Human behaviour is the term given to the way humans act and interact with others. At any event, live, hybrid or virtual, human behaviour plays a fundamental role throughout the event production process and whether the event is a success or not.
Human behaviour affects event production in many different ways, this is largely due to the number of groups of people involved. Not only is human behaviour one of the most difficult things to manage during event production, it also changes in different environments – making it unpredictable.
Over the years, we’ve seen how people interact and react to different types of events and we understand what triggers certain behaviours and how these behaviours can change in different circumstances. Our experience has taught us to predict human behaviour and put the right contingency plans in place to ensure events continue and run seamlessly.
Q & A with Rob Murdoch
We put Rob Murdoch, Operations Director in the spotlight to understand their views of human behaviour and events.
How do you think Human Behaviour affects events?
Rob: Human Behaviour affects events from the very beginning. As soon as an objective is identified, all groups involved need to pull together and agree on it. This is one of the hardest elements as there are usually multiple people involved with differing views and too many objectives can be confusing for the people involved and those attending.
So the first step is for everyone to agree on what we’re trying to achieve, once we have an objective, we can start with the basics of event production. This includes forming the right team to make the event a success.
Ensuring the right people are available and ready to work alongside us, whether that’s internal or external. On top of this, we must be mindful that people have certain ways of working so when we choose our people, we need to be aware of how they work and whether this will be in line with the event objectives.
Who are the key stakeholders involved and why?
Rob: Throughout the entire process, we deal with multiple stakeholders, from those setting the objectives to budget holders, content writers, production crew to name just a few.
Dealing with speakers and hosts in the right way is fundamental as not giving them the time to digest content may put them under unnecessary pressure or gets them stressed when it comes to presenting. That’s why we work to timelines and ensure each step of the event management process is planned with enough time to ensure it is delivered effectively.
The biggest stakeholder in our opinion is the audience, typically HCPs and with a specific agenda in mind. We need to ensure our objectives align with theirs and pre-empt any questions or expectations they may have.
After years of event production and thousands of events, we have a good understanding of what triggers our audiences and what we need to do to evoke the right reactions.
Our experience has helped us understand which crews and agencies work well for different audiences and events and this means we can choose the right crew for the right event.
What is the most unpredictable part?
Rob: Emotions, we have a good idea of the types of event delivery and content that will make an audience react in the ways we want but we can’t always manage the emotions of the team around us.
So, we work on a collaborative basis which means we are continually in touch with the whole event production team and have an agreement that they will communicate with us if there are ever any forthcoming issues or concerns.
Good communication helps us to build trust with the people we work with and that reduces the unpredictability factor.
Prevention is always better than cure
How does Coda Healthcare Communications deal with unpredictable situations?
Rob: We’ve already mentioned that communication helps to reduce the element of surprise and that goes with our ethos of ‘Prevention is always better than a cure’
We fully understand that things may come up, part of our event production process is to ensure we have contingency plans in place to revert to should any obstacle be thrown in our way.
Seamless event production
Our aim is to always create solutions aligned with objectives, are technologically innovative and have good, relevant content that is easily digestible. If you’re planning an intimate meeting or a large company briefing meeting, we will work with you, your suppliers and our network to ensure events are run seamlessly and always have contingency plans in place to make the unexpected easier to deal with.
Talk to the team now to discuss your next event.
