It could always be worse
I have had the career pleasure — mostly 😉 — of producing marketing-related events globally, including some large-scale multi-day big stage productions. Some of my girl jobs, as I like to call them.
I love the beauty of a preverbial orchestra behind the scenes; the dance of prepping the show from as many imaginable logistical angles, attempting to provide a multi-sensory memorable (functioning!) attendee brand experience, working with creatives, and, you know, just trying to survive the mayhem of a live show.
Last night’s 2022 Academy Awards show is all over my news feed today. Real time update, the Academy is reviewing Will Smith’s incident with Chris Rock to potentially penalize him in some way (duh) and Will apologized to Chris a few hours ago.
Did the Fresh Prince lose it? Was it staged? (I am over that theory but it was still lingering earlier this morning!) Did something go down on the red carpet that I missed from my couch? Where was Derek Blasberg?!
The Crisis PR 101 that I’ve always tried to live by is: mitigate, prep, respond, and recover … ok, fine, that’s without coming out of a global pandemic, on “live” television, with two black men at the top of their respective games, having one hell of a memorable moment. Undoubtedly, not at all what the incredible Will Packer, show producer and another on top of his game, had crisis prepped for.
I had a “wow, I have complained about my share of ‘oh shit’ work moments … but that … I never had to deal with anything THAT crazy” conversation more than once today.
I have rambled long enough … the point of this post is one of shoutout + respect for David Korins, the mastermind set designer, and every backstage producer, director, and assistant having a major “oh shit” work moment when Will jumped on stage à la Tom Cruise’s couch craziness in the Oprah years. Like that, only not at all lol. #3secondDelay Will Packer, cheers to you and every single person on your team.
From David’s “immersive” to my “multi-sensory/memorable” basic goal … any way you slice it, never a dull moment in live events. Welcome, back.