VoiceTAP Careers and Colleges Series – Event Management as a career

On 19th May 2009, VoiceTAP started its Careers & Colleges call series. This series is primarily intended to provide guidance to school and college students on what careers they want to take up, and the best colleges which they can join. The series was flagged off – proverbially, because I’m not very sure if the VoiceTap guys had any flags handy – with the first call on Event Management as a career. In case you missed it, don’t worry, you can listen in to a recording. Registration is open for daily sessions on various career options and colleges for the next 2-3 weeks, check out voicetap.in for more details. In this series, you will be able to interact with experts who have been in the industry for years, and have valuable experience which they can give to you.

Listen to VoiceTAP Event Management as a career call by clicking here

Event Management in a nutshell

The expert for this particular call was Vikas Mishra, who works as a Vice President at CS Direkt, one of the leading firms in this field. Marketing can be of broadly classified into two categories – ‘above the line’ as in mass media advertising where there is no direct interaction with the customer, and ‘below the line‘ which involves direct interaction with the customer; event management falls into the latter category. Event management involves end-to-end solutions of every kind, including but not limited to corporate events, conferences, outdoor advertising (a la, stalls you see outside shops or malls set up on behalf of companies), et al. Outdoor advertising campaigns are referred to as ‘activations’. Now I’m certain that this particular term must have been thought up as a joke in a pub by some event management guy, and the term stuck (because terribly bad puns have long lifespans). The ‘terribly bad pun’ being that by ‘activations’, it’s a nudge-nudge wink-wink inside joke about the fact that the whole point is to ‘turn on’ customers to the brand being marketed.

Event management companies draw in employees from various fields such as creative writing, graphics design, operations management, business development, etc. There are no specific courses required to join event management companies, but doing some of these might give a basic idea of what event management is all about. Amity University and NIEM are other prominent names. In the end however, even if you don’t do a degree specifically in this field, you can still come in from allied fields such as advertising, mass communications, English etc. This career path requires you to really dive into the whole operation and learn to take up responsibilites right from day one – those who can do this, no matter which academic background they come from, succeed.

Prominent event management companies (apart from CS Direkt mentioned above) are Wizcraft (famous for management events such as Indian movie award ceremonies, managing events for some IPL teams…), Encompass Events, ESP, Showtime…in all there more than 140 members who are part of Event Management Association of India. Another group called the Event & Entertainment Management Association exists, with various members. Starting salary at most event companies ranges from Rs 10000-30000 per month, but can quickly scale up to by large amounts if the employee performs well.

Special report on UTVi on Event Management

Further Information

• Event FAQs: This is must see. Provides latest information on happenings in the event management industry. They have a comprehensive listing of event management companies in India, books on event management (ordering will be difficult though since most are listed on Amazon, interviews, and more. The site has job listings too – or in case you’re feeling entreprenuerial and want to start your own event management company, check out the list of equipment vendors of basic items needed for this line.
• Event Planning Blog: What I liked about this blog is that the author frequently picks up ‘new media’ ways of doing old things, new solutions to old problems. If you plan to strike out on your own, this open source project the author has started might come handy.
• Niche companies: Those who love trivia can go into event management companies specializing in the field of quizzing. (I only bring this up because I fall in this category myself.) Promiment names are Derek O’Brien & Associates (needs no introduction, does he?), Synergy Adlabs (Siddhartha Basu’s company, the one behind – among others – Mastermind India, University Challenge, Kaun Banega Crorepati, Dus Ka Dum, etc), Greycaps (Girish Balasubramaniam‘s – they handle many events in the quizzing vertical sponsored by the Tatas), and Quizcraft (pretty famous in school quizzing circles). The point about this niche is that there aren’t too many competitors which you face, but the quality required from the company’s end is immense. You give quizzers a shitty quiz and I guarantee you that a mob will lynch your whole team by beating you to death using heavy encyclopedias (or at least rip your reputation apart on the blogosphere). And if you think that money in this field only lies in TV shows, consider that fact that television makes up for only 20% of Derek O’Brien & Associates’s revenues.
  (Whatever you do, for the love of Almighty Bob, don’t click on this link.)
• Books on event management: Check out some books on event management at Flipkart (my review). There are books targeted both for beginners and people looking for more advanced guidance.
• Social networking site for event managers: Hang out with other professionals in the field, pick up a few tips, look for job opportunities and more in this social network on Ning for event managers.

Using online videos pre / post event to reach out to a larger audience

Bottom Line

Event management has really taken off in India in the past few years. It’s a growing field where companies seek more engaging ways to reach out to their customers, and holding outdoor events / conferences is one way many of them are doing it. Essential skills needed are the ability to multi-task and the courage to step forward and take responsiblities even if nobody tells you to do so.

PS – A quick poll, everyone, on what you’d like to see discussed on VoiceTAP.