by Paco Collazo, The Global View
The live events industry either adopts you or spits you in three weeks. That is what they say, and I totally agree.
This line of work is not for everyone, but the ones who stay, stay. I am sure many of us haven’t ever left it and are not planning to.
Of course, this (insert your favorite swear word here) pandemic, shattered our industry into pieces, forcing many of us to look for opportunity elsewhere or to do jobs outside of our expertise. It also proved a couple of things to me: how much I love my job, how many skills our day to day tasks made us master, and how resilient we are. I don’t think many professionals get to say that about their line of work—they simply can’t imagine doing something else.
Many friends ask me what I do for a living when they see all those cool Instagram pics; when I tell them that we design and produce live events around the world, they say “wow, that is cool,” but sadly I don’t think many of them would make it in this world, because it just isn’t for everybody. Here’s a list of pros and cons so anyone thinking about getting into this business have an idea of what to expect:
Cons:
- Stressful work (sometimes too much)
- Tiring work and long hours on the rush
- Time away from your loved ones (a lot)
- You deal with difficult people
- Thoughts of killing your coworkers/boss (JK!)
- Tiring work—sometimes there is no sleep for what seems like weeks.
- Recession-affected job
Pros:
- Experience the word: TEAMWORK
- Daily variety becaise no two days are alike
- Own business potential
- Get to travel to cool places all over the world
- Meet interesting people every day
- Great like-minded peers who become like family
- Pretty good income
- No formal education required, just one thing: ATTITUDE
- Knowing that someone has your back every day all day
- Colleagues & clients become lifelong friends
- Last but not least, the sentiment of finishing a project after many challenges, hours and hours, stress … that rewarding feeling when the client is smiling. Makes you feel part of something bigger, that you can conquer anything .. and you get to experience it every week!
Despite all the cons, it’s still a really fun and satisfying profession to work in.
I want to give a shoutout to all of us in the industry, we made it after 18 months of uncertainty, here we are…. Busy as hell, stressed and with our agendas full to capacity, day in and day out for the remainder of the year and more. But this is what we wanted and what we missed. Am I right?
Paco Collazo is the owner & CEO of Atlanta-based Happy Projects, where their passion is “to collaborate with the planet’s top standbuilders, event production companies, agencies and brands to solve all your face-to-face marketing needs from concept to seamless execution.” He worked 13 years in the family business, ending as a sales and project director at SISTEXPO (Sistemas de Exposicion), a full-exhibit/event house based in Mexico. Contact him at paco@happyprojects.us.
This story originally appeared in the Nov./Dec. 2021 issue of Exhibit City News, p. 18. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecn_nov-dec_2021
