"I'd love to hear advice from others who've organized these events before on FlyerTalk about structure and how you went about planning them."

This question was posed by robb in another thread. As I answered the question, I felt that I was going to get off-topic on the thread, which I didn't want to do. So, I am posting here, in the hopes that if any of you who want to do this in the future, you can see the necessary elements involved.

This is by no means definitive, but much of what is listed here are things every organizer has to think about when planning a gathering. You will also get an idea of what we recently endured as we planned our gathering.

The just-completed Party In The Metroplex started out the same way all gatherings have started...as an idea, based on a thought. My idea was, noticing the large number of DFW and Texas-based Ft'ers, noting the role DFW and Texas plays in transportation and travel (with many corporate HQ and one of the world's largest airports here), and noticing some of the other gatherings like the now-legendary SAN event earlier this year, why couldn't we have a gathering in DFW?

Once the interest in doing this was found, and others posted their approval and willingness to help with planning, the foundation of the gathering then took shape.

Planning Team - You want to recruit as many people as you can to assist in planning the gathering. This allows you to separate tasks evenly, so no one person is doing all of the tasks. These gatherings are extremely difficult to stage, and, if interest for a particular gathering is great, you will need all the help you can find! A Planning Team of 5-7 people can generally handle the kind of task load necessary to be successful for a gathering of this type. We had 6 in our group.

A good idea would be to seek out Planning Team members or others with connections to sporting events, restaurants, hotels, concerts, points of local interest, etc., who may be able to get free or reduced rate access to anything you want to do or anywhere you want to go during the weekend.

Location and Timing - Decisions had to be made on when and where the gathering should be held. Texas, being the oven it is in the summer, did not lend itself to anything until Mid-September at the very least.

You also don't want to schedule a gathering close to or at the same time as any other gatherings, as you want to maximize your attendance. Gatherings with duplicate dates will cause people who wanted to attend both to choose one over the other, and of course, there will be speculation and hard feelings, etc., as a result.

Activities - The next step was trying to get a list together of what activities the gathering should have. Our goal was to try to be as origiinal and different from the other gatherings as possible. To do that, we wanted to get unique "backstage" access to DFW Airport, AA Corporate HQ, and Ft. Worth Center, with the AA C.R. Smith Museum and Founders' Plaza at DFW as additional activities.

Planning Meetings and Communication to the Team - Several meetings were held, one at AA itself, and the other at the restaurant we picked for the Saturday dinner. The rest of the time, we sent E-Mails to each other, talked in FT Chat whenever we were there, and also talked on the phone.

Tasks - From the meetings, tasks were divided among the members of the Planning Team, which included booking the restaurants and reserving the tours, getting an E-Mail list and website operational, keeping track of the guest list for each activity, and collecting money for the dinner portions of the gathering, since we decided to collect monies in advance. Speaking of that subject....

Money and Payment of Money - Each gathering will be different. The subject of payment has been discussed in previous posts here in Community. What works for one gathering will not necessarily work for another, because each gathering's goals and needs will be different. Some may want to pay their own way, to get miles/points on their cards linked to this. Some may want structure, not having to worry about paying for anything but their own libations (and/or libations they purchase for others).

Some may only want to pay their fair share, and not have to make up any differences due to shortages by others.

If you opt for the pay-in-advance concept, you can enroll in PayPal, which gives you a central location in which to receive monies collected for the gathering.

Having PayPal also allows you to process cancellation requests easier, should a guest cancel for any reason.

Transportation and Logistics - You want to give enough lead time for the gathering to allow guests to make all of their reservations in advance, and to allow for any mileage runs they may want to do to get to or leave from the focus city. You also want to ensure that guests are able to stay at their favorite hotel chain, so they may earn miles/points or redeem free stay opportunities if they choose.

One more point here. If you want to invite Randy to the gathering, you have to get your schedule organized well in advance, so he can clear his schedule. We missed getting him here, and I know he wanted to get here, but he couldn't get out of his prior schedule. However, he has been known to send FT goodies to events!

:-)

The DFW Metroplex is spread out over the Texas prairie, which meant that individual transportation was paramount. If you have many local members attending, there are no public transportation outlets, and the events are not close together, then you need to poll the local members to see if they can help with carpooling, and how many seats they can each contribute to this. Any guests renting cars can be asked as well, and this helps you if multiple out-of-town guests are staying at the same hotel.

Choice, Options, and Diversity - This lesson I learned after 9/11, when the very organizations who were going to welcome us "backstage" for some of the activities changed their minds, naturally, in response to what happened on that day.

Never before has a gathering had to get its structure fully reshuffled, particularly in a short time period.

Also, FlyerTalk is a community of individuals, with varied tastes, interests, ages, and backgrounds. Gatherings previous to this one established a bond between the attendees, where they just sat around in hotel rooms, talking points and miles, issues of the day, travel, and just enjoying the company of each other.

There have also been the now-legendary poker games featuring AnnaS, Cigarman, and Markbach! Furthermore, not everyone will be in the same age grouping, so some will not have access to bars and clubs, etc., and there are some guests who will bring their family members with them (and they may or may not be FF or in FT).

So, you want to remember to give the guests the option to attend the activities and dinners, do the "tourist" things, or hang out at the "local" establishments. We did give everyone those options, but left them as something which we believed was understood by everyone, instead of stating them in the list of activities.

Contingency Plans - You also want to have alternate activities ready to go at a moment's notice, should any of your primary hosts cancel for any reason, or should an activity be canceled due to weather.

Communication to the Guests - If you get the guests to subscribe to a mailing list or Yahoo group, it is easier to send out messages to everyone at one time. Also, you want to furnish contact numbers for the organizers/coordinators should their plans change, they need a ride to/from the airport, or they need directions to get somewhere in your city.

As your activities take shape, you want to try to keep the guests updated as quickly as possible. For our gathering, our tour hosts delayed canceling the tours, which made communicating changes difficult, because we didn't have the most accurate information available on them.

This was, to me, the most frustrating part of the entire process. There were a few people who were impatient, and they didn't understand what was happening, and that it was not our fault that this was happening.

Directions - Mapblast is a great tool for setting up directions to different locations, and was used for our event. Something that Bollar did, since we were scheduling multiple activities during the gathering, was drive the routes specified by Mapblast, first to ensure that they could be understood clearly, and second to see how long it took to get to each venue. I followed him to get a general idea of how everything was set up.

For all those who have organized a gathering before, if there is anything else you wish to add, or if I have forgotten anything, please add it here.

All in all, organizing these gatherings are and should be fun - almost as fun as the gatherings themselves! You get to meet many people in the planning phases and at the activities. And remember, you want to enjoy yourself at the gathering as well.

If you do use this guide to plan a gathering, drop me a line and let me know how it went. I'd love to hear about it!

:-)

Studley






[This message has been edited by studley (edited 09-27-2001).]