Traveling With an Event Manager

My alarm went off at 4:42am, 4:44am, 4:46am and 4:56am on my iPhone.  There were two other alarms set on the alarm clock itself, but four seemed necessary on the cell, just in case.  Sometimes I wonder if Steve Jobs purposely built the alarm clock system like this, knowing an event planner was waking up at such crazy times and needed more than one or two alarms.

With that said, this is not out of the norm for a person in the events industry.  There really is no set schedule for when you “work,” as an event planner.  Generally, our schedule is 8am-4:30pm when we don’t have an event, but when we have one (or in this case, when we are traveling) the alarm clock all too often sees times like 4:45am.

What was this alarm set for on Monday morning, you ask?  An annual event planning trip in Secaucus, NJ for our biggest client.  This trip just happened to include a 7am departure time. 

When I wake up prior to 6am, or after midnight for that matter, I always set multiple alarms on multiple devices.  You never can be too sure. 

Pro: the drive to the airport was great, and the check-in process wasn’t too bad, as us New York travelers had our own line. Con: it was so early in the morning that I almost walked up the escalator to the security line with my 28” full-size luggage in-hand.  That would have been embarrassing for a veteran traveler.  (Keep in mind, none of this blog is embellished)

After getting through security and a short wait to begin boarding, I found myself sitting in an aisle seat, with no one in the middle seat.  Now, as most of you veteran travelers can understand, this is about as golden as hitting the Powerball and three other numbers on your lotto ticket.  It almost doesn’t matter if the cart lady hits you a few times because when this occurs, it’s like you’re in Utopia!

The one other good thing about an early morning 7am flight is you pass out before you even realize you’re landing (usually).  This was definitely the case, and I’m sure the Sun Country flight attendants had a good laugh over the 39 head-nods that ensued.

The trip will include three full days of planning in the client’s offices, and result in a return trip at 9pm Thursday evening.  We land around 11pm local time, and probably won’t be in bed until midnight or 12:30am, with a 7am alarm set for Friday.  I don’t have hair, you see, and can be out the door by 7:23am, to be on time to work at 8am.  So with the work-week of traveling and planning, that alarm is pushed back about 15 minutes, from its usual set time.  The other good part is that now, all of a sudden, it’s Friday again -- crazy how that works, right?  But the real, final “pro” of all this is that come Friday, I’ll only be using one or two of those iPhone alarms, and it won’t be set before 7am.  Ahh, the life of a traveling event planner.

Written by:
Andrew Westphal