Independence Day in DC is like orchestrating a Conference!

Living in the DC area has many advantages, and one of them is to participate in the Independence Day holiday events. Where else can you have a birthday party filled with a concert, good food and fireworks in your backyard that is worthy of being broadcast on television? Well, I guess it is really the Obama’s backyard this year more than my backyard.

The celebration is actually a ten day event (a conference if you will) that includes the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and involves:

• a parade on Constitution Avenue…….. (like the introduction of your Board!
• 3,000 performers and dancers………….. (like your conference staff)
• giant balloons, bunting, streamers and banners……….  (like your registration area décor)
• floats, and concession areas …….. (like your tradeshow exhibit floor)
• military personnel from thirteen states………… (like your human arrows and badge checkers)
• rooftop parties atop office buildings close to the mall….. (like your “In Conjunction With” events!)

I think of Bruce Harris, the founder of our company, every year at this time because one of the things that Bruce is well known and remembered for is the many days of teaching our new staff at employee orientation about the importance of “flow management.” Flow Management is an entire session dedicated to the knowledge on how to manage the flow of people so that events are executed with planned intention down to the last detail. Loading your general session so that all of the seats are occupied, especially the ones in the center of a row, and that attendees are sitting in the seats closest to the stage as possible, is the same thing as what the National Park Service does on the National Mall for all of the millions of revelers. District and federal planners think in advance which streets leading to the National Mall need to be closed or opened, how to control the access to the mall with pre-identified entry points. Homeland Security and Metro officials decide which subway stations need to be closed for security purposes and which need to have trains at the ready for the conclusion of the fireworks to transport millions out of the city at the same time.

There are well-prepared parents traversing around the Mall with pockets filled with suntan lotion, bug spray, band aids, water bottles and a cell phone to Twitter to their children when they have wandered off………..just like a meeting planner at a convention will have their pockets stuffed with masking tape, door stops, duct tape, arrows for signage, post-it notes and the infamous radios in case one of the staff cannot be located!

One thing that is not like a convention is the temperature of the “general session.” While many of us have frozen in a facility’s ballroom, the temperature at this event can be quite overwhelming, usually in the nineties. There are no frantic calls to the engineering department to make the general session room warmer! Attendees on the National Mall are encouraged to keep drinking bottled water, unlike the meeting planner at a convention that sees bottled water consumption as dangerous territory for ones’ budget!

The fireworks display at the end of the day is like the grand finale of the closing session. You hear “oooohs and aaahs” from the happy participants and then there is a mad scramble to beat the traffic and go home. Somewhere underneath the Capitol Building in the closed to the public tunnels, I suppose there is an event planner that is taking off their shoes because their feet hurt, eating the rest of the bagel that they started eating at 7am, and packing boxes, organizing shipping labels, and collecting their thoughts on ways to improve for next year for the post-convention report…….just like at all of our conventions!