Localizing your Events

 

As the year gathers momentum, I want to dwell on this subject as a way of helping event planners and managers to improve of their service delivery.

Event localization “Simply put, it’s the process of adapting your product to the specifics of your target market. In our case the product is an event, so localizing it means translating and adapting everything - from the registration form, confirmation messages and email communication with participants, to currencies, payment methods, and pretty much everything else according to the country or the locale of the event” (www.weemss.com). Expanding this a little further, localizations will also include adapting your event to the cultures, behaviours, attitudes, expectations, etc. of the locale of the event.

Let us look at a few things that apply to our locale which might be interesting to our event managers and planners.

1.    Respect and Recognition: Titles are very revered within our environment and in so many other environments. It is therefore important to work this out with the event owner well ahead of time to know the calibre of guest being expected in the event. This will enable the planner to design appropriate procedure for handling and recognizing the guest to avoid any disrespect. I have seen a situation during an event where a guest who is a chief turned back and left the event because he was not properly recognized and seated at the right place.

2.    Spraying: This is a terminology used in Nigeria to signify giving money usually cash to the celebrant or any performing artist when they are dancing. The event planner should work out with the owner, a decent way of ensuring that people who want to spray money conduct themselves in a respectable manner. When the spraying is going on, specially designated people should be assigned the responsibility of gathering the money on the floor to avoid any embarrassment. If possible a sequence should be worked out and announced by the MC. There are situations where by a group or associations which the celebrant belongs to will want to dance and spray the celebrant without interference from other guests. This must be accommodated. There was a weeding event in the South East where a group was waiting to be recognized and called specially to spray the couple. They were not called and they all went home without spraying the couple.

3.    Takeaways: In many events in locally, there is always the need for take away food and drinks. These takeaways are usually meant for drivers, ushers, security aids and many other adhoc staff who will not be allowed to dine and wine with the guests. Most times dignitaries and other guests come with a retinue of drivers and security personnel. If there is an arrangement for them, this must be announced to avoid the temptation or tendency of their bosses to sneak out the consumable meant for other guests to their wards. Again some highly placed people also form the habit of leaving the event venue with some choice drinks while departing. This is usually a source of worry for event planners when reconciling accounts with the event owner. Such practice should be tracked and recorded to avoid reconciliation issues and embarrassment to the guest.

Other times like during religious fasting periods, takeaway may become necessary for guests who are fasting. When this is the case, the planner should be on top of it to ensure proper coordination.

Many other situations might come up where takeaways are required. The planner must run this through the event owner to identify what is acceptable.

4.    Consumables: This includes the food and drink. Some guests due to religious orientation may not want to consume some types of food or drink. Such guests should be identified well ahead of time and adequate preparation made to avoid offending their sensibilities.

 

5.    Lateness: There are some important guests who are in the habit of coming late to an event. Depending on how important the event owner thinks that they are, the planner must be notified ahead to make seating reservations. Most of these Very Important Personalities always feel dignified when they come late to the event and are ushered to a reserved seating.

6.    Children: There sometimes when you find children in a supposedly adult only events. What contingency do you have in place for such situations?

7.    Language: This is not a critical factor in our environment however it is worth mentioning because in many places, translating the event documents and technologies to the local language might be very beneficial.

 

These are some of the conditions which might warrant a planner to seek to localize the event within the hosting vicinity. It is important during the event planning and design stage to think out of the box and devise a means to localize an event within the vicinity of the hosting environment. What worked somewhere else may not necessarily work within your environment.

 

Key Benefits

Some of the core benefits of localizing an event includes

a.    Satisfaction for all stakeholders

b.    Strengthening your brand as a planner

c.    Providing  you a growth platform to reach wider audience

d.    Giving better market penetration

e.    Helping to differentiate your brand.

 

Go ahead and make some more research to find out other localization parameters you can apply to your event. I will sign off on this note for the week. Have fun while growing your business.