When Things Go Awry : Just About Everything--Including Acts of God--Is Blamed on Meeting Organizers

A hotel employee mistakenly delivers a CIA briefcase containing top-secret documents to a conference planner, prompting the government to send a search team of agents on a seek-and-shred mission.

- A dour and dignified executive stands on a podium and smoothly delivers his speech until the mood is suddenly disrupted by the happy sounds of piped-in Muzak.

- A meeting planner plots a business gathering and meticulously guards against surprises, only to have a high school band practice its marching drills near the building on the day of the meeting.

Welcome to the world of the meeting planner. The old saying that “If something can go wrong, it will,” is axiomatic to the professionals who plan conventions, business meetings and conferences. Not so well known is its sarcastic corollary: “If something goes wrong, blame the planner.”

Blaming the person who organized the meeting can sometimes go to extremes, according to Jennifer Wilson, West Coast planner for Price Waterhouse. Some attendees once blamed a meeting organizer for an earthquake that caused the hotel lights to go out, she recalled.

Food is usually the most common source of discontentment, planners say. “Why do we always have to have chicken?” is a common refrain, they say. Menu selection is a ticklish subject, according to planners. Chicken is frequently the choice because it has become acceptable in recent years to more people than meat or fish.

“Conference planning is crisis management,” said C. B. Kelly, manager of conference planning for Atlantic Richfield. “It’s always the unexpected that bites you. . . . The projector doesn’t work, or a slide is fried. It’s a collection of crises. You handle one, take a deep breath and move on to the next one.”

Kelly recalled an incident in which the firefighting was literal, the result of a fire on a dinner table at a New York hotel. “It was prior to dinner,” Kelly said. “We had to extend the cocktail party.”

Many complaints against planners are lodged when conferees are asked to make comments on evaluation forms, according to Susan Butler, head of a local planning company. Conferees are not always sure where the blame lies, Butler said. For example, she cited a complaint from a conferee who shared a hotel room to save money.

“I guess it’s not the planner’s fault that the room wasn’t large enough for five people,” the conferee lamented.