Events Are Not Broken. The Way We Run Them Is.
I’ve spent the last few years working closely with event teams across South Africa, the Middle East, Asia and other international markets. Sitting in that uncomfortable space between operations, technology and real-world delivery.
I’ve seen world-class events delivered by exhausted teams using duct-taped systems. I’ve watched incredibly capable people firefight the same problems event after event, not because they’re disorganised, but because the tools and processes they’re relying on were never designed for today’s scale or expectations.
This isn’t criticism.
It’s an observation from the inside.
Events are not broken.
People still show up in their thousands.
They travel, train, rehearse, plan outfits, take time off work and spend money to be there.
They crave connection, shared moments, competition, celebration and belonging.
What is broken is how many events are run behind the scenes.
Despite the scale, professionalism and commercial value of modern events, a huge number are still powered by fragmented systems, manual processes and institutional chaos that everyone has quietly learned to accept.
The invisible chaos behind great events
From the outside, a good event looks seamless.
From the inside, it often looks like this:
- Dozens of WhatsApp groups firing at all hours
- PDFs and Google Docs that are outdated the moment they’re shared
- Volunteers, staff and vendors all working off slightly different information
- The same questions answered hundreds or thousands of times
- Last-minute changes communicated inconsistently, if at all
None of this happens because event teams don’t care or aren’t capable.
It happens because most event operations have grown organically, not intentionally.
Tools get added reactively.
Processes are patched together under pressure.
What works for 500 people quietly collapses at 5,000.
Over time, the mess becomes normal.
We’ve confused “hard” with “normal”
There’s a dangerous mindset in the event industry that chaos is just part of the job.
That stress, long hours, confusion and constant firefighting are badges of honour.
That if things feel hard, it must mean you’re doing something meaningful.
But difficulty caused by scale or ambition is very different from difficulty caused by poor systems.
Most event stress isn’t about the event itself.
It’s about how information flows.
When information is unclear, everything feels heavier:
- Teams burn out faster
- Volunteers disengage
- Small mistakes turn into big issues
- Participant trust erodes quietly
The worst part is that these problems compound.
Each event inherits the mess of the last.
Technology isn’t the problem. Fragmentation is.
The irony is that event teams don’t lack technology.
They often have too much of it.
Different tools for:
- Ticketing
- Messaging
- Scheduling
- Staff onboarding
- Vendor management
- FAQs
- Sponsor activations
None of them fully talk to each other.
None of them act as a single source of truth.
So under pressure, teams revert to the one thing that does work: WhatsApp, phone calls and memory.
This isn’t a failure of effort.
It’s a failure of design.
(For a broader look at how fragmentation impacts operations at scale, this Harvard Business Review piece explains it well: https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-hidden-costs-of-fragmented-work)
The real opportunity is clarity, not complexity
The future of better-run events isn’t about adding more tools, dashboards or features.
It’s about:
- Clear, structured information
- Fewer systems that do more
- Consistent answers for everyone
- Reducing cognitive load for teams and participants
When information is easy to find and trust:
- Teams move faster with less stress
- Participants feel confident and informed
- Experience improves without extra marketing
- Operations become calmer, not louder
This is where technology and AI actually matter.
Not as shiny add-ons, but as quiet infrastructure that supports humans instead of overwhelming them.
If you’re interested in how AI is shifting from “tool” to “infrastructure” across industries, this is a useful framing: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai
Fix the flow, fix the experience
Participant experience isn’t created on event day.
It’s created in the weeks and months before.
Every unanswered question, every conflicting message, every moment of confusion adds friction.
Enough friction turns excitement into frustration.
If you fix how information flows through an event:
- Experience improves
- Teams perform better
- Trust increases
- Scale becomes manageable
Events are not broken.
But the way we run them needs to catch up with the reality of modern expectations, modern scale and modern behaviour.
And that’s a problem worth solving.