Become an Event Planner: Secrets for Getting Hired from Employers, Recruiters, and Event Professionals

By Matthew James

Wondering why you didn’t get a reply to that resume you sent out?

Most people trying to break into the events industry go about it in entirely the wrong way; you can't just take a course, graduate, and start applying for entry-level positions. Unlike most professions, a career in event planning does not require

• Language: English
• Publisher: Plan B Publishing
• Release date: Jan 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9780993497612

Matthew James

Matthew James is a writer of oddities. He had a background in biological sciences, with a degree and PhD in neuroscience, and once spent two years looking after 50 cats. No, really. Matthew writes whatever inspires him from religious satire to dystopian science fiction and lately erotic fiction with the series of short stories, 'Adventures in Swinging', currently holding his attention. Only an atheist is his first novel and the sequel is Jesus Returns Matthew lives with his wife and two cats in the North-West of England.

Book preview

1

About the Author

Matt James is an award-winning event planner and owner of event production company Left Field Productions. With 20 years’ experience in corporate, charity, brand experience, and special events, Matt has produced events for Elton John, Sarah Jessica Parker, Stella McCartney, Kevin Spacey, David LaChapelle, Canon, Mattel, Montblanc, Chopard, Christie’s, The British Red Cross, Wella, and Credit Suisse.

The winner of 30 event awards, Matt is often invited to speak at industry events, such as ILEA conferences and lectures, International Confex, and RSVP; judge awards and competitions, including The Eventice, Corporate Event Association Awards, and Incentive Travel & Meetings Association Awards; and guest lecture at university event-management degree courses.

Matt has contributed to both consumer magazines, such as Instyle, Esquire, Sainsbury’s Money Matters, and Ocado Life, and trade publications including Conference & Incentive Travel, Event Magazine, and his own monthly column, Matt's Planet, in RSVP Magazine.

Prior to founding his own event production company, Matt worked for leading Middle East advertising agency Publicis Graphics. He began his event-planning career working on fundraising events for AIDS charity London Lighthouse, before joining the corporate events team at the investment bank Credit Suisse.

He lives in London, United Kingdom, with his partner Trevor and their mischievous Jack Russell Terrier, Bruce.

www.leftfield.productions

www.becomeaneventplanner.org

2

Meet the Professionals

Throughout this book, professionals working across the different sectors of the events industry will share their experiences and advice for becoming an event planner. For their full biographies, see the companion website at www.becomeaneventplanner.org

Marie Davidheiser

Marie Davidheiser is Senior Vice President, Director of Operations for Jack Morton Worldwide. Based in their New York office, she has worked on experiential campaigns and brand experience events throughout North America for clients including Bank of America, Samsung, Kimberly-Clark, American Airlines, Verizon, LEGO, and Walmart.

Farida Haqiqi

Farida Haqiqi is the former Events Manager for The British Red Cross. Events she worked on included the annual British Red Cross London Ball; a gala fundraising dinner for 600 people, a major donor event at Clarence House with HRH Charles, Prince of Wales, challenge events such as the London Marathon, and an annual British Red Cross Skills Share conference for 200 delegates.

Nathan Homan

Nathan Homan is Creative Director and Co-founder of special events agency Rouge Events, which specializes in brand communication events, product launches, parties and festivals for clients including Nissan, Jamie Oliver, Ikea, Sky, Ernst & Young, and Cartoon Network. Prior to co-founding Rouge Events, Nathan worked in banqueting at The Dorchester and Four Seasons hotels.

Chad Hudson

Chad Hudson is President, Creative Director and Owner of Chad Hudson Events, a full service event design, production and management company with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Past events include Guess North American Conference, ABC’s Comic-Con booth, Major League Baseball’s All Stars Gala, movie premieres including The Twilight Saga, Enders Game, and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, and numerous Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and Super Bowl events.

Bill Jones

Bill Jones is Vice President and Managing Director of Events for The Channel Company (formerly UBM Tech Channel, part of UBM plc) a global live media and business-to-business communications, marketing services, and data provider. Bill’s event expertise spans on-demand conferences, virtual events, live events, conferences, road shows, and partner events. 

Fiona Lawlor

Fiona Lawlor is HR Director and Senior Vice President of the EMEA region of global brand experience agency Jack Morton Worldwide.  Based in the London office, Fiona is responsible for attracting, developing, motivating, and retaining the talent needed to be an ideas-led agency.

Christopher Lee

Christopher H. Lee, DMCP, is CEO of ACCESS Destination Services.  An award-winning destination management company with offices throughout North America, ACCESS Destination Services provides creative program design, event production services, travel logistics, and recreational activities for meetings, incentives, and conventions.  Clients include Wells Fargo, Nestle, and Energizer.

Jennifer Miller

Jennifer Miller, DMCP, is a Partner of ACCESS Destination Services and President of its offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Arizona. She originally joined ACCESS San Diego in 2000 as a Program Manager working on meetings, special events, and incentive travel programs for Fortune 100 companies such as Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Toyota, and AT&T.

Grace Nacchia

Grace Nacchia is an Event Director at George P. Johnson where she works on multiple conferences and exhibitions for clients that include IBM and GSMA (Global Systems for Mobile Communications Association). Prior to George P. Johnson, Grace worked for Imagination on the Shell/Ferrari global exhibitions program and EMS Worldwide on roadshows and events for Sony and Royal Bank of Scotland. Grace has delivered events throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Dori Rodriguez

Dori Rodriguez is a Senior HR Associate for global brand experience agency Jack Morton Worldwide. Based in the Boston office, Dori’s role includes recruiting and filling entry-level positions at Jack Morton offices throughout the United States. She also leads Jack Morton’s Summer Internship Program.

Nicola Mosley

Nicola Mosley is the UK HR Manager for George P. Johnson, the #1 ranked experience-marketing agency in the world. As part of her role, Nicola manages GPJ’s recruitment efforts in the United Kingdom.

Charlotte Saynor

Charlotte Saynor is the former Vice President of Brands and Events for FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), one of the world largest creators, producers, and distributors of TV programs such as The X Factor and American Idol. Managing the global events program, including trade shows, conventions, festivals, brand launch events, conferences, and sponsorship events, Charlotte has produced events in locations such as New York, London, Las Vegas and Cannes. Prior to FME, Charlotte was the Head of European Events for Apple and has organized events for TV brands such as Lost and Desperate Housewives whilst at Disney ABC.

Sharyn Scott

Sharyn Scott is Global Head of Events for the law firm Linklaters, which has 28 offices throughout the United States and Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Sharyn’s role encompasses the full spectrum of corporate events from corporate hospitality, dinners, and staff holiday parties, to overseas conferences, global partners’ meetings, and client receptions. Prior to working at Linklaters, Sharyn has organized events world-wide for Citibank, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas and the travel company Going Places, a division of Thomas Cook.

Lisa Simmons

Lisa Simmons is Project Manager, Europe, Asia, and Middle East (EAME) Events at Goldman Sachs. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Lisa worked as a freelance event manager for Microsoft, British Telecom, and Credit Suisse before becoming Assistant Vice President in Corporate Events for Barclays Capital and Event Team Leader at Linklaters.

Liz Sinclair

Liz Sinclair is Co-founder and Managing Director of ESP Recruitment, the leading recruitment consultancy for the events industry. A specialist agency founded in 1999, ESP Recruitment have offices in London and Dubai covering all sectors of the events industry both in the United Kingdom and overseas. Prior to co-founding ESP Recruitment, Liz worked for a number of conference and exhibition companies including Centaur and UBM

Charlotte Wolseley Brinton

Charlotte Wolseley Brinton is the former Head of Events at Rhubarb Food Design, one of the UK’s top five catering companies, where she worked on high-profile events such as HRH Prince Charles’ 50th birthday at Windsor Castle, Elton John’s Annual White Tie & Tiara Ball, and Stella McCartney’s wedding.

Martin Turner

Martin Turner is the former Global Head of Events for the investment bank Credit Suisse. He began his event-planning career in Australia and spent 16 years managing international group travel, conferences, and incentive programs for clients such as Toyota, Pepsi, Xerox, and American Express before joining global brand experience agency Jack Morton. Since leaving Credit Suisse Martin has worked for UBS, Barclays Capital, MJM Creative, and NetJets.  Martin also teaches Event Management to Post Graduate students at Birbeck, Kings College, and UCL Institute of Education in London for the Event Academy.

Rachel Vingsness

Rachel Vingsness is a Senior HR Manager for Jack Morton Worldwide and works with the New Jersey, Connecticut, and California teams.  The Jack Morton HR team is focused on engaging talent, growing careers and fostering culture and community.

3

What You Need to Know

before You Get Started

The vast majority of people looking to get into the events industry go about it in entirely the wrong way—which is what prompted me to write this book. Unlike most professions, you don’t need formal training or qualifications to become an event planner; you can’t just take a course, graduate and start applying for entry-level positions. In this industry, employers are looking for experience rather than qualifications. So how does one get industry experience when first starting out? A lot of that comes down to how you approach potential employers and the preparation you do beforehand. Which is what I hope to teach you in this book.

The Two Mistakes You’re Likely to Make When Starting Out

The first is making ‘cold’ approaches to potential employers. You can’t just sit at home passively sending out resumes hoping that someone will just give you an opportunity. As an employer myself, I get inundated with resumes from people asking for entry-level positions, work experience and internships. Most of the time these just get buried in my inbox and I never have time to look at them. On the rare occasion one stands out enough for me to read the attached resume, I’m usually left completely underwhelmed.  In truth, the chances of me hiring someone in this way—even for work experience—are probably slim to none.

The events industry, perhaps more so than others, is all about networking, contacts and personal relationships. Ninety-nine percent of jobs—the good ones at least—never even get advertised; they’re filled by word-of-mouth recommendations or people already known to the employer in some way. The reality is, most employers prefer to hire people that they know, have worked with before, or come recommended. Often, they just don’t want to take the risk of hiring a complete stranger. The majority of event companies are small businesses without formal internship programs, so when they need extra help they generally ask friends and colleagues if they know of anyone suitable. Alternatively, they’ll think about who they’ve encountered onsite at events that might have stood out and showed promise; someone who demonstrated some initiative and went beyond what was expected of them. Employers typically don’t have the time to invite random strangers in for an interview on the off-chance they might be a good fit. Therefore, that resume you’ve emailed in asking for work experience—assuming it hasn’t been buried in an inbox unopened—is likely to always take second place behind candidates that the employer knows, or knows of.

This doesn’t mean the industry is a closed shop, only for those with friends who can make introductions. What is does mean however, is that you have to get out there and put the effort in to develop your own contacts and relationships; and that can’t be done sat at your computer firing off anonymous resumes to people you’ve never met. You need to work onsite at events where you’ll meet people and make contacts—which is the approach I’ll guide you through in this book.

The second mistake you’re likely to make is not helping yourself sufficiently before asking a potential employer to help you. I mentioned previously that I’m often underwhelmed when I read the resumes of people asking for entry-level positions, work experience or internships. This is because very few have impressed me with the level of effort they’ve already put in to getting experience, prior to approaching me. In order to convince an employer to take a chance on you, you first need to show them what you’ve already done to help yourself. If I look at your resume, will I see evidence of your drive and commitment to getting into the events industry? If your cover letter tells me that you are passionate about events, will that be reflected on your resume—in the effort you’ve made to get experience?

I’ll let you in on a secret; most employers resent it when they’re faced with a passive ‘please give me a job’ attitude—no matter how nicely you ask. We don’t want you to plead and beg to be given an opportunity—as if you are hoping we’re just going to do you a favor. As a job seeker, even one looking for work experience, you need to view the situation from the employer’s perspective; show me why I need you. Show me that you’re driven and committed, show me the skills and experience you’re going to bring to my organization, and show me what you’re going to contribute to my business. Don’t just ask an employer to hand you an opportunity. Instead, sell yourself based on the benefits to them; why do they need you?

I set out to write this book to show job-seekers the right way to go about it. Along the way I hope to help you decide whether taking an event-planning course is right for you, and how to:

make contacts and network,

get the experience employers are looking for,

present that experience on a resume,

approach potential employers, and

shine in an interview.

All of this advice is based on interviews with other industry experts—employers, recruiters and experienced event professionals—who also offer their own tips and advice. At times this advice might sound harsh and it might not be what you want to hear; the contributors to this book and I have been pretty blunt. But it is given with the best of intentions; to give you a better chance of getting started—and being successful—in this industry. Employers want the job seekers we interview to be the best they can be, as that will only strengthen our businesses and contribute to our success. This book is about giving you the inside track on exactly what employers are looking for, to help you stand out from all the other job-seekers still passively sending out resumes and pleading to be given a chance.

Introduction to Case Studies

I’m sure that, like me, you’ve probably seen the biographies of successful event planners or read interviews about how they got started. They always say something like, he began his career organizing events for MTV, or she started her own events company in 1992. It always sounds so easy doesn’t it?  Like one day, you just become an event planner. Simple.

The reality is that biographies only focus on the high points and successes. The real ‘nitty-gritty’ of how he or she got his or her foot in the door, then struggled to work their way up and eventually made a name for themselves, always gets glossed over. Biographies never mention the junior or support roles a planner took at the beginning of their career, the countless rejections, and failures along the way, the months in between jobs with no work or, perhaps most significantly, how exactly—with no experience—they got that very first opportunity that set them on the right path. I know, because my biography is guilty of exactly the same thing.

Throughout this book, I’ve included a number of case studies that chart—in detail—the route that some of the contributors to this book took to get into the events industry and then work their way up in. In particular, I’ve focused on the very early stages of their career and their first few steps on the career ladder; highlighting the effort they put in, the sacrifices they made, and what they did right. It’s a common misconception that to get a job in events, you have to keep sending out resumes until you get a break. The case studies in this book show that not only do you rarely go straight into a job planning events, but that you often have to be proactive in creating opportunities for yourself along the way.

My Route into the Industry

Starting in Charity Events

From college drop-out, to organizing events for Elton John in three years

Matthew James, Owner, Left Field Productions

Let’s start by looking at my biography, the one that is often used in interviews and on websites. Then I’ll take you through the reality of how I got those early opportunities and all the gaps in my resume that are never mentioned. My biography often reads:

‘Matt began his event-planning career while working for AIDS charity London Lighthouse. In 1998, he created and produced the Canon Designs for Life fashion show, bringing together one hundred of the top names in fashion—from Armani to Versace—to design a one-of-a-kind garment inspired by the AIDS red ribbon. During this time, Matt sold sponsorship of the event to Canon and it went on to be a phenomenal success, raising much-needed funds for people living with HIV, and generating global TV and press coverage. Following Canon Designs for Life, Matt went on to found his own event production company. His first client was Sir Elton John, which resulted in the creation of his now famous AIDS fundraiser, The Annual White Tie & Tiara Ball.’

It might look like a lot of good luck, right? You do one charity event, start your own company, and your first client is Elton John. In reality, there was a whole lot more that went on behind the scenes to get to those milestones. It definitely wasn’t easy, and for most of the time, I was struggling just to make ends meet and pay the bills. But most importantly—and this is something I really want to drive home—I created all those opportunities for myself.  I didn’t just send out resumes and hope that someone would give me a job organizing events. I didn’t have any contacts in the industry, nor did I have a wealthy family to support me financially while I took unpaid work. I had to be proactive and make it happen myself—and that’s something I really want to inspire you to do with this book. Because the really successful people are the ones that stand out from all the others by being proactive, making things happen and creating their own opportunities.  And those people are exactly the ones that employers want to hire.

Matt James: Biography—the Full Story

As you can see, my first significant step on the career ladder was working on events for an AIDS charity, London Lighthouse. But I had to do a lot of work even to get to this stage. I’m going to go into a fair amount of detail because I want you to understand that it was a very gradual process.

College Dropout

I actually had no intention of working in events.  I’d always intended to be an actor. After working for a couple of years in advertising to raise the money to pay for acting school, I found when I finally got there that I hated it!  Eventually, I dropped out before the end of the course, with no clue as to what I was going to do next.

Leveraging Every Opportunity

While I was figuring things out, I took any job I could get just to pay the bills. I ended up doing data entry at a small London magazine, a ‘free-sheet’ given out in bars and clubs, entering classified ads. I soon managed to persuade my employers to let me do some writing for the magazine—albeit unpaid—and I started to review new theatre and movie openings. The magazine already had someone who wrote all their arts reviews, but I’d noticed that he always seemed really busy. He would spend most weekday evenings going to see shows, but he always felt bad that he didn’t have enough time to review the smaller fringe shows, which are usually held miles away in tiny arts centers on the outskirts of town. So, I offered to go and review those shows for him—for free. Of course, I didn’t have any professional writing experience to show him what I could do, so before approaching him, I took myself to the movies and theatre one weekend and wrote some mock reviews based on what I’d seen. I think he was pretty impressed that I’d taken the initiative to go out and do this—and of course, he was more than happy to have a free assistant to help with his workload.

This is a great example of taking any job just to get your foot in the door, then leveraging that opportunity to work your way up. Sometimes you have to take a role that you’re overqualified for, just to get into the industry. It’s so much easier to work your way up from the inside. Also, if you’re trying to create an opportunity for yourself, be strategic about it. Take the initiative to do whatever preparation you need to beforehand, to increase your chances of success—don’t just turn up and wing it. In my case, I went and got some—albeit amateur—writing experience to show a) what I could do, and b) that I was serious and committed.  Then, when it comes to the pitch, don’t just think about what you want to get out of the situation, think about what you can offer the employer. See it from their perspective and highlight what you can bring to the table that’s going to benefit them. In my case, although I wanted to write for the magazine, instead of begging for a chance, I pitched it based on the fact that I would work unpaid and help the arts editor with his workload. So it was a win-win situation.

Volunteering

While working my day job entering classified ads, and reviewing shows in the evenings, I decided I also wanted to do something a little more meaningful. So I began to look into some charities while figuring out what I was going to do career-wise.

I replied to an ad by a small AIDS charity that provided HIV awareness to young people. The ad said they were looking for help with fundraising, so I called them up and they told me to come in and see them. In preparation, I spent a lot of time brainstorming and drawing up a list of fundraising ideas that might impress them. Bear in mind I had no experience in fundraising, so I’m sure a lot of the ideas were probably, at best, a bit naïve and at worst, lame. I can’t remember exactly what the ideas were but they were all quite basic, such as getting the bars and clubs that distributed the magazine to do collections in their venues.  Nothing particularly original.

The key thing here is that I went in armed with ideas. I wanted to show them what I could do for them. I came to the interview ready to contribute something. I wasn’t just turning up asking for a job.

When I got to the interview, I found that I was just one of dozens being seen in quick succession. It turned out that when they said they were looking for help with fundraising, what they were actually looking for were ‘chuggers’; those people who accost you on the street shaking collection jars and asking for spare change. I was so disappointed that when I was given my allotted two-minute briefing, I just launched into my ideas and pitched them anyway.  I raced through all my ideas at break-neck speed and when I finally stopped speaking the interviewer just said to me quietly, I think you should speak to our fundraising manager. I was then ushered into a separate room where I repeated my pitch to the manager, who was more than happy for me to volunteer in other ways.

Going in for something low-level then over-delivering definitely got me noticed and created more opportunities. Always aim to over-deliver and exceeding expectations—you’ll stand out and move up the career ladder quicker.

Having pitched a range of ideas, and generated some interest, I knew I now had to deliver.

Working at the magazine, I was given an opportunity to work at a small one-day music festival. It was a day’s work, pretty badly paid, but I said I’d do it if I could take along some collection tins and posters to try and raise a bit of money for the charity at the same time. When I arrived on the day, I was given the job of supervising a mechanical bull fairground ride. All it involved doing was taking £1 off people and timing their ride, so I decided to add my own fundraising angle to it. I put up the charities posters all around the ride and told each paying customer that if they fell off in less than a minute they had to put some change in the charity box. I then told the operator to run it at a gentle speed for the first 45 seconds before increasing it to top speed to ensure they fell off. The ride was really popular and, with it being a hot sunny day and everyone in good spirits after a few drinks, I ended up raising several hundred pounds for charity.

Over the next few months, I worked—unpaid—on several small fundraising projects for charity, during the evenings and weekends. It was pretty low-level stuff; mostly things that anyone could have done. I seem to remember taking collection tins to a lot of nightclubs! Because I worked at the magazine, we were given special press passes to get into all the clubs free. Often at the big nightclubs, they would have separate lines for people on the guest list and I spotted an opportunity. The guest list were getting in for free; often saving themselves a good £10–20 on the door charge, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to hit them up for a donation to charity. I approached a few of the big clubs with this idea and they agreed to have a collection tin at the guest list entrance. Each week, whoever was ticking the names off the list would just politely ask people to put £1 in the charity tin. And everyone did. They could hardly say no after just getting the door charge waived. It was a simple idea that ended up creating regular income.

The lesson here is that you have to look for whatever opportunities you can exploit in your everyday life. I took the day’s work at the music festival because I was broke and needed the money, but I then leveraged that as a fundraising opportunity. Likewise, I happened to notice the guest list opportunity because I was going out to a lot of nightclubs at the time. My point is, it’s not about being privileged or having opportunities handed to you. It’s about looking at what you have access to in your own life and seeing how you can use that to create your own opportunities. Be proactive. Had I been working in a supermarket, I probably would have tried to create a fundraising opportunity by getting all the staff together to do something like a fun run.  You can create opportunities out of whatever situation you’re in. Don’t sit around waiting for someone to give you a break. Employers want to see what you’ve done to help yourself.

My First Paying Job in Events

For almost a year, I juggled a mixture of writing, data entry on the classified ads, and a bit of charity work before I decided to pursue the idea of fundraising as a full-time job. In June 1997, I applied for a junior fundraising role at another AIDS charity, but I didn’t even get invited for an interview. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said he knew someone who worked in fundraising at another medium-sized AIDS charity, London Lighthouse, and offered to put me in touch with him. This person lived locally to me, so we met up for coffee and I asked if I could just pick his brains on how to get into fundraising.

Asking friends of friends and other acquaintances if you can get their advice is a great way to start networking. You’ll build contacts, get recommendations, and hear about opportunities before others. 

During our meeting I told him about all the fundraising I’d been doing. He explained that he was leaving his job the following week, but that if I sent him my resume he’d pass it on because they were always looking for people who were driven. I tailored my resume to highlight all the different things I’d done with the smaller AIDS charity.  There were a handful of good talking points there, although to any professional fundraiser they would be considered child’s play. Nevertheless, within a few weeks, I got a call and they asked me to pop in for an informal chat.

At this point, you’re probably thinking but you knew someone who pulled strings for you. And yes, he did pass on my resume, which probably served as an informal recommendation. But you know what? That’s what networking is all about—and it’s how 90 percent of all hiring gets done in the events industry—which is why you have to find—and make—your own contacts.

An introduction, no matter how tentative or vague, sets you apart from the crowd. In most cases, an introduction alone won’t get you the job, but it might be the difference between you being considered or not. That’s why you can’t just send out resumes cold; you’ve got to put yourself in an environment where you are going to meet people who might be able to help you.

The reality was that London Lighthouse wouldn’t have invited me in for a chat if there weren’t something on my resume of interest. Also, my contact wouldn’t have even been able to suggest passing on my resume had I not filled it with all the volunteer fundraising I had done over the past year. That’s why it’s important to go out and get experience, however basic, to demonstrate commitment and drive.

Before I went in to see London Lighthouse, I did a huge amount of research on the charity and the types of events they did, and started to put together a list of ideas I could pitch to them. Again, they were all quite basic ideas, such as approaching new theatre shows that were opening to do preview nights in aid of the charity. I knew that, having spent a year reviewing shows and dealing with theatre publicists, I could probably go knocking on a few doors and ask for favors.

Again, I put myself in the mind-set of what could I do for them? I didn’t have a huge amount of fundraising experience so I couldn’t demonstrate a proven track record. Instead, I decided to impress them with lots of ideas to show potential; I was bringing something to the table. That, coupled with the fact they could see from my resume that I’d already put some effort in by fundraising for the other charity, demonstrated a genuine passion and drive. That type of insight into a person’s character can count for a lot when employers are hiring.

I have to admit that I was quite surprised when they eventually offered me two day’s work a week (paid!) to try to implement some of my ideas.

Early Events

Now, I want to make it clear that although I now had my foot in the door, it was still a major up-hill struggle. It was casual employment, with no fixed term contract, and of course, the money was terrible. So if I didn’t start showing results pretty soon, I knew I’d be out. 

It can be really tempting once you’ve landed an opportunity to become a bit complacent; you’ve got your foot on the ladder, so you start to relax. Fortunately, my circumstances meant I had a limited amount of time to prove myself—and I think that’s how everyone should approach their first break. Now that you’ve got your foot is in the door, what are you going to do to make yourself invaluable?

I started in September 1997 and basically just hit the phones; cold calling people and firing off letters until I made something happen. The first event I managed to secure was a private view of a new Bruce Webber retrospective due to open at The National Portrait Gallery.  The gallery was prepared to give us a preview evening for free, which we could then sell tickets to. I think the charity were quite taken back that I’d managed to pull it off so easily, without any assistance. The truth was, I just called up the gallery, spoke to a woman in publicity and proposed a charity night to her.  Following that, I’d heard that a new production of the musical Chicago was due to open, so I contacted the producer’s PR team to see if we could have a preview night for charity, which they agreed to.

The next event I put together was a preview screening of a small independent movie for World AIDS Day, followed by an after-party at a trendy nightclub, The Café de Paris.  Again, I literally just called up the film distribution company and asked them if they’d let us have an advance copy of the movie, then I asked a handful of cinema’s if anyone would donate a screen for the evening.  It really wasn’t that hard. I started to realize that if you had a good charity name behind you, and were prepared to do a lot of cold calling and letter writing, you’d be amazed how much people are prepared to do—if you just get out there and ask.  The hardest part by far was actually