Cartoons for Thought
I heard a phrase the other day which made me think. Now, I know I come across like a highly professional and highly skilled tent engineer (right?!) but I still love a cartoon every now and then.
If you haven’t watched it before, Bojack Horseman is a dry and very very funny show about a washed up TV star who happens to be a horse. That’s not really what I noticed though….
There was a scene where Bojack himself was heard to utter the line “Remember, they don’t call it the music ‘fun’, they call it the music ‘business’” when helping his friend to write a rock opera on a dated Casio keyboard. It’s funny in context.
But anyway, that got me thinking that the events industry is a bit like that. Being part of people’s happy time is one of the reasons I’m in this game. I love it and I want as much as possible to facilitate people enjoying themselves and creating great memories. We could call it the events ‘fun’ rather than the events ‘industry’ and people would know what we meant.
That being said, it does have to be a business, or it doesn’t work. Know what a business that doesn’t support itself is called? A hobby. When I think back a few years, hands up, this used to be a hobby. We just did things and loved every minute of it. We delivered what we said we would because we made absolutely sure that we did, but it was costly and we didn’t think about reinvesting or where things would go.
Nowadays, there’s a plan. We’re buying new kit and we’re better organised. It feels good and that trickles down. We’re doing better events than ever and people are happier than ever with our work. It’s about more that just tents and stuff going inside them though, it’s about a complete service.
What I’m saying here is that if a business is a business, it should be run as one. And you should expect (whatever the internal workings that you never see) delivery of the product on time and where you’ve asked for it.
That’s what we’re setting out to achieve. Anyone can buy a bigtop or a stage or some furniture or lights, but getting it in the right place at the right time is another story altogether.
Does this ring a bell? Or worse, does the opposite ring a bell?
If you have something that you absolutely have to have delivered properly then give us a call. We’d be happy to discuss how we can make you look brilliant.
Arif
PS please don’t go assuming that because it’s a cartoon, you should show it to your kids. You shouldn’t.