One year ago while searching online to find an event management course in Greece after a few days of research, I was too sad that I did not managed to find anything being offered locally. Except a few private seminars of maximum 24 hours, event planning was not a part of the studying fields offered within the country. While I could find many degrees in other countries like UK, Spain and Holland or even online courses coming from USA and Italy, Greece seemed to connect event management more to Banquet or Conference and MICE management. Most of the local certificate programs could be found only as short – courses within Tourism and Hospitality degrees mainly in private colleges.
To be honest I was introduced to event management 15 years ago via stage management. Gaining two scholarships one from the Greek National Bank and another one from the Athens Megaron of Music gave me the chance -on 2005- to travel at London to study stage management. Probably you are thinking now what this has to do with events or even with wedding events. Actually it has a lot in common and now I realize how similar it is to wedding planning. Stage management is the job title that specifies the event manager of a cultural event related to arts like theatre, opera, dance or music. Back to being a student at London, I learned during the 2 years of my studies at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts (part of Middlesex University) a lot about: budget management, planning strategies, health and safety, design, vendors management, risk assessment, creativity, marketing, IT skills and project management. Does all these remind you something? Well wedding planning actually involves the same content of general course topics.
Let me separate these two parts. Part 1 is Event Planning. Part 2 is Wedding Planning. Although they have more similarities the result in the education level makes the difference to the final status. While wedding coordinators do not need to hold a bachelor’s degree, event planners that are planning to work in Mega events should make sure that they will receive a certification validated by a university. But if you do not get the chance to work for both industries you will not be able to understand that they are so similar to each other. Then you can rethink your plans about studies. If you try both then you will make yourself more flexible between more type of events that you can serve as a professional.
More to know about your job and the story – history behind it and the traditions in other countries for that job, more you can make you understand for the different levels of service through packages that cover a range of budgets. A wedding (event) planner is the person with the vision. Usually has a design background. While the wedding (event) manager is the person who handles the budget, the event coordinator the person who handles the communication with the vendors. The event coordinator can be hired by the client alternatively for only a day- of-coordination. Additionally on these we can find a few people that can offer services as wedding consultants. These people usually guide the couple in the beginning of the process offering them consulting to help them move to the next steps, but most probably he will not participate in the actual wedding ceremony.
Of course based on the skills, experience and social media value of the professional his fee varies starting in Greece from 1000€ getting up to 15000 € for wedding planning. The event manager usually is an employee of the main event planner and his monthly salary starts from 1000€ getting up to 2000€ Euros. Finally the wedding coordinator usually works per project or per hour and his fee varies depending on the size of the production. Most event coordinators including me drafty charge 60-150 € per hour. By completing a certificate program though can give you a total overview of the job of the wedding planner helping you to understand more about the industry in a more balanced way and giving you qualifications to survive within the competition.
The last 9 months I’m working as an event management lecturer in a private college in Athens teaching a class related to events. The experience of being a tutor is unique and a lifesaver. The process helps me more than I help my students. While it can be tough –especially this period of coronavirus that I had to teach via zoom and WebEx- and challenging it can be also a clever way to share the passion for your work by affecting positively other people. And due to the style of the job event management cannot or should not be an academic only subject. That’s why 9 to 10 event planning courses combine theory with practical training.
And there the magic always happens. This period my students are on the middle of compiling a practical assessment. They are actually creating their own event (an one day online conference about Green tourism during Covid-19 period with six top speakers) and the impact of how they work together as a team, is giving meaning to my personal development while I slowly help them to bring a subject like event production to life.
Long time ago I was teaching Lighting Design for Theatre to students that were studying to be sound technicians. My class was offered as a mandatory seminar to them. I feel proud for the fact that because of these seminars 4 students decided to follow the career of lighting designer and now all of them are A’ class professionals creating amazing lighting designs in the arts industry and winning many awards. And their progress is for sure the best win of my career. Hopefully same will happen with some of the event management students of this season and in a few years from now I will be able to see them grow and work in the industry having being given the first inspiration from this class that we did together -with me being their lecturer- back to 2020.
Can you teach me event management or in other words can you inspire me? Teaching can be inspiring because of a teacher, who managed to inspire the students.
NEW EVENT MANAGEMENT ONLINE COURSE STARTING SOON AT THE BLACK BOOK:
https://theblackbook.gr/event-management-elearning/
Can you inspire me?
An inspection of my first year being an Event Management Lecturer
Dimitra Grigorea
Event Management Lecturer AMC College & The Black Book
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