A Long, Strange Trip

I just marked my three year anniversary of being a part of Vision Event Management on January 21st. Three Years! On one hand I think, “Time has flown! Where did those years go and how did they go so quickly?” On the other hand, it sure seems like it’s been thirteen years, not just three. Jeff and I both are amazed that it’s only been three years. I think that is mostly due to the fact that we have come so far as an organization in that amount of time.

Those first few months were quite interesting. It was a leap of faith for me. I left a good job with the Mini-Marathon to be a part of VEM but I knew the potential was great. I knew with both of our attitudes we would make VEM successful or we would die trying. We started with a couple of clients who are still with us today; The Indianapolis Marathon, Little Rock Marathon, Geist Half and Spirit Run. They were great to have faith in our mission, but they just weren't enough to sustain the business.

A couple of memories have stuck with me during this time. The first occurred as we were preparing to head to Little Rock for a site visit preceding the event. It was the first of February and we had about seven pages of questions for the crew in Little Rock. It was our first year being involved, so to make sure we had all bases covered, our questions were plenty. I was preparing everything we needed to head to the airport the following day and decided to print the three copies of questions. Well, funny thing about it, to print you actually need paper! We had none and it wasn't because we were going green. We couldn't afford it at the time! I proceeded to pull paper out of the trash, decrease the font to 6, eliminate the margins and reduced it to 3 pages. I made one copy.

The second memory which has stuck with me occurred about a month before the first Geist Half. The first year, we weren't contracted to do all the event production as we are now. We were more of a consultant, handling just certain aspects of the event. However, we wanted the event to be successful and we went well beyond our contract to help make it a success. The event consumed much of our time, (which wasn't bad since we weren't overly busy) but it wasn't enough to sustain us. As Jeff and I were talking through some details, the discussion turned to VEM in general. We both wondered how we could put food on the table if things continued like this; it was a sobering moment.

Soon after this conversation, momentum seemed to shift. We received a couple of calls regarding potential events, neither of which turned out, but you could feel things changing. Soon after the first annual Kent's Run, we received a call from US Road Sports about the Chicago Half saying they had recently purchased the race and were wondering if we knew someone that would be interested in producing it. After my wife called us wimps (well, she used another term, but I won't use it here) we decided to pursue it as VEM. This sort of opened the flood gates and we haven't looked back since.

Things have changed greatly in my three years and it’s sort of fitting that on January 21, 2011, we were fully moved into our new office/warehouse. No more storage closets, working out of Jeff's home and yes, we can afford office supplies. Those three years have definitely been a long, strange trip, but we've enjoyed every minute of it.

Not Too High, Not Too Low

The last couple of weeks got me thinking more about this saying and how truly fitting it is not only in our business, but life in general. We've been on the road the past few days for planning meetings for our various events. On more than one occassion, we've gone from true excitement about the potential relationships, to questioning whether there would be any relationship at all. The feelings swung in hours or in a matter of a few minutes.

I've always thought it would be interesting to chart and follow the ebb and flow of the mood of the staff during the planning of an event.  We invest countless hours in the planning of our events, as many do with their jobs.  The more time we invest, the more emotionally involved we become with the event and it truly becomes a personal challenge.  Not the challenge our participants face as they spend hours training and plannig for their race in order to finish, but the challenge of getting them all to the starting line.  The emotional investment can take its toll as the planning process goes on for months. 

During the planning process, we have many smaller goals or aspects of the event that we need to achieve.  We strive to achieve all of these goals, working to get the plan in place we feel will help the event be successful.  The results of these planning goals may be bette than we had hoped or may not turn out to be so rosy.  It is very easy to let these 'wins' or 'losses' get to you.  I'm probably guilty of swinging one way or another more than anyone in the office, but not getting too high after a win or too low after a loss is key.  Its a saying that is used quite often in our office, Jeff is always a good reminder.  Once you take a step back, the 'win' or 'loss' probably isn't as good or bad as you think.  In reality, especially with the 'losses', if things didn't turn out, if this is the worst thing to happen, its not that bad.  You still have time to prepare and plan.

Its hard at times for us, but continuing to think about not getting too high after a 'win' or too low after a 'loss', helps keep us in the middle so we can move forward with our planning.
 
Thanks again for reading.

How Far Will We Go?

Last night I spent the night on the streets of Chicago. I did this not because I wanted to, but because I had to. You see, in order to produce an event in the city of Chicago, one must first obtain a permit from the Park District, to ensure you get your space, its first come first served! While I was huddled in my sleeping bag, freezing during one of my turns on the street, I got to thinking. My first thought was how grateful I am to have a home and a family to keep me warm at night. The second thought was the extent to which event producers go to have the opportunity to organize events for participants.

Ryne and I left Indianapolis last night around 9:00 p.m. and arrived at the Chicago Park District offices around 11:00 p.m. local time. Though some may assume we would be at the front of the line, we were actually lucky number 13. The line gradually grew through the course of the night and by the time they opened the doors at 6:30 a.m., there were approximately 50 people lined up. These people represented 50 organizations; some having spent 24 hours in line and some maybe only a few minutes; but all of them giving the extra effort to make the events possible.

This is one example of the many crazy things event producers do in an effort to pull off the events. Some of them are due to the circumstances involving the municipalities, some are due to weather, and still others are due to trouble that arises during setup. We've pulled an all-nighter the night before the Indy Mini, near all-nighters in Madison getting mistaken for drunken college students as we closed the street, and in Chicago where 9 inches of rain forced us to redesign the whole post-race area. We've even swept cooking grease that spilled at the start line in Little Rock. The list goes on and on for us and I'm sure other organizations have similar stories of their own.

The funny thing about these stories is that we and our crew actually enjoy it. We don't just enjoy it, we LOVE it! Everyone loves making it happen and seeing it all come together. We enjoy putting in the time and energy and going to these extremes to help make the event an enjoyable experience for our participants. Seeing smiles on their faces as they cross the finish line and overhearing them sharing their stories makes it all worthwhile. Those moments make even the most dreadful moments a distant memory.



Ryne's first day on the job. He is in there!



On a side note to this story, we would like to welcome Ryne Daniel aboard the VEM team. Ryne had the pleasure of spending his first day and night with VEM on the streets of Chicago. Welcome aboard!