Death Comes to the Conference Manager

By Alan Kleinfeld, 4-26-06

In my fulltime, pay-the-rent job, I’m what is known as a meeting planner. In Washington, DC, from where I just relocated to Albuquerque, meeting planning is a big thing. Just about every association in the country (and there’s one for everything) is headquartered or has an office in Washington, DC.

Although the company I work for is still based in DC, we help manage conferences and events all over the country. We had a real whopper recently at the brand new Hyatt Regency Denver Convention Center (the hotel was so new that the carpet fibers clung by static all over our pant legs). The group was a nonprofit with a name so long they made up a nonsensical acronym that means nothing except to those that are members of the association whose purpose is improving the life and education of children of migrant workers.

In any case, the meeting was about 1500 strong with nearly 150 workshop sessions and over 250 workshop leaders (some of the 90 minute presentations had as many as five presenters. Whatever!) and about 30 exhibitor booths. From the first day of planning and coordinating, it was a nightmare. Keynotes weren’t confirmed, printing production got behind schedule (and more expensive) and emotional emails went whizzing back and forth between the client and us. We kept harping on the need to stay on schedule and they kept ignoring us. Nearing the actual conference date, staff in my office was working upwards of 15 hours a day.

Onsite in Denver, we went from one crisis to another, putting out small fires like failing microphones, mis-labeled room names, food shortages and so forth. From behind the scenes, it looked like nothing was going right. Thankfully, from the attendee point of view, things couldn’t have gone better. That’s the trick to being a good conference manager. Like a magician’s smoke and mirrors, we put on a really good show.

Two days before we left to manage the meeting onsite, I had a premonition that I would die on the conference floor. The stress had gotten so high, that I envisioned my own major heart attack. I even saw myself clutch my chest and fall face forward on the brand new hotel carpet, getting carpet fibers all over my mouth. I knew that I might not come back from Denver alive.

And still, I did what my client needed, boarded that Frontier plane for the 50 minute flight and stayed a week in a tiny room while managing all aspects of a 1500 person event. On the last night of the conference, at the closing dance, a 53-year-old man from Oregon, having a ball and dancing up all kinds of whoop, collapsed on the dance floor. He never regained consciousness and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

I’ve been planning and managing meetings and conferences for nearly 15 years and this is my first attendee death. The following morning at the closing ceremony we offered a moment of silence.

In the end, my office decided that it was the most difficult meeting we’ve ever had to manage. The client was late with everything, they demanded lots and offered nothing and to top it all off, a guy died. I just hope my premonitions phase is over. And if not, at least I hope I can go while dancing.
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