While every facility is unique, there are many event management strategies that anyone involved in coordinating space use can leverage to work more efficiently.
Rochelle Criswell, Assistant Director, Student Union, Event Services & Marketing at Boise State University, graciously agreed to share some insights on how BSU handles events in a recent Mazévo Connect session: How Boise State University Manages a Busy Events Operation.
It was an engaging live webinar filled with excellent information.
Setting the Stage
Rochelle starts her presentation by describing Boise State University, a school with an enrollment of nearly 25,000. She also provides details on her team, which is responsible for booking space, coordinating and executing events, and providing guest services across multiple venues.
Last year in the Student Union alone, Rochelle and her team managed more than 4,500 bookings, including 875 major events. Attendance across all events was around 400,000.
Rochelle also lays the groundwork for the rest of her session by describing the event and status types that BSU uses.
BSU’s Thoughtfully Crafted Web Request Process
Next, Rochelle describes how her group created the framework for web requests, including security policies and groups, requestable resources, questions asked of requesters based on organization type, etc.
The settings they selected for web requests help requesters understand what’s required of them and make life easier for the people managing and executing events. Rochelle also mentions the importance of educating people on campus about how to request space, noting that certain functionality has not yet been made available to requesters.
Messaging Made Simple
Rochelle then talks about how her team uses the Mazévo messaging feature. They find it useful for contacting event organizers and communicating internally among events staff, especially since the messages are saved and can be referred back to if needed.
She also emphasizes the value of the outreach her team did to people on campus (including through a Mazévo 101 website) about why using Mazévo is so beneficial—both for the full spectrum of day-to-day event coordination tasks and interactions and as a source of information on past events that makes it easy to schedule a similar gathering in the future.
A Day in the Life
Rochelle continues her presentation by describing what a typical day looks like for her. That starts with checking out the Day At A Glance feature in Mazévo. She also talks about how her intake team uses advanced find events functionality to identify web requests for space in the next 90 days, confirm that everything looks good, and pass the request on to an event coordinator.
Another vital part of handling events at BSU is approvals for AV, parking, and large events that require an event manager to be present. Rochelle and team manage approvals through Mazévo, leveraging the helpful automated “triggers.”
Rochelle also details how her team utilizes scheduled emails in Mazévo, particularly as a reminder 18 days prior to critical event-related deadlines. They also have post-event emails that go out to solicit feedback.
Connect-ing the Dots!
Rochelle’s presentation wraps up with great questions from a very engaged audience. That’s one of the best parts about Mazévo Connect webinars—presenters and our staff helping Mazévo users connect the dots on system functionality and event scheduling best practices.
Our thanks to Rochelle for a great session!
You can check out recordings of all Mazévo Connect webinars on our YouTube channel. But attend live if you can and join the conversation!
