Have you ever had an event to plan and your brain just takes an unexpected vacation? Leaving you with no inspiration or ideas for your event. How do you get your brain to come back from its leave of absence and get those creative juices flowing again? Funny that you asked because I have the answer for that flighty brain of yours.
Go Back to the Basics
In Creativity 101, one of the best ways to spark ideas is to conduct a brainstorming session. This can be alone or with your event team. Try these nifty brainstorming techniques and watch the ideas blossom:
Mind Mapping
Start off with your goal in the center and work your way outward with branches that are related to your main idea or goal. This will help you to identify what is important for your event. Another strategy is to take one event aspect and use it as the center of your mind map. Then, identify what can be related to that event aspect. This is a good way for you to visualize all aspects of event planning in one central location. It's also an easy way to see if there are any conflicting.
Medici Effect
Place your task or goal beside similar goals in various contexts and identify parallel solutions. For example, if you're trying to find a theme for your event, look at how the event might be like other event types such as weddings, corporate events and black-tie affairs. You might notice that the event is formal or elegant in nature and can have event visuals that are compatible with those event types.
Fill in the Gap
You know what Point A is (starting point) and you know what Point Z is (your goal). Figure out what you need to do to fill in this gap. For example, Point A might be you need to choose event venues and Point Z is event success. So now all you need to do is find the various ways in between to get from Point A to Point Z which will lead us to event success.
Blind or Free Writing
You may feel a little crazy doing this, but it works. Simply pick up your pen and begin writing. Do this for 10 - 20 minutes and let the magic flow. You can either close your eyes or just look out into space to give yourself the feeling that you can't see anything. Once you're done, don't judge the event concepts based on what they are but how quickly and easily they appeared.
Teleport
Teleport yourself to a different time and/or place and ask yourself how you would handle this event under those circumstances. This is a great way to let go of event planning details, rules and restrictions that are attached to event planning in the present moment. Instead, think outside of the event box for this exercise.
SWOT Analysis
Write down all the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. This will help brew up some pretty good ideas in a flash. The event strengths and opportunities will be the event's assets that you'll want to play up. On the other hand, event weaknesses and threats need to be minimized or eliminated altogether so think of what you can do to counteract these items.
Meditate
Sitting quietly for at least ten minutes focusing solely on your goal will quiet the brain long enough for inspiration to spring upon you. We know that event planning can be draining, so taking this event time for yourself will replenish you and refocus your event goals.
101 Ways
Write down 101 ways you could plan your event. It doesn’t matter how outlandish they may be, just get them out. After you're done, go back and review your event concepts. You might find that there are some event themes that were unexpected but sound interesting. Creativity is just around the corner!
Brain Writing
This is great for your event team. Have your team write their ideas on a piece of paper, after 10 minutes, have everyone pass their papers to the person on their left and build off what other team members have written. Continue until papers have come full circle. After everyone has read all the event ideas, discuss event themes that came out of this process.
Trigger Method
Think and brainstorm as many ideas as possible in 20 minutes. Then select the best ideas and use those to trigger even more ideas. Keep doing this until you have event concepts that will meet event goals and event objectives.
As always, WE would like to wish you the best in all that you do! If you have questions or comments, please feel free to post them below or shoot me an email. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our latest blogs and stay up to date with The Wynning Experience events.
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This is Bradford Wynn signing off and may all your events be a "Wynning Experience"!