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CASE STUDY DILEMMAS FOR THE NEW EVENT PLANNER page $515$

$($Produced by G$.$G$.$ Fenich and Students from East Carolina University$)$

Jack is the director of Meeting and Events of The Almedia in Florida. This beautiful $500-$room hotel is located right on the beach and features many luxurious amenities. The prop$-$erty includes three meeting rooms, two ballrooms, and ample amounts of outdoor space for events. The scenic outdoor area is very popular for weddings and receptions. Chloe, the new meeting and event planner, is getting ready to produce her first event on her own. It will be a reception for $V$ Pharmaceuticals with an estimated $100$ attendees. The event is scheduled to begin outside at four o'clock on a Friday. Chloe has been working with Mr$.$ Vladimir from V Pharmaceuticals for months and assures Jack that everything will run smoothly.

The event planning process was smooth, but on the day of the event everything seemed to go wrong. Chloe got to work late because she was stuck in traffic. Although she arrived in time, this did not put her in a good mood. When she got there, she checked her email and saw an email from $vv$ Pharmaceuticals. The email was sent the previous night and they wanted to change their number of attendees from $100$ to $200.$ Her contact, Mr$.$ Vladimir, apologized for not letting her know sooner but hoped that she could handle the changes. Frantic, Chloe immediately called the hotel restaurant to let them know of the chang$-$es$.$ They planned to serve a lot of seafood and were worried about having enough. Chloe immediately got on the phone with their seafood distributers and inquired about getting more. They informed her they did not have all of the items she needed but could provide her with some alternatives. Chloe had a bit of an attitude from earlier and the changes, but eventually agreed to change the menu.

After the phone calls, Chloe went outside to check on the new enlarged setup. Mr$.$ V had requested a plate meal; Chloe was outwardly enraged when she a saw a buffet style set up for the food. She screamed at the staff to fix it and follow the directions they were given. Chloe also noticed that the flowers and decorations were not properly set up$.$ She screamed at the staff again. As things were progressing behind schedule, Chloe found out that one of the servers called out of work. That was the last straw. Chloe continued to yell at everyone within earshot of some guests.

By three$-$thirty, everything was set up as planned and all thre food was almost ready. All of the guests soon arrived and the event went great. The attendees had no idea about the problems Chloe had had earlier in the day. Chloe planned everything for the event, but she did not think of what might go wrong. She was not prepared for some of these problems and had not had experience or known how to deal with them. Chloe reflected on the day and realized she acted very unprofessionally. If she wanted to continue in the event business, she would have to learn to prepare for anything and be able to handle the unexpected.

Questions:

How would you have handled each problem?