Political conferences, debates and elections are so dull, but I’ve got a couple of ideas to make them better.
The combination of free time on this bus and a crinkled photo of Ed Miliband in today’s Metro have inspired me to think about ways to spice up political events to make them more interesting, like the recent Labour Leadership Contest.
By this I don’t mean hiring a ‘Jack Sparrow look-a-like’, but perhaps using ‘tried and tested’ formats from popular television shows…
I’ve taken a few lessons from ‘The Simon Cowell School of Thought’ to make political events fun and exciting to watch!
New format for future Leadership Contests Round 1 - Searching for the top 16: All MPs of the party should be required to qualify to become a candidate by racing, for the fastest time, around The Total Wipeout course. Anyone able to get across those big red balls or manages to defeat the sweeper would be a hero overnight - and a worthy contender. Only the fastest 16 get through to the next round.
Round 2 - Question Time Special: David Dimbleby and the audience grill the candidates, with a twist! Like the show Distraction, I think David Dimbleby should be armed with a paintball gun to shoot anyone who doesn’t answer the questions properly and then like Big Brother, party members vote to evict the candidates they don’t like - just leaving 12.
(David searching for the best position to fire from)
Round 3 “You’re Fired!”: The remaining candidates should have to spend 12 weeks competing in weekly tasks where Lord Sugar, Nick and Margaret (or Karen) will whittle it down for party members - to the final three…
Round 4 - Our Final Three Meet The Dragons: Every potential leader should be required to present their manifestos to the Dragons - only two leave the Den.
The Final:
Like X Factor, with only two finalists - it should go straight to DEADLOCK…the final two battle it out in the Crystal Dome where they need to collect votes. The one with the most votes win.
The Winner’s Speech: This is the winner’s moment to thank everyone and talk about the future of the party. But I must insist that the Britain’s Got Talent buzzers are introduced and pressed if words are repeated (likely words are: ‘change’, ‘moving forward’ and ‘People’) or the judges can buzz when they are getting fed up. Three Xs, and the speech is over.
The Winner’s Best Bits:
Ant and Dec will then introduce the winner’s best bits - a video clip of the winner’s journey.
The Show: The contest ends with a performance from Stavros Flatley.
(Okay, I confess, this is not a serious post and certainly not a fair voting system, but there you go, a more enjoyable event!)
I’m not going to lie, being the best man is a tough job!
You’re the groom’s right-hand-man and will be expected to step up and take on duties and responsibilities that will put extra pressure on you, before and on the wedding day. But it is such a wonderful job and really rewarding, especially when you’ve finished your speech and see the newly married couple looking so happy and enjoying their day (all their hard work paying off).
I’m not a best man expert, I only know this stuff, because this weekend, I completed my duties as best man and have just included some ‘best man’ tips that I learnt along the way, which will give you, the reader, an understanding of what is expected of you and hopefully make you a better best man:
· To be [Best Man], or not to be?: I worked on a wedding once, where the best man spent most of the day at the bar getting drunk and slating the bride. If you have any baggage with the bride or groom, talk to them about it before accepting the role, and if you can’t sort it out I would suggest not even going to their wedding. Ruining their special day is unforgivable and they’re really not going to thank you for it later!
The couple had spent so much money on a beautiful 5* hotel that was positioned on the beach, which is where the ceremony took place. Through working there I had seen some of the most incredible weddings. However, what was meant to be the best day of their lives finished with the best man shouting his thoughts for everyone to hear, which then erupted into a fight and the police were called. Not the best way to finish a wedding.
Thankfully, I have a great relationship with the bride and groom and so it was a no brainer. If anything, the whole experience had brought our families, friends and us closer together.
· Organising the Stag Do
You’ll need to put together the stag do for the groom, his family and friends. Please refer to an earlier post purely based on how to organise a stag do: The Song Sheet to Stag Do Planning
· Writing the Best Man Speech There are so many good websites and books that specialise on helping people write speeches, so I’m not going to try and compete - I would just suggest Googling ‘best man speeches’.
However, one problem that I had, was that I had asked his family and friends for photos from his childhood and was planning to print them off to give out during the speech. But I spent so much time planning and practising the speech, I left it to the last day to print everything off and had software and printing issues. So if you are planning to provide any handouts or a slideshow - the earlier you do this, the better.
· Listening to the Groom’s Speech Let him practise as many times as he wishes until he gets it right and make sure you give him honest feedback or let him know if there is anything he has missed, for example he hasn’t mentioned the bride. If you can, do this a week or so before the wedding so that he has time to learn the new bits, otherwise he’ll be freaking out at the last minute.
· The Night Before
It’s your job to entertain the groom the night before and you might want to incorporate his family and any close friends. We just went for some food and drinks with everybody in the local pub - just make sure he doesn’t drink too much!
· Watered and Fed
Getting married is a long day and it’s important that the groom drinks plenty of water and eats breakfast in the morning.
· Look after the Rings
Looking after the rings up until the ceremony and then handing them out to the bride and groom during the service.
· Getting the Groom to the Venue It was over an hours drive for us to get to the wedding venue and the groom is a bit of a car buff, so hired a sporty Mercedes for the drive. I requested a ‘good luck’ message on radio show we were listening too, which the groom absolutely loved, plus he received calls and messages from guests making their way to the wedding - I then sent a text thanking the show for doing that and they called me up and interviewed the groom live on air. The groom was so over the moon! I must admit, I was a little worried that his first words to the bride was going to be “I was on Radio One” rather than “you look amazing”, but thankfully he didn’t do that.
Just before we got to the wedding venue, we popped to the hotel the bride and groom were staying at and put Champagne, chocolates and fresh roses in the room.
· Decisions, Decisions, Decisions When we got to the wedding venue, I was told by the organiser that from now on any problems or decisions that need to be made are handed over to the best man and she won’t bother the bride and groom, she’ll be coming straight to me. This sounded worst than it actually was. The day ran smoothly and I only needed to make a couple of decisions, such as moving the band, giving the nod for things like food and when the band should start.
· Talk to Everyone
I tried to talk to as many of the guests as possible, which made the next two tasks much easier. Also, find out exactly what is happening on the day and where the toilets are - throughout the day I had hundreds guests ask me those questions.
· The Photos Support the Photographer with rounding up guests for photos - this means the photos get done much quicker, and it is less stressful for the photographer and everyone else - then you won’t have an angry Photographer screaming out peoples names.
· Delivering the Speech The order of the speeches are: the Bride’s Father, the Groom and then the Best Man. Three things that I was told before delivering the speech were: 1) make sure that everyone can hear you, a speech dies if people can’t hear because they then start talking 2) don’t come across as too cocky, otherwise people won’t like you and won’t want to listen 3) react to the audience, timing is everything - pause if they’re laughing, laugh with them!
· Optional: Check if Suppliers have Drinks, such as the Band, Photographer and Magician, etc If all the staff are happy on the day, then it is more likely that guests and most importantly the Bride and Groom are going to have a good day. I think a nice touch is saying thank you to those working on the event - letting them know that they are doing a great job and helping make the day really special.
If you’re reading this, then like me, you probably want to organise the best stag do ever for your mate, his friends and family.
Well, the stag weekend I organised has finally happened (literally just!) and at the moment I’m sitting on a train (feeling, unexpectedly, pretty good) slowly making my way back to London.
This is a first time I’ve been anyone’s ‘best man’ and needed to organise a stag do and it was brilliant! As the worried organiser, I’m really pleased with how the whole weekend went, everybody, most importantly the groom really enjoyed it.
Well, now it’s over, I want to share the lessons I’ve learnt from this experience to help those who are new to planning events. I’ve called this post ‘the song sheet’, an expression I heard over the weekend and quite liked. These tips are a starting point for organisers to think about, giving you something to work from and make into your own.
1. Who is going?
Before you do anything, find out from the groom who he wants at the stag do. Don’t just ask for names and the amount of guests, get phone numbers and email addresses. Setting up an email group early on might save you time and confusion later on.
2. Who are they? If you don’t know the guests that well, find out what they’re like from the groom. Try and get as much information as you can, which you can use to find the most suitable options and will help you make decisions.
3. When should we go? Choose a couple of suitable dates for the stag do with the groom. Send potential dates in an intro email to all guests and ask them to indicate if there are any they can’t make.
Pick the most popular date from the responses - when doing this remember that you can’t always please everybody, but just check with the groom to make sure those he considers essential, can make it. When you have a suitable date, send a ‘we have a date…’ email to everybody (asap) so that they don’t plan something else.
The image is a copy of the intro invite I sent to all the guests. Some colleagues from work put this together for me to send out.
4. Who should organise the stag do? You need to decide whether you go it alone or ask an agency to organise your event. This is completely up to you and I guess it mainly depends on how long the stag do is for and how well you know the destination you going too (if you already have one).
I decided to get help from a colleague who specialises in organising Stag Dos even though I have access to exactly the same database. I mainly did this for his expertise, such as a good format for the weekend and help selecting the most suitable locations for our group with all the best places and activities each location has to offer. Putting all this together for three different locations is quite a mission and dealing with one person rather than several is much easier. My colleague organises thousands of these events each year, so there is rest-of-mind that the recommendations will be good and things that are easily forgotten, won’t be.
The company I work for is Chillisauce Events, if you would like an agency to help you organise your event.
5. Where are you going?
Selecting a location can be a tough job, the first question to answer is, do you stay in the UK or go overseas? There are so many brilliant locations to go and each place offers something different.
I asked my colleague/event organiser to send me three destinations (in the UK) that he would go to if he was someone’s best man and put together a package for each location.
We picked Edinburgh.
6. What are you going to do? Every location offers something different and what you do while you’re there depends on the places and activities available in that area, or if you have a particular activity that you want to do, you can search for locations that offer that activity. Bear-in-mind that larger size groups get better per person rate, so the more the merrier.
We went to a comedy night and a club on the first evening followed by white water rafting on the second day. That evening we did some whiskey tasting and then went to a selection of bars and clubs.
I picked white water rafting as the main activity for a couple of reasons; Scotland is an awesome place to do it, it’s the type of activity where guests aren’t just hanging around waiting, and it is unusual (no one in our group had done it before).
7. Where are you going to stay? We hired an apartment which was only a five minute taxi ride from the city centre. This meant that everybody was together for the entire time and we saved money at the beginning of each night, by buying drinks from the local shop to have before we went out, and it was brilliant because we did things like played the wii and poker.
However, apartments aren’t the only answer there are plenty of other options such as city centre hotels and hostels - and it’s your job to work out which is most suitable for your group, consider any extra costs like taxis, but this doesn’t tend to be that much when it is divided by loads of you.
8. Should I consult the groom, or not? I decided to involve the groom from the beginning, and presented him with different options so he could pick what he wanted us to do. Some people decide to keep everything a surprise - if you do this I would just pick a couple of people in the group to help you make decisions rather than consult everybody, ‘to many chefs’.
9. How much does a stag do cost? Rather than ask guests how much they can afford I would work find out how much it costs first, and test that with the group - make sure you explain what they’re getting for their money. See what people say, if anyone says it’s out of their price range then look at ways to reduce the costs.
10. What do I do about booking and paying for it?
I would suggest keeping people up-to-date at every stage, and email round with deadlines for deposits and full payments as soon as you get them. You’ll probably need to do some chasing, so don’t leave this until the last moment to do this, any problems let the groom know - he knows them better.
11. What about getting there?
Rather than taking on the responsibility of the travel to the stag do (because costs vary so much) book yours and the stags once enough people have shown enough interest, and just let everyone know who you booked with and how you booked, what time you booked the plane, train or coach and how much it costs. The easiest thing to do is send a link.
12. What does everybody need to take?
Find out exactly what you need for the activities you are doing, such as extra towels, old clothes and trainers, write a list for yourself and then send that list to everybody.
13. Where should we meet?
Decide on a meeting point and time and ensure everyone knows about it. Also, make sure everyone has the address to the accommodation, in case they’re making their own way there.
I think a nice touch to a party, is to ask guests to request a songon the RSVP section of the invitation.
This means, if you’re not having a DJ you’ll save some time as you won’t need to create a playlist completely from scratch, or if you are, the DJ can be that little more prepared and have the songs that people want at the event.
When the drinks are flowing, everybody will just want to rock out to their favourite songs.
If you’re planning a party and looking for inspiration, here are ten film-inspired ideas to help make your next event a memorable one…
1. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory - A World of Pure Imagination Not only taking your guests back to their childhood, but on their ultimate day out - inside Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory where everything is sweet, colourful and edible “with little surprises around every corner” and bound to end on a sugar high!
2. Austin Powers - Groovy Par-tay With spy-themed parties usually involving an elegant James Bond evening at Casino Royale, why not add a twist to the conventional spy event and plan a party ‘Austin Powers’ style? A room filled with velvet suits and leggy side-kicks dancing to twist and shout sounds much more exciting than one filled with 007s!
3. Alice and Wonderland - Mad Hatter’s tea party Bring Lewis Carroll’s story to life by organising the ultimate tea party, where the clock stays at six and only the unexpected should happen. Perfect for adults and children alike and plenty of dress-up possibilities.
4. Pirates of the Caribbean - Welcome aboard the Black Pearl Everybody loves dressing up as a pirate - nuff said!
5. Harry Potter - Party at Hogwarts
Take ‘back to school’ that step further and immerse your guests in the world of Harry Potter.
6. 101 Dalmatians - Spots This is a simple theme to organise and an easy one for guests to dress up for. All you need is spots, spots and more spots!
7. Grease - It’s Auto-matic. Its System-matic. Its Hyyyyydro-matic! Think: T Birds, Pink Ladies, rock ‘n’ roll and fast food.
8. The Wizard of Oz Lends itself beautifully to DIY- and you can even get your pets involved!
9. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Borrow the tube from your vacuum-cleaner, bust out your old school ruck-sack and don a jump-suit in homage to the classic 1984 cult film! Or just throw an old sheet over your head…
10. Sister Act?
A tamer version of the tarts and vicars theme- and less chance of you doing a Bridget Jones!
Alternative ideas… • Jurassic Park • Batman • Star Wars • Toy Story
• Titanic • The Chronicles of Narnia • Robin Hood • James Bond
• Labyrinth • Lord of the Rings • Peter Pan • Men in Black
• Blues Brothers • Shrek • Mary Poppins • Avatar • The Lion King
The Millennium Experience, an idea dreamt up by a tired Conservative government on its way out. Inherited and blown to a completely new, extravagant level by New Labour. A national event marking the 21st century, a symbol representing the best of Britain and a brighter future.
This event should have been the foundations to the Labour party’s legacy in Government again. But instead, it became a national embarrassment, and we haven’t and can’t forget about it because the dome structure was built to be so big and unusual, and along with other millennium projects have changed London’s famous skyline.
So now in times of a coalition government, when budgets are being thrashed, the country still in a recession and with the London 2012 Olympic Event just around the corner, I’ve decided to look back at key lessons that should have been learnt from the millennium experience to avoid the same mistakes happening with other large scale events, such as the Olympic Games:
1. Guests’ experience begins before they arrive to the venue The Millennium Dome and Experience was doomed from the first night it opened…
• organisers didn’t post the tickets in time for the launch night, which meant guests had to get to a specific train station before the event to collect their tickets
• due to a number of high profile guests attending the launch night, such as the Queen, Prime Minister and other VIPs, all attendees had to spend the first part of the evening in queues waiting to walk through one of four security gates (and only three were working properly), this meant journalists and editors and some of the major sponsors (and their families) were waiting outside in the December weather
• the venue had poor access by cars and was built with limited parking spaces, which meant the attraction was only really accessible by public transport
2. No white elephants, plan for lasting legacies AEG have completely re-branded and transformed the dome, now the O2, to one of Europe’s largest music venues. But did take a long time for the government to get rid of it…
Originally the dome was meant to be a temporary structure, pulled down after a year or so, however when New Labour took on the project they decided to build an icon that would last, but without finding a reason for it to stay…
• the dome took three years to put up and cost £850m to build, maintain and run. After the year long Millennium Experience finished the dome was completely empty costing the taxpayers £275,000 a month to maintain, while the government searched for a buyer
• it proved very difficult to find new uses for the site, the government even announced a public competition to find a long-term use for the Millennium Dome, which proved poor planning and was just to late
3. Substance over style Thankfully, everybody knows what the Olympics are, however a major problem for the dome was that for a long time it was just a idea, a vision - no one could really put there finger on what exactly was going inside, just vague responses…
• ”intended as a symbol of a bolder, brighter Britain”
• ”a thrilling expression of British culture”.
4. Have the right people on the job The original team responsible for building the dome, also operated it - which meant a major lack of the right skills…
• for an event the size of the Millennium Experience, you need professional builders to build it and event organisers and managers to run it, the right people for the job
• just after opening, many of the interactive games and displays had technical problems and stopped working properly, and the dome didn’t have a maintenance department
5. Money Matters When an event is as large as the Millennium Experience, every penny needs to be monitored to ensure good value and avoid wastage…
• a PR firm had been paid almost £340,000 to promote the Dome, once it had closed
• it was reported on the BBC website that John Prescott (Deputy Prime Minister 1997-2007), said that the dome did not cost the public money, it came from the lottery. However the lottery funds are used to fund and support good causes such as charitable organisations, and when the public hears about wastage and unnecessary they would rather the money went somewhere else
6. Exploit all marketing avenues Looking back the Culture Department and Millennium Commission were reported saying “many more commercial opportunities could have been exploited if the marketing arrangements had been properly planned and managed…the effectiveness of marketing was constrained by uncertainty about the Dome’s contents”.
7. Think about the event as a whole -
With events, not only does an event organiser need to take a functionalist approach, planning every piece of the event in detail, but also needs to stand back and take a holistic approach, seeing the bigger picture to ensure everything is covered and fits together…
• the dome was built with the largest roof in the world, however there was only heat in the individual attractions
• there was no transition between each themed area • guests flocked to the popular attractions in the dome, which weren’t designed to handle the heavy traffic, and the queues were massive
8. Keep politics separate
I’m going to finish this post with the words of Prime Minister, at the time, Tony Blair… “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and if I had my time again I would have listened to those who said governments shouldn’t try to run tourist attractions” (Observer, 2007)
Music is an essential ingredient to a good party, and if you’re trying to cut costs or can’t face a whole night listening to a cheesy disco DJ, for smaller parties I recommend Spotify. It’s the renaissance of the traditional pub jukebox.
Using Spotify at an event will allow guests to search for songs they like and add them to the playlist - this means that throughout the event everybody can be involved in the music and listen to the songs they want.
All you need to provide is a laptop, a PA system (which most pubs/venues have anyway, you’ll just need to check with them about wires), a wifi connection and make someone responsible for the music. That somebody, will need to set up a small playlist so that there is music at the beginning while guests arrive, and that person will need to be around on the night to show others how to use it if having difficulty. However, it is super easy to use, especially if you’ve used itunes before, it has a very similar layout.
The main difference between itunes and Spotify, is that with Spotify you are only streaming the music, not buying and owning the song, which is ideal for a party. You’ll need to sign up for the premium version which is £4.99 (the unlimited package) for an entire month - don’t be tempted to sign up to the free version, otherwise you might end up with toothpaste adverts between songs - a bit of a mood killer!
There are just a few downfalls to using Spotify at an event - some artists haven’t signed up to Spotify, so there are a few classics missing, but there are millions of songs on it and you’ll need to make sure the person you put in-charge of Spotify ensures the dance floor isn’t completely empty all night because someone at the party has terrible music taste. If not, this is a brilliant tool for the DIY DJ.
