Confessions of an Event Planner: Case Studies From the Real World of Events--How to Handle the Unexpected and How to Be a Master of Discretion (11 page)

Mrs. said she had tried calling TheMistress’s room from the telephone in the restaurant but no one had answered. Had Dee Dee seen CompanyPres on her way down? Dee Dee had, in fact, seen CompanyPres when she herself was returning from visiting TheMistress’s room to pick up company packets that were required for the meeting today—they had been stored in TheMistress’s room while she made additions to the kits and she had not given them to the bell staff yesterday as Dee Dee had requested. CompanyPres and TheMistress were cozily ensconced, eating breakfast on the balcony. Of course, she didn’t tell Mrs. that there was no need to be concerned about CompanyPres not having had time to eat breakfast
or
how the bed had that unmistakable look of a sexual romp
or
how TheMistress was in charming disarray still in her nightclothes. Had the man no sense? But I guess the last thing on his mind was a muffin run by his wife and kids.

Dee Dee said that she had dropped by TheMistress’s suite and they had been hard at work—without saying at what—and CompanyPres would be heading directly to the meeting room. Using a play on words, Dee Dee spoke the truth when she said she was sure that CompanyPres would “soon come.” This is a familiar Jamaican phrase that the group was using—one that expresses the Jamaican laid-back attitude to waiting and gives hope to visitors to the island. Waiting for your morning coffee? Not to worry. It would soon come. So would the taxi, etc. Soon come could mean in five minutes or five hours; it was never clearly defined. And in the language of today the words “soon come” could have a double meaning. Sometimes we’re placed in the situation of walking a fuzzy line between telling the truth and telling a lie. We’ve come to learn that it’s better to always tell the truth but in a manner that could have several different interpretations. It’s up to the listener to choose what they want to hear.

Dee Dee told CompanyPres Mrs. that she would make sure that a continental breakfast refreshment tray was sent to the meeting room for CompanyPres and that it would be really helpful if Mrs. was at the meeting site to greet early morning arrivals and help Dee Dee identify them—so she could cross them off her list—as she distributed the material they would need to review before the meeting started. This was just another make-work project, as the packets only needed to be placed on each chair, but better a distraction than not. Mrs. perked up at the suggestion, happy that her husband would be looked after, and walked with Dee Dee to the meeting room chatting like they were new BFFs.

Today for us is very light. An all-day meeting, breaks, lunch and then the guests are at leisure to enjoy dinner on their own at one of the resort’s restaurants. The hospitality desk will help them with dinner reservations and then that’s pretty much it for the day. Tomorrow will be busier, but right now today is a welcome break. I’ve arranged for dinner for all of the program directors to be served in a private room. That way we can kick back and relax without the guests around and we can go over our strategy for tomorrow, as we’ll all be heading in different directions. We’ll still be checking in for messages and the hotel operator will be advised where to find us.

Dee Dee and I made a hasty retreat before the singing started. Apparently it’s a daily opening and closing ritual. CompanyPres had received his breakfast tray, the Mrs. was happy and it was time for us to disappear and work on departure day logistics. I told the program directors that in the morning we’d be working from the restaurant overlooking the ocean—the restaurant only opened for lunch and dinner and the hotel was pleased to make it available to us in the a.m.—and then we’d be in meetings with accounting, bell staff and front office staff in the afternoon. I also gave them a time and a place to meet for dinner.

Just another day hard at work in the office. The only difference is that today my office comes with an incredible ocean view. Of course, I could have worked from my room but when you find yourself working in tropical paradise that would be unthinkable. Working from an open-air pavilion, perched over the shimmering azure water, with the sunlight filtering down through palm fronds and cooled by ocean breezes, can make even the worst program bearable.

DECEMBER 22

Busy day. Today is play day followed by an awards dinner. Private tours have been arranged for the group. The men are heading out for golfing and lunch at the clubhouse. The majority of the women have opted for the spa in the morning followed by lunch and shopping. And the kids and some of their moms are going to the waterfall, where they will have a blast climbing. TheMistress has chosen, of course, to go golfing with the men and has informed us she will then be going shopping by private car—courtesy of CompanyPres—and will return in time for this evening’s festivities. Dee Dee and most of the other program directors will be advancing each of the sites. I, along with another program director, will dispatch the private minivans, making sure they are stocked with drinks and snacks, and on the ones going on the sightseeing tour, beach towels. Once the different groups get to their respective sites, the program directors will stay with them for the rest of the day.

I decided to stay back at the resort with one of the newbie program directors to take him through the steps of overseeing gala dinner preparations. After the minivans departed we headed down to the lower section of the restaurant that had been reserved for the group’s dinner to see how the move in and setup of the decor was progressing. The main restaurant has two levels; the upstairs is open air and is used for hotel guests, while the bottom is more enclosed, has a set-in stage and is used for private parties—and was perfect for the awards presentation. Everything here was under control and progressing nicely. We stopped to have lunch and then headed into a meeting with the general manager to run through a few final details.

After our meeting, we were sitting in the hotel lobby, waiting for the first of the minivans to return. We still had plenty of time. I was just in the middle of explaining to the newbie the importance of always being in contact on-site and had just said the words “because you never know what can happen” when all of the sudden the hotel chef and his assistants came flying out from the kitchen screaming that their stoves were on fire! Now, hearing that the hotel’s stoves are on fire when you have 150 guests expecting a lavish farewell dinner is not a good thing.

Fortunately, our newbie is a volunteer firefighter and he was up on his feet and into the kitchen in a matter of seconds with me hot on his trail, pardon the pun. Flames were leaping from the huge cooking ovens and on fire were the prime rib roasts that we’d ordered especially for this evening’s event. There was nothing else that could be done except for the newbie to use the fire extinguisher on them. He quickly was able to bring the fire under control, thank goodness, but the meat was doused in chemicals.

The head chef returned to the kitchen and said, “no problem, mon”—he would just rinse the roasts off and resume cooking them. Visions of 150 guests being poisoned danced in my head and we got into a heated argument. I wanted the stoves scrubbed from top to bottom as well as anything else in the vicinity, all the roasts destroyed and new ones found, and that was simply the way it was going to be. The chef and his staff were saying no, can’t be done, no problem to serve this meat.

I instructed the newbie to firmly plant his butt in the chair in the kitchen, keep his eyes on the roasts and don’t let them out of his sight. I quickly ran and got the general manager and explained the situation to him. He accompanied me back to the kitchen. I asked that all the meat that had been affected be visibly marked in front of me immediately and I wanted to see them all present and accounted for after dinner had been plated and served to my guests. New roasts had to be found. I didn’t care if they had to borrow them from other hotels. What mattered most was that dinner go on as planned, with no one the wiser and no one served a morsel of the meat that was sitting there. And I expected no extra charges to be on our bill. I knew they weren’t happy about the additional expense, but that would be minimal compared to the loss of their reputation and the cost of being sued if they served contaminated meat knowingly to hotel guests. They saw the wisdom in what I was saying ever so nicely. Man, imagine if we hadn’t been sitting there to see this take place. Timing is everything in this business.

I told the newbie he was to stay and not move from the kitchen until Dee Dee returned and took over from him. I watched as the meat was marked as being tainted and then went up to meet the first minivan, and the general manager and the chef set out to track down a replacement dinner. When CompanyPres passed by the lobby later that afternoon, he remarked that something smelled as if it had been burning. Little did he know it was his banquet dinner.

The weather changed just at the dinner hour. It teemed “liquid sunshine,” as the Jamaicans are fond of saying. The hotel guests initially were not too happy that we had the bottom part of the restaurant reserved exclusively for our event, but were thankful about it when the rain started coming down in sheets and they realized how wet they’d be if they were dining upstairs. The program directors kept busy escorting our guests from the main building to the restaurant under huge umbrellas.

While the weather wasn’t cooperating, everything else was right on. The food was wonderful and under the vigilant eye of Dee Dee and the newbie program director the marked prime ribs were still where we left them, waiting to be thrown out after dinner. The chef apparently was still furious at me with having to throw out “perfectly good meat.” The decor was fabulous. The entertainment couldn’t have been better.

I had to snicker when I caught CompanyPres and VicePres discussing the wonderful body on the lead limbo and fire-eater performer and how much they would like to get her alone to practice her act on them. They were egging each other on to go talk to her. I had seen this show many times and I knew that this talented performer was actually a man. They were in for a little surprise. Not my job to spoil the fun in this case. Mrs. was looking subdued tonight while TheMistress was busy flashing around an eye-catching piece of jewelry. She had purchased it today on her private shopping excursion and the dazzling bauble she had picked out for herself was being billed to the group’s hotel master account. CompanyPres had told Dee Dee to make the arrangements. Nope, I’ll happily let CompanyPres find out about the “hot” fire-eater all on his own. The man has nerve, salivating over yet another want-to-bed conquest in front of both his wife and mistress. Payback can be rather unpleasant.

But I was in for my own little surprise. Man, what were they thinking? And how did they get it through customs? These were the two thoughts uppermost in my mind when during the awards CompanyPres started to hand out Cartier watches to their top twenty-five performers, with both the men and their wives receiving one along with bonus checks in the thousands of dollars. These Cartiers retailed from between $20,000 and $30,000 each. And of course, CompanyPres announced how much they were worth. The jaws of the hotel staff, musicians and entertainers dropped, along with mine. Where had these been sitting the entire stay? The checks are no problem. It’s the watches I’m concerned about. The General Manager, who was standing beside me, said that they had not been stored in the hotel safe. I decided right then that I would need to assign a couple of program directors to oversee guest bag security as they were being dropped off at the front lobby door tomorrow morning waiting to be loaded onto the motor coaches and again at the airport. Chances are, word will get around about the watches and it pays to be safe. I need to make sure no bags are left unattended because I know most of those watches will be packed, not worn through customs or declared coming back into the country, and most likely not listed on their income tax return either. Had we known in advance—and we had asked what was being brought into the country with them with regard to the meeting and awards ceremony—we could have advised customs that these items had been brought in for the event, bought in their home city and coming out of the island and they had not been purchased locally. We could have made proper arrangements regarding the shipping and handling and had them stored in the hotel’s safe. It would serve someone right for not telling me about this, but it might have been a simple oversight. Regardless, I have to do my job and ensure everything’s safe from here on out.