IT'S OFTEN TOO easy to be seduced by the “new.”
At Special Events Magazine, we are always looking for the new producers on the event scene, the new business alliances, the new products.
But by limiting ourselves to the lure of the new, we risk missing other important stories.
I often ask readers that I have the pleasure of spending time with what we could be doing to make the magazine better and more useful. At lunch with a veteran special event pro recently, he suggested that we focus not just on the exciting newcomers on the event scene, but also on the profession's veterans.
His point is a good one. New work and new ideas deserve recognition, and it's exciting and instructive to study them. But as anyone who has been in business for more than a few years knows, it's no easy feat to stay in business. Tastes change, client contacts change, the economic picture changes. Being able to ride out these changes is a sign not only of talent, but also patience, resourcefulness and adaptability. It's a sign that you know what you are doing.
Every profession has its stars who shine brightly, briefly, and then flame out. It's ironic, but we tend to tune out the special event pros who produce effective, valuable events month after month, year after year, letting their sheer dependability outshine their work. But theirs is the greater accomplishment.
Our September issue will mark our 20th year of publishing Special Events Magazine, a hard-won anniversary for any magazine and a watershed year for the special event profession. The founders of our magazine, Denise and Tim Novoselski, and our longtime publisher, Lisa Vested-Perrin, had the foresight to recognize that something new was happening in the rental industry. They saw that a segment of that industry — party rental — was evolving into something much bigger: special events. They dedicated a magazine to this new business. An event producer came up to me two years ago to shake my hand and say, “Special Events Magazine saw that special events was its own profession. You were the ones who got it.”
We will be saluting 20 years of publishing Special Events Magazine over the course of a year starting with our 20th anniversary issue in September. I would love to hear from event pros with a 20-year track record as well as highlights of the great special events of the last 20 years. Please get in touch with me at [email protected]. It is our privilege to chronicle your achievements.
