility for defined workstreams before leading a major event. After each project, I would review what was planned, what occurred, why differences arose, and which controls should change. Certifications and formal education can provide useful frameworks, but reflection on real operations converts frameworks into judgment. I would also seek experience across different event types because a festival, medical conference, wedding, and international sporting competition create different risk and audience expectations.
Equity and Fair Treatment
Fair treatment would be one of my strongest expectations. Event teams often work long and irregular hours, and pressure can normalize inequity. An organization should define roles, overtime arrangements, expenses, promotion criteria, and performance standards transparently. Equity does not mean giving every employee identical assignments or rewards; it means using relevant and understandable criteria while recognizing different responsibilities and needs. I would expect access to challenging opportunities rather than being confined to routine tasks because of age, gender, nationality, disability, or personal connections. If I believed my pay was below the level justified by the role and market, I would prepare a professional case using responsibilities, results, comparable positions, and expanded capability. I would also examine whether the issue affected others and whether organizational structures, rather than one manager’s decision, produced the disparity.
Goals I Would Set
My goals would combine delivery outcomes with learning and stakeholder value. A successful event should meet its purpose, remain within approved financial tolerances, protect participants, satisfy legal requirements, and provide an accessible and coherent experience. I would establish specific indicators before delivery: registration accuracy, attendance, budget variance, incident rates, queue times, supplier performance, accessibility issues, sponsor obligations, waste reduction, and participant feedback. Not every goal should be numerical. The quality of communication, cultural appropriateness, team trust, and the treatment of affected communities matter as well. Goals should be difficult enough to focus effort but not so unrealistic that employees hide problems or cut safety corners. When conditions change, the team should revise the plan transparently rather than pretending that the original target remains achievable.
Reinforcement and Feedback
Positive reinforcement in an event team should recognize behavior that supports the whole operation, not only dramatic last-minute rescue. If employees are praised primarily for solving crises, the organization may unintentionally reward poor preparation. I would value recognition for early risk identification, accurate documentation, cooperation, thoughtful inclusion, and honest reporting. Feedback should be timely and specific. A manager who says that an employee “did well” offers less developmental value than one who explains how the employee improved the guest flow, negotiated a supplier issue, or communicated a schedule change. Corrective feedback should focus on evidence and future action rather than humiliation. After an event, a structured debrief should allow staff and suppliers to discuss failures without fear while maintaining accountability for negligence or misconduct.
Travel and International Work
Travel is one attraction of the profession, but I would not romanticize it. International events involve visas, customs, time zones, language, unfamiliar law, cultural expectations, and separation from ordinary routines. A competent event manager must avoid imposing one country’s practices on another setting. Local partners should influence planning because they understand infrastructure, community relations, labor conditions, and cultural norms. Travel also has environmental and personal costs. I would want the organization to plan schedules that permit recovery, use remote coordination where practical, and reduce unnecessary movement. The goal is not to travel for status but to deliver work that genuinely requires presence and local collaboration.
Safety and Contingency Planning
Safety would be a core professional obligation. Events concentrate people, equipment, vehicles, temporary structures, food, electricity, and time pressure. Risk planning should consider crowd density, weather, fire, medical emergencies, safeguarding, cybersecurity, transport disruption, protest, violence, food safety, and communication failure according to the event. A risk register is useful only when it leads to ownership, controls, rehearsals, and decision thresholds. Plans should identify who may stop an activity and how information reaches participants. I would want to build a culture in which cancellation or delay is recognized as a professional decision when conditions are unsafe, not as personal failure. The event’s reputation cannot be protected by exposing people to unreasonable danger.
Sustainability and Community Responsibility
Large events can produce waste, emissions, noise, congestion, and displacement while also generating employment, cultural exchange, tourism, and public participation. I would want sustainability to be integrated into procurement, transport, energy, food, materials, water, and post-event use rather than added as a promotional slogan. Reusable infrastructure, public transport planning, realistic waste systems, local purchasing, and measurement of impacts can improve performance. Community engagement should begin before the final design. Residents may experience road closures, noise, policing, or increased prices even if they never attend. An ethical event manager listens to those effects and seeks proportionate mitigation. For mega-events, legacy claims should be evaluated critically because facilities and debts can remain long after the ceremony ends.
Technology in Event Management
Technology supports registration, ticketing, scheduling, communication, access control, payment, analytics, and hybrid participation. It also creates risks involving privacy, exclusion, cyberattack, and overdependence. I would use technology when it makes the participant journey clearer or operations safer, not simply because it appears innovative. A digital ticketing system should include support for people without suitable devices. Personal data should be collected minimally and protected. The team should prepare manual or offline alternatives for critical functions. Artificial intelligence may assist with scheduling, translation, or audience questions, but final accountability must remain with people who understand the event and can evaluate consequences.
My Career Path
I would begin by strengthening project coordination and communication skills through smaller events, volunteer work, or assistant roles. I would learn to create schedules, manage budgets, write briefs, compare suppliers, document decisions, and conduct debriefs. With experience, I would seek responsibility for a complete workstream such as registration, logistics, program delivery, or venue operations. My long-term aim would be to lead complex international projects and eventually mentor new event professionals. Progress would be measured not only by event size but by the quality of judgment I develop. A smaller event delivered safely, inclusively, and within budget can demonstrate greater competence than a famous event rescued through exhaustion and luck.
Conclusion
Event management is my ideal career because it brings together planning, creativity, leadership, analysis, and public experience. I am attracted to the fixed deadline and visible outcome, but I understand that professional success depends on preparation rather than excitement alone. I would seek an organization that connects effort with meaningful development, treats employees fairly, welcomes early reporting of problems, and measures success through safety, purpose, access, finance, and stakeholder experience. My preferred manager would be proactive and trustworthy rather than passive. In return, I would bring disciplined planning, willingness to learn, respect for the team, and commitment to responsible delivery. The event itself may last only a day, but the quality of the work is revealed in the months of decisions that make that day appear coherent.
References
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267–299). Academic Press.
Getz, D., & Page, S. J. (2016). Progress and prospects for event tourism research. Tourism Management, 52, 593–631.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.
Silvers, J. R. (2012). Professional event coordination (2nd ed.). Wiley.
Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. Wiley.
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