The time-bound nature of events makes them fertile ground for those “holy-s***” moments. With two decades of experience organizing events, I’ve had my fair share. One of the worst was when our location partner lost their operating license the day before a six-week-long event, and we had to scramble to find and build a new location. I’m sure you have similar war stories.

But perhaps the hallmark of a great event organizer isn’t that nothing bad happens—it’s how well you react, recover, and learn. In this guide, I’ll share strategies to make your events more robust. The goal: staying on track with your objectives and timelines despite unforeseen challenges.

From previous research, I came across two key categories:

• Quality Robustness: Ensuring your goals are still met, even when problems arise.
• Solution Robustness: Keeping the event on schedule when chaos pulls you off track.

I’d like to add a third I’ve developed over the years:

• Stakeholder Robustness: Upholding your communication values under pressure.

Let’s dive in! 🎯

Quality Robustness

Here are ways to ensure your goals are met—even when disruptions occur.

• Content Flexibility: Ensure speakers, performers, or activities can adapt their content, such as shortening presentations or adapting for smaller audiences. Example: At a conference I attended, the speaker setup was designed for 200+ attendees. But when only a handful showed up, the organizers could’ve quickly turned that awkward moment into an intimate “bonfire-style” huddle instead of sticking to the original format.
• Multiple Baseline Schedules: Plan multiple ways of fulfilling certain key moments of the event. Example 1: “We need entertainment for this slot—let’s prepare three backup solutions.” Example 2: “We’ll decide between X, Y, or Z depending on how many signups we have by [date].” Example 3: “If we’re in a region prone to train strikes, let’s have a backup travel plan ready—e.g., someone able to drive to pick people up.”
• General Contingency Plans: 🛠️ Think “if-then” scenarios: Example 1: If the speaker doesn’t show up, let’s have a backup video recording, a backup speaker or entertainment ready to jump in on a moment’s notice. Example 2: If check-in equipment is out of order or not delivered on time, have backup volunteers that can be called in or provide entertainment, food or other distractions while the team solves the checking problem.

Solution Robustness

Here’s how to ensure your timelines stay intact:

• Introduce Float Factors: ⏳ Provide flexibility within activity windows. Example 1: “Delivery can happen anytime between 2 PM and 4 PM.” Example 2: “Talent should be backstage within this flexible time frame.”
• Buffer Activities: Designate activities that can be shortened or extended to keep the schedule on track. Be canceled spontaneously if needed. (Set expectations upfront with both participants and guests.)
• Introduce Extra Time and Budget Buffers for Fragile Equipment: For example, if equipment arrives defective, do we have enough time to solve it? If the posters get water damaged, can we express order new ones?

Stakeholder Robustness

The real question is: Are you staying true to your communication values when the pressure is on? Do your relationships—with your team, external partners, and guests—remain strong during stressful moments, or are you unknowingly “withdrawing” from your goodwill bank?

Here are some strategies to strengthen your Stakeholder Robustness:

• Visualize Deadlines and Consequences: 📅 Keep deadlines visible and clearly communicate the consequences of what happens if they’re missed ahead of time.

• Master Non-Violent Communication: 🧘 In stressful situations, focus your team on solving the external problem without also adding internal conflicts on top of it. The stressful situation does not give anyone a free pass for poor communication and will only add to the friction of doing collaborative work. I’ve written a book on applying non-violent communication— although it’s written for dancers, the main concepts are universal. I’m happy to share it as a PDF. Just let me know in the comments, and I’ll send it to you.

• Have clear roles that can easily be broken: It’s easy to understand that role clarity helps people know what is expected of them. However, when something unexpected happens, people need to act fast to handle the problem. As the organizer, you need to be able to be clear in your communication that you are asking people to step out of their planned role to help you fire-fight and give them a chance to opt-in so they own it even if it was not theirs to begin with.
• Have clear boundaries of data that can be broken: You need to have an easy way to empower people with the needed information and access to resources to solve a problem, whether that is access to registration information, keys to a car, or the ability to hop into a store and buy something quickly.

Over to You 👇

Which of these strategies spoke to you the most? What would you add? I’d love to hear your insights in the comments!

Make sure to subscribe and share this post with anyone working with events. In the next guide, I’ll cover how to build Anti-Fragile Events—where you, your team, and your events actually grow stronger from each encounter with disorder. 🚀

#events #organizer #robust