Justine Kane is
Course Director for Event Academy. She is a highly experienced trainer with over fifteen years of experience and connections in the event management training industry. Justine has spent the past four years as Course Director for an event management training institute, placing hundreds of graduates into roles and tutoring them through to successful qualification. Justine kindly took time out of her very busy schedule to share her experience and expertise in Event Management.
What was your first full-time job?
Account Executive for a PR company
How did you get into Event Management?
The PR company I worked for at the time asked me to organise an event in San Francisco. I found Alcatraz as a venue and got really excited about it and realised my skills were much better suited to events. It was great to discover my passion for events!
What was the first event you helped to organise? Did anything happen during this event that you were not expecting?
As above – I think it was all fine but found the time difference tricky to liaise with and obviously I couldn’t recce the venue before the event which was hard!
Please tell us about the most rewarding event you have organised.
Trek Vietnam which I organised with fellow Event Academy Director,
Claire Derrick. We were the first ones up and last to bed for ten days straight in the jungles of Vietnam. There were three different groups of people doing the charity treks – the super fit, the up for a bit of a challenge and those dedicated to the cause – which meant having three different sets of expectations to manage and meet. They all had an awesome time and got a real buzz out of it so it was incredibly rewarding.
What is the best advice you would give to someone who is thinking about going into event management?
Having a real passion for creating an experience through designing an event and ensuring all runs smoothly for the event itself is a good start. All good event planners have this as a foundation. What you then need is some
practical experience and the technical knowledge behind event planning and client management. The ideal candidate for one of
our events courses wants to get stuck into doing what they love.
Which Top 5 Skills does it take to be a good event manager?
There are many but here are my top five. An event manager needs to be: creative, organised, a people person, a good communicator and a problem solver. One for luck, a good negotiator too!
