NEO NEO! Plus ca Change and all that...

Date for Your Diary: Every Tuesday at 1.30 pm

Date for Your Diary: Friday 1st of February

The Institute of Art, Design and Technology at Dun Laoghaire have been running a really succesful Arts/Cultural events management course for the past while. This Friday they have a Masterclass that they are happy to open to the NEO community. Well worth heading over to, this Masterclass will be presented by Rob Harris and Johnny Allen.

Johnny Allen is the Director for the Centre of Event Management at the University of Technology Sydney. He has had an extensive career in event planning, staging and management. Prior to his current position he was the Special Events Manager for Tourism New South Wales.

Rob is a senior lecturer and director for continuing professional education at the University of Technology, Sydney. He has been involved in event management, training and research for several years and has developed programmes in event management at postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

If you are interested in coming along, contact Sylvia Wrynn, Administration, School of Business and Humanities at 2144764 or email Sylvia.wrynn@iadt.ie

For map and directions click here.

Are You Crackers? Event Managers are Made and Not Born

The speakers were Des Doris (Alchemy Events) and our very own Sarah Carroll (Eventznet, NEO Ireland, C4EE). Des defended the view that events managers are born to their profession, arguing that what you can't teach someone about events management in one year, you can't teach them in three, while Sarah argued that degree-level education lends the professional standards and recognition crucial to an industry where many work out of love for their job.

Moderator of the debate was Clyde Carroll (Chambers Ireland), who did an excellent job in allowing everyone to get their say while also keeping the combatants from getting physical with each other. The debate reached a pulse-raising crescendo when Des remarked that events management could hardly be compared to open heart surgery. This provoked a heated response from several members of the audience, who pointed to the high-risk elements involved in certain types of events, stressing the need for thorough knowledge in such matters as site safety, insurance and legal issues and stating that though events managers may not be surgeons, they do from time to time hold peoples' lives in their hands.

Finally, Clyde put a stop to the debate and a show of hands proved Sarah to be the winner by three votes. The winner was awarded a bottle of champagne and, in the spirit of Christmas and goodwill, so was the runner-up. Then every member of the audience received a beautiful silvery Christmas tree decoration in the shape of a snowflake, donated by Mace Promotions.

Passionate contributions from the floor came from Marie Griffin of Event Management International and all the way from Leeds Metropolitan University especially for the debate, Nicola McCollough and Sharon McElhinney amongst others!

The prizes for most accurate guess as to the number of students currently in DIT's degree course in events management went to Maria Roddy of Dundalk IT, who received a lovely floral arrangement from Floral Expressions (though not actually then and there, since it and its creator unfortunately had gotten stuck in traffic), and Peter Lawless of 3R Sales and Marketing, who received a chocolate Christmas tree.

Once the winners were declared and the prizes awarded, we trooped out to fortify ourselves with mulled wine and some gorgeous party food provided by the Vaults, and to continue our debating unmoderated.

Thanks to the team: Sarah, Sigrid, Conor, Fern and Cathal, and to Marian Fenton, Fiona Cronin and Lisa O’Shea, our Invaluable Assistants.

A great big thanks to our sponsors Eventznet.ie, SUMO Multimedia, The Vaults, Hire All Party & Event Hire, and to our contributors Sláinte Stillorgan, Mace Promotions and Floral Expressions – we couldn’t have done it without you!