Event Designing: Importance, Process And Strategies

An events design is crucial to the success of an event.

You are required to explore this statement further and analyse the Event Design of a previous target audience event. 

The Importance of Event Designing

Planed events from smallest of the meeting or family party to the grandest festival or the world sports championship, are essential part of human history. Event designing is the process of incorporation the aesthetic elements to support the theme of the events. Event designing serves various aspects basically celebration of any occasion. This can be holiday events, themed events, holiday events, corporate events, music festival, charity function, exhibition, trade shows, and weddings. The event designing teams are consisted of art and interior designers or the enthusiasts (Miettinen, Valtonen and Markuksela 2015). The designing of events is one of the chief factor of the success of the event. Without a compelling design the events lose their authenticity, grandeur, attraction and proposition. In conducting an events, the authorities need to involve both the event planners as well as the event designers. The event planners oversee the structure of the events starting from inviting the guests, host and even the pre-event rehearsals also. On the contrary, the event designers take care of the visual aspects or the presentations of the events such as theme selection, decoration, props, flowers, furniture and photo booths (Munoz and Leone 2015). Event designing is concerns with designing rule that include proper synchronization of all the props, color scheme and all other elements like entertainment, catering, content, environment, production theme and program designing.  The events stylists can both design and plan the events sometimes they select perfect venues for celebrating an occasion. Event designing urges for creativity and perfect fulfilment of the imagination.

Event designing is very important as this can inspire people to participate in a celebration. Create scope for sharing own knowledge, collaborating with one another and avail services or buy products. The chief aim of event designing is to elevate the experience of the participants, either as performers as well as the audience. In case, an event does not have any event designs, the events remain like a group of people in a venue which is not very inspiring or attractive (Metmuseum.org 2018). Through event designing, the audience even have the chance to get directly involve with the event process which enhance their interest in one hand and increase profitability of the event organizers (Getz 2014). Through the selected themes the organizers can convey their messages to the whole community that push the industries forward. The events like C2 Montreal and TED succeed with event design because they help attendees think outside the conventionality.

Roles of Event Planners and Designers

The Met Gala is a fundraising event for benefitting the costume institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s in the New York city (Metmuseum.org 2018). Following this event, the exhibition of the designed costumes runs for several months in which the celebrities from around the world gather. This Met Gala is actually regarded as one of the most exclusive and grand social events in the city of New York. In this affair, the celebrated personalities in the fields of art, fashion, music and films.

Every one of the gussets including the artists, volunteers and staff work forward to put the event together hence need to be fed well (Moorhouse and Moorhouse 2017). This is the reason why the festival catering as well as live event catering is such an important issue in the event. In setting the catering plan there are some factors which do not seem to be important but start to function strangely which can affect the reputation of the organization. First of all, the event designers judge the number of guests participating in the event which determines the amount of ingredients. After this, the time span of the event is necessary. In Met Gala, the guests increase to more than 700 and the event takes a whole day, the catering design keep the arrangement of foods and beverages available. As the Met Gala is a fundraising event where the guests are mostly international, the catering design need to serve all of their tastes. The event length decides which menu should be available for the guests and what will be for the performers and staffs (Fields 2017). This also includes training the staffs on which meals are to be offered when and to whom. Another important factor in designing the catering in a great and celebrated events like Met Gala is how the meals will be claimed by the guests and the staff and performers.in that case, a software has been used for tracking and facing issues in serving. This technological support has helped the designers to assign meals to the individuals and serve food without any confusion.   

One of the most important factor of catering design is that food needs to match the theme of the event. This adds to the attraction of the audience as well as incur the success of the theme as it supports for proper synchronization (Nordvall et al. 2051). The staffing in the food section is important as the staffs are trained to know different credentials along with the mediums ahead of time. In Met Gala, there are different catering areas, for different people. Some are for the artists, some of the VIPs, some for the crew members which makes the access control easy. Moreover, the catering design employs floating catering crews to guide the guests to visit their own section.

Catering Designing for Events

Developing content for the events can benefit the designer to bring value to the customers and they keep on coming bac. In order to create brilliant content strategy, the most famous content designers first judge the event subject or aim of the event on which the entire designing pillars on. Matching with the theme the content is strategized (Schoorlemmer and Potters 2015). Designing content id however is very time consuming process because the designers need to judge the locus and focus of the event after which he or she can understand what type of content can add the most value to the events. By creating a valuable content strategy for the events, the content designers solidify the events as thought leaders that draw larger audience (Kaplanidou et al.2016). For making the most valuable content. In the international events like the Met Gala the assistance if technology is highly needed. the content is mainly the exhibition of costumes that sets the tone for the formal dress of the night and the guests are expected to choose their own fashion to suit the theme that are being exhibited by the event.

For designing entertainment, the designers remain very attentive as this aspect is one of the most attractive part for the success of the events (Andam et al. 2015). Entertainment of any kind has a restorative power that helps in building relationship with the audience thus potential customers. The importance to offer a memorable media experience, the emption attachment can be built and the relationship becomes stronger. Entertainment in an event does not only include the featuring of the service or products but influencing the impression of the clients that lasts for a very long time (Devine and Devine 2017). The media of entertainment can be of any type. It can be drama, music or dance. The proper use of entertainment matched with the theme of the event, helps to reach the audience in a more appealing ways. As the Met Gala is one of the biggest costume exhibitions, the fashion show is one of the most vital part of the event. This Particular evet is considered to be the premiers, red carpet event of the fashion industry of the world. This red carpet fashions are widely photographed critiqued, reviewed and emulated (Getz and Page 2016). As mentioned before, this event has a glamour that no one can deny. In addition to this, there is always an honorary member who chairs this annual event each year. These celebrities are either from the music and film field or a renowned entrepreneur who have achieved the pinnacle of success in their respective area.

Content Designing for Events

The entertainment designer is responsible to arrange the musical bands and the dance troupes who will perform in the event as it is an integral part of the events.in Met Gala, the most famous singers participate and perform. The entertainment designer arranges for qualified sound engineers while the fashion show takes place or at the time of exhibition. The red carpet part of the evening of this event has become the giant marketing and the most attractive part where most of the media people gather and make news about the celebrities and their costumes. 

Designing the environment can be said to be one of the most important aspect of event designing. First of all, it is associated with the setting of venues where the event will be taking place. Secondly, the designer is responsible to design the theme of the event on which other facets of the event designing will be depending (Li, Hsu and Lawton 2015). Thirdly, environment designing includes the decoration part of the event which is the visual section and the build a sense of connectivity among the audience. Environment designing needs a brilliant creativity as the designer is responsible to transform the ordinary place apt for the event (Gursoy, Milito and Nunkoo 2017). Environment designing is a reflective of theming though which the designer transforms the mundane everyday place to a spectaculars environment and surprise everybody. Special effects have a vital place for changing the mood of the audience thus facilitate greater attendee engagement. The importance of the furnishing and architecture of the place helps in complementing as well as bringing other important elements of the venues. Use of lighting is a common thing that are used by every designer. However, lighting engineers are deployed to experiment the uplighters, gobos and spotlights which can influence the lines and the stage to create the atmosphere as desired by the designer (Mariani and Giorgio 2017). In addition to this, the balanced use of color and furniture can help to change the atmosphere of the value.

The production designing includes the building of temporary and permanent structures which are put up at the event sites. In the events like live concerts, charity ball, award ceremonies and the costume exhibitions need to have proper staging on which the performer will be performing their art (Müller 2015). In such cases the event designers either take help from their own production section or deploy other teams to build structure or stage temporarily in the venue. In such cases, the only the licensed as well as experienced professionals are hired to erect these structures and install needed assemblies. In the case of Met Gala, the decoration starts from the red carpet area up to the stage where the models and celebrities take part in the fashion show (Nunkoo et a. 2018). In the exhibition area, there is different setting altogether which differ from the dinner space also. 

Entertainment Designing for Events

The event designers are responsible to communicate the schedule of the events. They make the agenda and set timing of all the programs. In this case the, designers execute their plans which they create in the initial stage (Ouyang, Gursoy and Sharma 2017). This time schedule helps the planners as well as the designers to know the time of rehearsal, decoration process, arrival of the guests, media interviews and other associated agenda. It is impossible to maintain a good communication process among the associated stakeholders or different departments who are working together in one particular event. These programming coordination helps to structure an engaging an event experience. Programming design acts as a pivot in the event designing (Salgado, Barajas and Sánchez-Fernández 2017). This is because it coordinates the whole process starting from invitation, communicating every wing of the operation and keep the watch on the functioning of every section of the event designing. In Met Gala, the program designers are responsible to coordinate with the international guests and the customers worldwide. Moreover, they manage the whole event so that any kind of controversy cannot harm the reputation of this annual event.

The theme is the most attractive aspect of the event. Theme changes each year surprising the audience all the time. In many cases, the designers prefer to change the theme of their events according to the expectations of the organizers therefore, the themes change every year. In different types of events, the designers choose different types of themes. Sometimes they choose any current topic to expose and sometimes they only focus on the aim of the event. Theme selection is a process, in which the designers get opportunity to express their imagination as well as thoughts (Salgado, Barajas and Sánchez-Fernández 2017). Theme of an event is the chief focusing area of the designing and decorating. According to the requirement of the event organizers, the designers select a theme or sometimes they have freedom to choose one from their imagination. These themes include traditional or modern, classical or aboriginal themes. With the change of theme, the floral arrangements, patterned drapes, background and interior designing change. Theme is the determining factor which defines the entertainment designing, environment programming and the production. In some cases, the foods are serviced exactly matching the theme of the event. In the international fundraising event like Met Gala, selection of theme and their proper execution is vital. Each year, since 1971, the event designers have been surprising their guests through their unique themes. Despite the fact, that unlike other events this Met Gala actually puts emphasis on the certain fashion themes among the leading fashion retailers in the world. The themes of this event chiefly revolves round the fashions of different countries as well as the fashion of men and women (Metmuseum.org 2018). For 2018, the event designers have set the theme of Met Gala on the theme of ‘heavenly bodies: fashion and the catholic imagination’ which is completely different from the theme of the previous year. 

Environment Designing for Events

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that Met Gala has been rightly called ‘the Oscars of the east coast’ as this black tie extravaganza invites the celebrities from around the world. It is the event where the fashion designers participate with their designed costumes in order to raise fund for the costume institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Moreover, this particular event serves as an ideal for other similar types of events. Hence the quality and grandeur is higher than any other events of similar concept. Event designing includes many departments so that it can provide a high quality and all–inclusive service to the audience and the organizers. The event designers take care of the catering as it is one of the most vital part of any event. They focus on attractive content designing on which the program design and entertainment will depend. In addition to this, the event designers also design theme of the events and transform an ordinary venue to an attractive place by changing its atmosphere. Thus, event designing has become an integral part of any event without which no event can succeed. 

References:

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