How to Get Into Events

In the case of getting a job you first need to sort out the hygiene factors of your employability.  These are things that if lacking, will put an instant stop on your ability to get a job - however having them will not necessarily mean you get a job.

• These include:
• Speaking well
• Reading instructions and guidance
• Spelling and grammar (more on this later)
• Being polite and respectful to others
• Good personal hygiene
• Being neat and presentable
• Punctuality
• Reliability
• Basic numeracy

Now, be honest with yourself: do you fulfill all of these?  Really think hard about this.

If someone walks into my office for an interview and fails on any one of these, I do not care how creative/talented/friendly/hard-working they are, they are less likely to get a job.

Even harsher is the fact that, if someone fails on one of these when submitting a CV, they may not even get an interview in the first place.

Any decent events company gets a lot of CVs through the door.  We are looking to filter out the poor ones. To do this we are actively looking for failures to fulfil these hygiene factors so that we can hit the DEL button.

Now back to how you are going to help your employer justify your salary.  To do this you need skills that 'add value' to the company.  Adding value is anything that encourages a customer to spend more with a company, or encourages that customer to stay with that company.

These skills vary depending on the career path you want to take.  But in events I would say that ALL of the following are things that EVERYONE in events should have some knowledge of (in no order):

• Use of a CAD package (there are several)
• Catering methods and team structures
• Main types of food service
• Video signal types
• Video format types
• Connector types for power, video, lighting etc
• The main types of marquees and their benefits and limitations
• Licensing laws
• What a rider is
• Basics of microphone types
• Basics of types of lighting
• Types of rigging
• Colours - Pantone, RGB, gel references
• Graphics - ESP, Vector, raster, JPG, Gif
• Use of Photoshop
• Use of Illustrator
• Use of Excel
• Basic photography skills
• Basic videography skills
• Use of databases for mail merges and filtering

Some people might say "but I am a creative designer, why do I need to know about licensing?"  Or "I am a chef, what does rigging matter to me?"

To the creative designer I would say: "when you are sitting down in a production meeting and the fire officer asks whether you are using NDFR fabrics, as this is part of the licensing conditions, are you going to be able to give a straight answer? Or are you going to a) make up something and look like a fool or b) ask what NDFR means and look incompetent?”

To the Chef I would say: "If you don’t know anything about rigging you will get very frustrated, and conflicts may ensue if a rigger is seen moving tables to get truss into position.  If you know about rigging and the rigger appreciated your challenges, a quick and polite chat could avoid these issues."


The first thing that is taught in management school is 'management exists when there is more work than one person can do'.  To take this further 'your job is to make everyone else's life easier'.  Further still we could say 'if you are not making other people's work easier, you don’t have a job'.

This especially applies to people who are junior in the industry.  Do everything you can to make the life of others easier.  This can include, but is not limited to:

• Be pleasant to everyone in the workplace
• Make sure that all the jobs you do are completed
• Tidy up after yourself
• Tidy up after others
• Always keep busy - if there is nothing to do, tidy
• Lend a hand when you see someone struggling
• Use your initiative - think of things to do
• Ask if other people need help

Create new jobs - look for new tasks that no one else does - just because no one does them, does not  mean they do not need doing

No amount of training or reading articles like this one prepares you for the real world of work.  To succeed you MUST have a lot of experience, and a wide range of experience.  Helping out with your local theatre is great, as is working on a charity fundraiser.  But if you keep doing the same thing again and again you are only getting a narrow set of experience.

Do not confuse "10 years of experience" with "a year's experience, ten times over".  The difference here is that the former shows constant learning and development.  The second one shows a narrow set of experience repeated over and over.

This is a hard one.  The first thing to realise is that if you make mistakes in your work it could cost your employer a lot in financial or reputation terms.  As such an employer is always taking a risk with new people.

Here are a few ways of gaining experience:


1. Work for free - by being unpaid an employer does not need to see a high level of productivity to justify your wages.  Do this by writing a simple and to the point email to as many companies as you can.

2. Don’t be fussy - every company has something to offer and their own unique experience and skills.  By realising this, you will gain experience in a wider range of companies which gives you a better overview.

3. No such thing as bad experience - try and get whatever you can.  Even if a company is not good at what they do, or you don’t like the work, it will help to refine where you want to be.

4. Look for companies with work experience programs - many companies are keen to encourage young event professionals and offer unpaid work experience.  Look for these and try and get some work with them.

5. Do a placement/internship - if you can afford to, try and do a full-year placement with a company.  Some of the best staff we have initially started on work placements.  Placements are great as the reduced labour cost of an intern means the company can give opportunities to people it might not otherwise be able to.

6. Learn unique skills - by learning skills that are rare, you become more valuable.  See the list above.  In particular I feel that 3D design and visualisation skills are lacking across the board in the industry.

Never think you are an expert!  Anyone who thinks they are an expert almost definitely is not one.  As soon as you think you are expert you are likely to stop learning.

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