Planning An Event With A Team You’ve Never Met

COVID-19 has been a real game-changer for the event planning industry. A big question being thrown around in the industry is, “How can we still do this?” This year I found myself, my peers and my professor asking that exact question when it came to Mass Comm Week at Texas State University. 

As a junior at Texas State I signed up to take an event planning class for an annual event that is hosted by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. After receiving my acceptance to the course, I had vision of what I wanted this event to look like, then lockdown hit and the route to planning this event was instantly shifted in a new direction. A direction that me and the rest of the team had to guide through together in a completely virtual format. 

A big concern I had when starting the fall semester was how are a group of sixteen strangers supposed to organize an event that would be a success? A group of individuals who only met via zoom twice a week and not even knowing what everyone looked like. How are we supposed to functionally operate together? 

Thank the stars for Zoom, because in the months leading up to Mass Comm Week we all started to dive in deep and share creative ideas on what we all wanted this event to look like. It was the first virtual Mass Comm Week and a team full of driven students who wanted to see success. Communication was our only saving grace. Without the excellent communication, the event would not have been such a success. Working with a team you’ve only met online can sometimes be stronger, because you are solely relying on each other to get things done and be a person of contact whenever need be. 

The pandemic has definitely shook a lot of things up and one of those things being teamwork. Teams now have to operate differently than ever before and try to find new and innovative ways of thinking to bring to the table. That is exactly what the 2020 Mass Comm Week did and out of that came stronger event planners.