Imagine a medical congress in Santiago. It is Friday, 17:40, and 340 delegates are waiting for the closing talk when the projector in the main room stops working.
The venue technician is not answering the phone, the organiser is looking after the sponsors in another room and the speaker is waiting at the lectern.
If you have a coordinator, they know who else to call at the venue to get the technician there as soon as possible. They reassure the speaker, ask the room staff to keep the delegates informed and only go looking for the organiser if a decision is needed, such as delaying the close. If you do not have one, it falls to you, or nobody deals with it and 340 people sit staring at a blank screen while someone hunts for a phone number.
An event coordinator is there to stop problems from reaching you, which goes well beyond "helping with the organisation".
The confusion comes from the fact that the title is used for everything. Some job adverts with that name are really looking for someone to set out chairs, while other roles involve leading a team of 15 people over several days.
The real job
The coordinator does not organise the event, because you or your agency have already done that. Their job is to make sure the plan is carried out on the day, with the staff in place and information flowing between the organisers, the suppliers and the team.
They lead the staff. If you have hostesses and hosts, assistants or accreditation staff, someone has to make sure each of them is at their post, knows what to do and has their shifts and breaks covered. This is the core of the job.
They put the schedule into practice. Your schedule says "16:00: coffee break". For the coordinator, that means having staff in position to direct delegates towards the hall, checking with the caterer that everything is on time and letting the right person know if there is a delay.
They act as the link. At an event there are many suppliers talking to many people in your company, which leads to confusion, contradictory decisions and messages that get lost. The coordinator is the point of contact between the organisers, the suppliers and the staff, so that each message reaches the right person and only what needs your attention reaches you.
They solve problems without escalating them. Most event problems are small, such as a speaker who cannot find the room, a post left uncovered or a room where the air conditioning is too strong. The coordinator solves whatever is in their team's hands, alerts the relevant venue or supplier about the rest and only passes on to you what genuinely needs your decision.
When you need one
You do not always need one. Some events you can manage yourself without any trouble.
You probably do not need one if:
- It is an internal event with fewer than 30 people
- It lasts less than 4 hours
- There is only one external supplier (or none)
- You can keep an eye on operations without neglecting the attendees
You probably do need one if:
- There are more than 80 attendees
- It lasts more than one day
- Three or more suppliers are working at the same time
- You have to act as host and cannot be solving problems
- The cost of something going wrong is high (an event with important clients, the press or public institutions)
Ultimately the test is simple. Can you afford to be dealing with incidents when you should be talking to the managing director who has come up from Madrid?
How to tell whether the one in front of you is good
There are three signs that help.
1. They ask you awkward questions.
A poorly prepared coordinator says "fine, perfect" to everything. A good one asks what happens if the speaker cancels, who has the key to the press room or whether there is a plan B for the catering if it rains and the terrace cannot be used.
If the preliminary meeting does not make you think about things you had not considered, that is a bad sign.
2. They know the venue.
Some things are not written down anywhere, such as where the working sockets are, how long the goods lift really takes or which door you use to get in before the venue opens.
A coordinator who has already worked at that venue has an advantage. One who has worked at many knows what to ask when they arrive at a new one.
3. They can give you specific references.
"I have coordinated lots of events" is not enough. It has to be something concrete, such as "I coordinated congress X in 2023, with 400 delegates over three days. Talk to Y if you want to hear how it went".
If they are unwilling to give references, or only give vague ones, be wary.
What the service should include
If you hire external coordination, make sure the quote includes:
- A preliminary meeting (not on the day of the event)
- An operational schedule (the internal document with people responsible and phone numbers, not the programme for attendees)
- Full presence (from before the start until after the close)
- A follow-up report (what happened, what incidents occurred, what can be improved)
If any of these is missing, ask why or look for another supplier.
The cost of not having one
Companies are investing more and more in events because they deliver results. They generate contacts, help close sales and strengthen the brand image. An event that goes wrong achieves exactly the opposite, and "going wrong" is often not an obvious disaster but a string of small failures that leave a bad taste, such as the queue to get in, the microphone that did not work, the speaker who started late or the catering that ran out.
What a coordinator costs depends on the hours and days of the event, the experience required and the size of the team they have to lead. Travel and subsistence costs also play a part, as do whether the dates fall in high season and how far in advance you book. In any case, it is usually a small share of what you have already invested in the event. The most practical approach is to ask for a quote based on the details of the event.
One last thing
You are the one in charge. The coordinator carries things out so that you can focus on what matters, which is the attendees, the content and the relationships.
If you finish an event thinking "thank goodness [coordinator's name] was there", you hired well. If you finish thinking "I had to keep an eye on everything myself", the coordination did not work.
We work at events all over Galicia. If you need staff coordination for a congress, a corporate day or any other event in Vigo, Santiago, A Coruña or the surrounding area, let us talk. We know the venues and the usual problems, and we know when to call you and when to sort it out without bothering you.
