It can be challenging for emerging professionals to get those important first experiences to build an event design/planning career.
Special Event Boot Camp provides a launchpad to accelerate this process and support emerging event planners during their first three years in the industry. Carol Moxam launched Special Event Boot Camp in Toronto six years ago after going through her own transition.
Military language is used throughout these highly engaging professional development events. For example:
Top Secret Mission: Special Event Boot Camp creates an intellectually enriching environment, giving our recruits the opportunity to tackle hands-on event planning, while receiving feedback from industry elite.
Participants meet at "base camp" and get ready to participate in platoons (teams) of 10 in a one day event challenge. For example, for a recent challenge, Toronto to Ibiza, each platoon had to build an event from scratch and integrate it with an online community. Each platoon selects and develops its own communication and marketing media. They move though various zones where event masters (experienced event industry professionals) give them tips and provide coaching to translate their event from concept to reality. There have been catering, entertainment, production and staffing zones. Platoons build a web site in 20 minutes, create a video e-mail marketing tool and actually design an event.
At the end or the day, they present their event plans to a series of judges. The winning team gets to work on an actual event for a real client with an event planning firm. Participants leave with an expanded network and contacts with experienced event planners and suppliers (event masters).
A Special Event Boot Camp has been conducted in the Philippines. Plans are underway for Special Event Camps in Istanbul, New York, Los Angeles and Calgary.
- Average age of recruits: 25 years old
- 90% of attendees are women under 30 years of age
- 40% plan to open their own businesses
You can connect with Special Event Boot Camp through the following coordinates:
Photo Credit: Merrill Newell
Learn more about planner education by reading Are Some Conference Attendees Longing for MBA Level Content? and Unpacking the Gems from PCMA 2012 Convening Leaders. And be sure to look for the tools for meeting success at Cvent Event Management Software.
