By Jack Saward, Managing Director, Saward Marketing & Events
A day in the life of an event manager? The problem is, there really isn’t such a thing.
I was recently asked what a typical day looks like for me. I struggled to answer.
Not because I don’t know what I do, but because I’m not sure I’ve ever had two days that looked particularly similar.
So rather than sharing a day in the life, I looked back at just the last four weeks.
There have been quarterly accounts and meetings with our finance team. Not particularly glamorous but running an events business means understanding the numbers just as much as understanding the experience we’re trying to create.
Then there was a week involving the handover of two exhibition stands at two different venues in England, while another major activation project was taking place in Scotland. That meant time on different sites, conversations with different clients, suppliers and our team, checking the details and dealing with the inevitable things that look slightly different in reality than they did on a drawing several months earlier, better in these cases (clients words not ours!)
Somewhere amongst that, I presented a new social media strategy for a client we work with on a retained basis.
Different project. Different discipline. Same principle, understanding what the client is trying to achieve and helping them get there.
There have been initial planning calls about two completely new event projects and two equally new clients, alongside a client debrief at their offices, following a recent event. That particular conversation quickly moved from looking back at what we’d learnt to planning their programme for 2027, and even three events already on the radar for 2028.
That’s another part of this industry I love. We’re constantly switching between what happened, what’s happening and what’s coming next.
I’ve walked around four hotel venues looking at options for a corporate event in 2027 and completed a site visit for a new exhibition project, checking service plans, access and build opportunities, given it’s new location.
I’ve also spent time in the workshop seeing bespoke elements being constructed for another project we have in the pipeline.
And then there are the hours nobody particularly photographs. Laptop open in the office. Laptop open in a hotel room. Teams calls between meetings. Emails from the passenger seat. I even managed one Teams call from the car while out on site.
Not every part of event management happens under exhibition hall lights.
Perhaps one of the most important moments of the month wasn’t technically work at all.
After a particularly challenging project, I took some of the team out for food and a few drinks. They’d shown enormous flexibility and commitment to get the job over the line and recognising that matters.
Events are ultimately a people business.
We can talk about stands, venues, activations, budgets, strategies and schedules, but none of them happen without good people prepared to work together when things inevitably change.
And yes, amongst all of that, I even managed a couple of days away with my family.
Because that’s part of the balancing act too.
So, what does a day in the life of an event manager look like? Ask me today and you’ll get one answer. Ask me tomorrow and you’ll probably get another. These aren’t highlights from the last year. They’re simply a snapshot of the last four weeks.
And I wouldn’t really want every day to look the same anyway.
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