You Need a Sense of Humor

You can’t stay in the event business without a sense of humor. I have been blessed with vendors who have a well-developed sense of humor or developed it while working with me.

I have seen things at every U.S. Open over the past 23 years which have made me laugh out loud, actually make that over the last 35 years of operating events of all kinds. The stories transcend all the areas of event operations, security, parking, traffic control, tent setup, power, landscape and decor to name a few.

At times people put themselves in the most ridiculous situations and it is funny. Working in a high pressure, time sensitive atmosphere you need to have outlets to release this pressure and working in the event business will provide the outlets.

The day seems to fly by when there is less tension in the work place. There is enough pressure as it is to build out a site on time and on budget. It won’t help accomplish that goal if people are yelling at one another.

It is about finding solutions to the problems which will inherently arise. The solutions are not always mainstream and most require unconventional thought.

Back to the humor side, one particular story which comes to mind during setup was an elderly couple I stopped driving along the cart path who asked me if the cart path was the way to the Interstate.

You can’t make this stuff up and it brightened my day for the rest of the 16 hours I was working at the time. I showed them the way out and found out how they got in the first place to make sure that didn’t happen again.

These stories make me smile when I think about them and again I laugh out loud. I’m sure you remember stories too and they also make you smile or perhaps laugh out loud.