DIY Event Planning

 

Greetings for the week to you all. Thank you for staying with our blog. This week, I will be discussing the Do It Yourself (DIY) Concept.

 

DIY is a very popular terminology in various professions and there are so many reasons why people would want to DIY. In the medical profession, people try DIY things in the form of self-medication. It is supposed to be risky but people do it.  In technology, there are a lot of DIY practices in graphic designs, website design, Software programming, etc. Even in home repairs such as electronics, electricals, plumbing, cleaning, etc. we have DIY practices. I do DIY too and have learnt my own lessons about DIY. In event planning DIY is not a strange practice also. Today, we are going to look at DIY practice and its attendant issues. 

Reason for DIY

The following are a few reasons why people engage in DIY practice.

a.    Tight Budget: Sometimes you may not have enough budget to hire the services of a professional to help you achieve a task.  In this circumstance you look for a way of achieving the task by identifying what you can do by yourself to reduce cost.

b.    Short Notice: Some task may come up at short notice making it difficult to get a professional quickly or most professionals around you are already booked. When this type of situation arises, one way of getting round it is to do the task by yourself.

c.    Learning: Practice makes perfect goes a popular saying. Somehow applying DIY concept could lead you to learn, gain experience, exposure and knowledge of how to do the task professionally. So DIY is a learning technique.

d.    Chance: Providence may sometimes give you the opportunity to perform a task or job that you have never done before. It is your determination at this point that will decide if you should accept the responsibility or not.

e.    Time: Sometimes you really lack the time to take a problem to a professional for attention. If that problem is reoccurring, you might be tempted to go at it. I had a very ugly experience some time ago because of this factor. My laptop was always very slow but I still managed to use it to finish my tasks. Sometimes it will hang or reboot on its own. It kept trying virus scanning, reclaiming disk space, creating swap memory and many other things. All this while I was procrastinating to take it to a technician for proper check. One day I was ready to work and it took it almost one (1) hour to boot up, I got frustrated and opened up the back to check for loose fittings, cables, hard drive, etc. And that was it. When I fixed it back, it never started up again. My DIY ended in disaster.

f.     Adventure: Some people are purely adventurous. They set out to do DIY to discover something new.

 

Guide to DIY

If you must engage in DIY, please note that because you are doing it by yourself does not mean you should be a novice. To effectively perform DIY, you must seek expert guidance. Go online and search for knowledge on how to do it yourself. Ask friends, colleagues or known professionals available to you. Armed with the information you gathered, performing DIY would be a lot easier and straight forward. Taking a blind dive into DIY event planning can have disastrous consequences. The basic process starts with creating a checklist of activities that will grace the occasion. Here is a short guide

i.              Theme: Create a theme for the event you are planning. Theming could mean looking at colours, decorations, flowers, fragrances, table arrangements, location, etc. Brainstorm with friends, neighbours, etc. You can also search online. (https://www.pinterest.com/perfectcoversl/diy-and-event-planning/ )

ii.             Food: What type of dishes will be served on that day? Continental, traditional, other foreign dishes? This will help you to identify a suitable caterer to prepare the dishes. Sometimes you may event prepare some of the dishes yourself or a friend could do that at no extra cost.

iii.            Entertainment: They type of event will help you choose the drinks and entertainers. It could be clowns, comedians, live bands, cultural troupes, magicians, etc. or a mixture of these acts. Will alcohol be served?

iv.           Venue: In choosing a venue, many things come to play, Floor plan, Seats, Hall, marquee, car park, air conditioning, security, location, etc.

The list is culled from http://www.slideshare.net/jenbarns73/diy-event-planning-process . A professional checklist could be more complicated than this however it is a good starting point for a DIY.

 

 

 

Merits of DIY

Here are some benefits of DIY.

ü  It could help you reduce planning cost

ü  It will enable you gain exposure, experience enrich your CV.

ü  Learning a new skill or knowledge.

ü  Expand your vendor network

 

Demerits of DIY

And a few disadvantages of DIY are

ü  You could also end up increasing vendor cost because of economies of scale

ü  Quality may be compromised

ü  Key requirement might be omitted. Can you imagine a tape cutting event and there will be no scissors to cut the tape?

ü  Embarrassing mix up may occur

Check out http://portlandspirit.com/blog/diy-event-planning-vs-asking-for-help/ it has some good readings. 

In rounding off, DIY is an acceptable practice however you must look out for the right information or training to guide you away from disaster. Ultimately though hiring a professional gives you peace of mind. 

That’s it for this week. See you