Facility Management: Planning for the NCAA Final Four - Essay Example

Facility Management Planning for the 2015 NCAA Final Four 1. Introduction Proper management of occasions is crucial to ensure successful outcomes, guest satisfaction, promote the organizer’s image, and generally raise expectations for even more appealing outcome in similar events in the future. Failure to meet expectations and standards of the target audience or users is detrimental because it could paint a picture of incompetence and inexperience in the organization or similar and related events. Thus, severely hurt business success because even management involve many aspects including considerations of the facility or venue capacity and location and infrastructure therein in relation to the expected number of guests, assessing logistical issues involving the program and people control on the material day, how to deal with unexpected occurrences such as accidents or lack of adequate equipment provisions, risks and their mitigation measures among others. All these must be handled in a coordinated manner either concurrently for some and/or in a procedural way for others to ensure event success and leave stakeholders and guests smiling. The context of the event in this paper involves managing a potential event to be held at an arena in Charles Town, West Virginia. The stadium has a seating capacity of 65,000 and is used as a multipurpose facility for many occasions particularly sporting ones. This time it is expected to host the 2015 NCAA Final Four. This paper will provide information on how the event can be organized successfully in terms of planning for its management, risk management, crowd control procedures, medical emergency, and evacuation. It will also try to describe how facility negligence can be avoided to minimize risks and undesirable outcomes. 2. Event Planning Planning is the most important part of any occasion or project to be undertaken. This would generally involve developing a management plan including a program of activities to be done and timing. In case advertising or other advance activities are to be done, these must be planned earlier than the event date and a time schedule is therefore important here. The scope of management skills required for such an event would include organizing, resourcing, creative directing, human resource management, negotiating, financial management, public representation and troubleshooting (Enock and Jacobs, 2008). 2.1 Details of the Event As an event manager, I would begin by enquiring about event time if the date in 2015 has not been decided on already. This is important so that the timing for the NCAA final four is scheduled at a time when weather is favorable for majority of people to be in town to boost turn up and success. The venue has already been decided upon and so that may not be an event detail to deal with. 2.2 Setting up the Organizing Committee Group or team work is always an important aspect of any work management style. Here I would be concerned about who are the main stakeholders for this event including promoters, stadium facility people, and service providers among others. A statement of roles and responsibilities would then be developed after brainstorming on the key activity areas. Managing committees effectively means recognizing why people became involved; it requires a combination of organizational skills and an understanding of the members. Skills match to roles and jobs to be done is important to achieve effective and efficient performance of the work at hand. I would promote motivation of members of the committee by appraising, recognition, instilling a sense of ownership of the process to them and encouraging networking and acquisition of new knowledge and skills by individuals. Based on technical expertise of the members, I shall set up a number of necessary subcommittees to deal with duties of secretariat, technical, logistics, sponsorship, and publicity. 2.3 Set Clear Objectives With the committee in place, I will then guide the process of deciding on what it is we want to do through a brainstorming session with the members. For the event at hand, the main objective will be to ensure a successful NCAA final four in 2015. Other overriding objectives shall include: a. Ensure efficient resource management in terms of budget, human resources, facilities, equipment and necessary infrastructure. b. Ensure proper logistical management in term of program and timeliness, crowd control among others. c. Assess potential risks and put in place risk mitigation measures in terms of accident management, evacuation measures, provision of medical personnel and equipment, security concerns among others. 2.4 Roles and Responsibilities Each subcommittee set up above will be assigned several responsibilities as follows (Taylor and Edmondson, 2007): The secretariat subcommittee will deal with crafting the concept plan, providing administrative assistance and coordination, co-ordination of the activities of the various other subcommittees, provision of secretarial duties in all meetings and debriefings of the main committee, organizing for any assessment visits by the committee for service and goods provision purposes, compilation and submission of the operating budget including control of its expenditure for secretariat activities, compilation of the guest list and forward invitations, monitoring and collation of invitation replies, determination and execution of reception for members, officials and guests, administration of all matters relating to VIP invitations and protocol, preparation of advisory notes, circulation and implementation of an ushering plan for guests, co-ordination and organization of a post-event debriefing, maintenance of relevant records of the event as archive information for similar or related future events. The technical subcommittee will come up with the event fixtures, handle disciplinary matters, compile rules and regulations for the event as well as compile, control and manage its own budget allocation. The publicity subcommittee shall put in place a publicity plan and program including coordination of all activities with the media and media conferences, coordinate press releases from other subcommittees, designing and distribution of the whole range of publicity materials for the event and compile, control and manage its operating budget. The sponsorship subcommittee shall lay out the fund raising activities including coordination of registration of teams to participate, sourcing for sponsorships for cash and kind as well as prizes and other products and services necessary for such an event, then also compile, control and manage its budget. The logistics subcommittee on the other hand shall provide necessary pre and post event physical preparations for the event including stadium and surrounding decorations, provisional of directional signs to the venue as guided by the authorities, ensure establishment of a central command centre and availability of medical facilities, and compile, control and manage their budget allocation. This group must also put in place measures to curb facility negligence, minimize destruction of equipment and infrastructure as well as make sure that the condition of the facility and its contents is maintained even after the event. It should however be noted that the overall responsibility to ensure achievement of the main objective will be with the event manager who shall oversee coordination and management of the work of the committee and the subcommittees. 2.5 Financial Planning It is important to come up with the event’s budget where a projection of the income and expenditure will be done to assess the financial viability of the occasion. Income sources for such an event would generally include ticket sales, catering, merchandising among others while confirmed and pledged grants and donations from individuals and institutions may also form part of it. Examples of expenses include administration costs, office rental, site costs –facility hiring, catering equipment, staging, artistic costs –which include performers' fees, accommodation, travel, hire of instruments and marketing and publicity costs including paying electronic and print media materials. There should be every effort to balance expenditure with income but where the later is more than the former, a surplus is recorded to mean financial viability of the event. Expenditure cuts or seeking for more funding sources may be the only methods to manage the situation where expenditure exceeds income. 3. Crowd Control Plan This will generally involve good organization of guests expected to attend the event including provision of adequate parking, open and clear accesses and exit points for everyone even people with disabilities, provision of adequate lighting and where possible organize for transport to and from the venue. It is important to contact and inform the authorities about the event early in advance to ensure that proper regulations and necessary government security is made available because a sporting event is a public affair. Determination of the right security needs will help decide on the appropriate security whether police, or private security. All costs arising from management of traffic, advertising, and crowd control are supposed to be included in the budget. Lighting should be adequately provided to identify exits as well as areas leading to them. Standby power supply from equipment such as generators should be installed as an emergency measure and to power the public address system to guide and inform the crowd of alternatives in the case of the happening of an undesirable event. This is critical to minimize panic in the crowd and save lives. Other essential services that must be considered include provision of free or low charge water for the day, arena’s capability to provide adequate shelter in case of sudden weather changes like heavy downpour or too much sunlight. Waste management services including availability of wash rooms and dustbins everywhere around the stadium must also be planned for and provided. 4. Risk Management Plan Regarding the safety of venue facility, the team will ensure that it provides possibility of easy exit or evacuation points just in the event that there may be uncalled for occurrence on the material day. Adequate preparations for emergency services both for the players and guests must be laid down. Emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers must be well serviced and readily available at strategic points around the arena. As the event manager, I will ensure that wholesome risk assessment is undertaken to determine potential hazards such as unfavorable weather conditions, slips and pitfalls including small holes which may twist people’s ankles and possible areas that may become sources of fire and destruction. Security concerns is another risk area that need to be emphasized particularly in light of the present day terrorism acts. Ways of minimizing the risks must be devised. Most important in risk management is the provision of insurance cover to safeguard event organizers, volunteers, event staff and the public as well as material things too. A comprehensive public liability insurance and option for legal redress are recommended. A contingency plan would also be important to provide a fall back action plan when certain unexpected challenges arise. The contingency plan is drawn by evaluating all possible undesirable occurrences, impact and respective action points to manage the situation (Wynsberghe and Sparks, 2010). 5. Medical Emergency and Evacuation Plan There should be an incident control centre on the material day, which must be accessible by ambulances with someone to facilitate and coordinate information provision and dissemination particularly in terms of public announcements and emergencies. There will be formally written incident management plan, which includes first aid procedures provided to organizers, key stakeholders, police and emergency service personnel. Local Emergency Service personnel should be contacted at least two months prior to the event. The incident plan must also indicate the liaison people for the police, firemen, local hospital and ambulance service and contain information about meeting points for emergency services, contacts for local ambulance services and hospital, and how communication will take place on the material day. Details of where lost and found items and children can be found/taken from are provided in the incident plan with all reported incidents compiled and a report produced. 6. Conclusion Management of a sports event of a magnitude such as the 2015 NCAA Final Four would generally require proper planning to ensure achievement of the objectives and enhance success. The scope of work here includes coming up with an event plan, crowd control plan, risk management plan and a plan for medical emergency and evacuation. Event planning involves details of the event, setting up the team, setting the objectives straight, assigning roles and responsibilities and financial planning. The latter is critical in determining the financial viability of holding the event. References Enock, K. and Jacobs, E. J. (2008). The Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012: Literature review of the logistical planning and operational challenges for public health. Public Health (Elsevier); Vol. 122 Issue 11, p1229-1238, 10p Taylor, M. and Edmondson, I. (2007). Major Sporting Events -Planning For Legacy. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Municipal Engineer; Vol. 160 Issue 4, p171-176, 6p. Wynsberghe, R.V. and Sparks R., (2010). Economic and Management of Olympic Games. Retrieved from http://css.ubc.ca/files/2011/01/symposium-abstracts.pdf Read More