Why become an event organiser — my story

It started with sport, and a missed race

I grew up wanting to watch every sports broadcast I could. Before the internet and paid channels, that was rarely often enough. So the moments that did land stayed sharp. I still remember being sent for a nap during the women's 10km cross-country race at the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics, and missing a Finnish gold. I remember waking early that summer for the men's javelin final in Los Angeles. And I remember recording the best matches of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico on VHS and watching them a hundred times over.

Decades later, sport is available every day, around the clock. That is a gift, but for me the mediated version loses its edge. The experiences I have lived in person — surrounded by others, fully present — are a different thing entirely. Those are the memories that never leave the hard drive.

We all carry event memories that feel like yesterday. A break from ordinary life we want more of. That want is the reason people attend.

Into the work by accident

I fell into organising in the late 1990s, earning extra money running student parties at nightclubs while I studied. In my final year of business studies I could not find a suitable internship at home, so I approached Lahti Ski Club, the organisation behind the Salpausselkä Games. I assumed it would be easy — I had been going every winter. It was not easy. It was fascinating. A short internship became a five-year, hands-on masterclass in event production.

I listened, watched and asked questions. I read, I tried new things, and I made mistakes. I absorbed what others knew, and slowly trained myself into an event organiser.

From Nordic skiing and biathlon I moved to Management Events, running conferences for decision-makers. Their model was ahead of its time. When everyone in a company can answer why, what and how value is created for clients, the foundation for success is there. It is striking how many public events still struggle with that basic point.

The chase for the perfect experience

In the 2000s customer experience became a strategy buzzword, and I was drawn to it. In the competition for people's attention, time and money, the winner usually offers the best value — and for an attendee, value is the memory that sticks.

So I stopped watching the sport and started watching everything around it: traffic flow, queues, food, staff service, crisis communication. The things that shaped how I felt afterwards, and what I told other people. I never found the perfect event. Eventually I asked the obvious question: what if I tried to build it myself? It is the same attention to detail I now write about in enhancing customer experience at events.

Lahti 2017

I went back to where it began. I was project manager for Finland's bid to host the 2017 Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti. Few believed in our chances early on. We won the decisive International Ski Federation vote with around 80%.

The event was built in a bold, new way under Secretary General Janne Leskinen. I was event director, responsible among other things for the audience's experience. In total 270,000 people attended. The daily recommendation score was 88%, overall satisfaction 96%. Close to the perfect experience I had been chasing — but not all the way.

What if we had translated well-planned elements into production more faithfully? Delivered individual services more efficiently? Understood, during planning, how experience-enhancing details hit production, resources, commercial operations and the budget? Those unanswered questions are exactly the gap that the warning signs of an event heading for trouble describe — plans that never quite become production.

There has to be a better way to design and produce events around the attendee — higher quality, more cost-effective, easier and faster. That is why my focus shifted to sharing what I have learned, and to the system that carries it: the Bonacube App. The mission now is to give event professionals the tools to deliver experiences people keep.