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According to the respondents in an online poll at Special Events, a Great Gatsby revival is coming.

The new Baz Luhrmann movie “The Great Gatsby,” which opens this week, might not be getting the best reviews. But its ebullient, Roaring ’20s style will be a big hit as a special event theme this year.

According to the latest online poll from Special Events, nearly three-fourths of respondents say they are getting more requests for a “Gatsby,” Roaring ’20s look.

Some 28 percent say they have not seen any increased interest in the look.

The Facebook of event planning?

The event-planning service Splash is giving Eventbrite a run for its money. Not only can event planners sell tickets, but each event page can have photo galleries, contact management, and promotion services. “Splash aims to do for event planning what Facebook did for people: give them easy-to-use tools, such as a website, for promoting and planning events and parties,” Business Insider reports. Since its debut four months ago, Splash has hit about $650,000 in gross sales. (ht @sarahconvene)

On dealing with everyone being accessible to everybody, anytime.

“In an industry that touts itself as being relationship-based (it is after all an industry all about “human connections”), technology has actually made the relationships less valuable because now EVERYONE can have access. Technology has democratized the industry on one hand and made it less human on the other. That’s an observation not a judgment.

That means that if a planner has nurtured some key relationships with venues, now EVERYONE can have access, all at the click of a few keys. The channel is now considerably more cluttered because the barriers to entry are lower and there’s no incremental cost to adding a few more venues to the RFP blast. Planners and suppliers are now both struggling with a cluttered channel.

For 19 years Babette Hiles was the Director of Special Events for the University of Illinois. As she retired, she reflected on her career in special events.

“The people I work with – sometimes we think we’re like MacGyver,” she said. “There’s always more than one way to do something and we’re good at figuring things out on the fly. That makes me sleep pretty well.”

In the end, she still believes – with good planning and good people and a little luck – it’s possible to pull off the perfect event.

“Stuff will happen, but you have to keep it in perspective,” she said. “You have to be calm and be able to brainstorm, and you have to be able to switch gears. If you’ve planned well, you can put all of your focus on solving any problems that come up.”

Over at Smartsheet.com, Lindsay Scott says event planning is a lot like project management:

The simplest lesson we learnt, one that made us change our whole event management approach, was that team members needed to know where we were within the plan, what each of us needed to do, and when each task was due (and without the stress and hassle!) Using a simple event planning project schedule, we created clarity amongst the voluntary team. Everyone had access to the schedule; they could see their assignments and understand the impacts any late deliveries would produce. What proved especially helpful was for volunteers to be able to share progress notes and add documents – a godsend when you have no easily accessible central storage area.

The schedule also created a sense of urgency. For anyone who has worked in a voluntary group like this you’ll be well aware of the differences between people’s work commitment when they’re being paid for it (their day job) and when it’s something they do in their spare time (along with all of their other personal commitments)

It’s a good article that’s well worth your time.

At Cvent’s Event Planning blog, they have some advice for marketing during troubling economic times:

-Really work hard to measure the bottom line value of business meetings and event planning services.
-Contact repeat customers and every client with which your company has done business in the past 3 years. Find out their needs and update them about new offerings.
-Contact prospective clients that have requested a proposal in the last 3 years. New opportunities may be emerging .
-Study business articles to identify and target growing and companies.
-Scrutinize marketing expenditures. Discontinue low-yield activities.
-Augment on-line and social media marketing with off-line marketing.
-Connect with hotels, resorts, event venues, and catering firms to identify special packages to market to clients.
-Never cut pricing for existing services. You’ll be stuck with them when the economy recovers.
-Launch and market brand new, affordable service, and time-limited service bundles.
-Set aside 5 – 10% of revenue to enrich the marketing budget.