Week 7: RSVPs and Site Visits at The New York Times

This week I continued to manage the RSVPs coming in for Shakespeare in the Park, keeping a thoroughly accurate excel document where I can record the name of the client as well as their guest. At the end of each day I compile a RSVP update to send to the Advertising Director and the rest of the team we report to for the event. I have learned how important it is to keep a clean record of RSVPs and to keep everyone who is involved with the event updated throughout the planning process.

With over 250 events a year, The New York Times does a lot of client entertaining events that allow a NYT Executive and Business Editors to have an intimate dinner with clients throughout the U.S. When given a date and location for a dinner, our team must find a venue that can host 20-30 people at one table and remain within our budget. I have spent this past week compiling a list of venues for dinners in D.C., Detroit, London and NYC. When compiling these lists, I have to be sure I have pricing, availability, photos, and additional information to present to the Executive who is overseeing the event. I arranged a site visit for our team this week to visit one of the dinner venues in NYC so we could talk to the event executive at the restaurant and see the space in person. When given the opportunity, our team loves to be able to see a space in person so we can get a better understanding if the space will work for the particular event.

With so many events in one year, and at least two a week, our team needs to ensure we have every little detail accounted for. Whether the event is in NYC and we are attending it, our it is in a different state and an NYT Events Team member is attending or there is another point person, we need to ensure that everyone knows what to do on site. My manager makes an “overview” for every event we do that has the same base information: location, run of show, branding, menu, on-site contact number, guest count. Having an overview like this allows us to run through the whole event with the team, the venue, and any other people helping with the event. It has become so clear to me how important communication is for our team. We will not send an invoice until we have a firm written yes from an executive, and we will ensure that after every meeting with an executive we send them a recap of the meeting. Having everything in writing and accessible to go back to for reference is so important.

Just being able to work at The New York Times and in such an impressive work environment has been such a great education. I have learned how an effective business is operated, especially in a large company in which our team has to interact with several different teams throughout the building.