No Two Days Are The Same

A Week (or Three) in the Life of an Event Planner and CEO

People ask me what I do for a living, and I never quite know where to start.

Not because the answer is complicated.

Because it's everything.

In any given week, I am an event planner, a CEO, a CSO, a CMO, an accountant, a contract negotiator, a crisis manager, and occasionally - a mani-pedi enthusiast who also has the governor's office on speed dial.

But here's what I love most about this job. Two things, actually.

First: I get to wear multiple hats. Not just in theory - in practice, every single day. Strategy in the morning. Sales in the afternoon. Production details at 11 PM. That variety isn't a bug. It's the whole point.

Second: I get to play in completely different industries, simultaneously. My current clients span government, forensic science, bookstores, higher education, hoteliers, veterinarians, healthcare providers, and more. I get to think and operate across all of these worlds at once. It's endlessly interesting. No day - and no week - looks like the last.

Want proof? Let me show you.

December: The Year-End Sprint

December is not a slow month in this business. Here's what three weeks actually looked like.

Week of December 1

A rare moment off the clock with our COO Jackson — face to face with three Super Bowl trophies.

Courtesy of Hermes Transportation — proof that even the "all in a day's work" moments come with pret

Not a bad place to spend an evening reviewing game footage with team alumni.

Monday kicked off with restructuring my sales strategy, sending a client invoice, and launching a registration site - then pivoting immediately to build out the 2026 strategy for an organization I volunteer with.

That included researching industry events, promoting certifications, planning a VIP event, and oh - reaching out to the Colorado Governor and Denver Mayor about attending one of our conferences.

Tuesday: four hours of client meetings, 200+ emails answered, a 12-event strategy built for one client including starting the venue search for all twelve, award invitations sent, and sponsorships secured.

Wednesday: another registration launch, two housing reports reviewed in depth, membership outreach, AMEX paid, a contract sent, a networking holiday party attended, sales and prospecting, and blog content drafted for the marketing calendar.

Thursday brought more client meetings, venue contracting for 2026, speaker sourcing, a rooming list update - and an evening at the Broncos' stadium reviewing game footage with team alumni as a VIP customer appreciation event.

Friday: coordinating a planning visit, helping a client deal with a vendor who invoiced them six months late, a conversation with the accountant about health insurance and taxes - and a midday break for a facial. Because yes, that matters too.

Week of December 8

Registration desk duty: badges, lanyards, and making sure every guest finds their seat before the pr

The moment every award show is built for. The room comes alive.

Congratulations to the Jacquard Hotel team on taking home Hotel of the Year.

This week had a different energy. Monday was a full day inventorying and deep cleaning the BME storage unit - unglamorous, essential.

Then Tuesday hit. Event prep day: printing name badges, building the show flow script, sending sponsor invoices, pushing the Know Before You Go, and simultaneously transitioning a different event from abstract submissions through acceptance, migration to a secondary portal, agenda build, and Letters of Agreement sent. All before the doors opened on Wednesday.

Wednesday: worked the event. Set up, staffed registration, celebrated with attendees, tore down. Also built out 2026 event details on a client website, created and scheduled marketing campaigns, contracted speakers, compiled a Board of Directors slate, and put together a budget. While running an event.

Thursday was intentionally lighter - because Wednesday was a marathon - with a focus on marketing content and hotel audit tracking compared against prior years.

Friday: a 2027 budget built, a VIP event planned for the volunteer organization, and a Friday afternoon treat-yourself mani-pedi.

(I am a firm believer that self-care is a business strategy. More on that in a future post.)

Week of December 15

This is what I call a CEO week. Mondays in this stretch are reserved for big-picture business work - not client deliverables.

Re-upping company health insurance. Reviewing and acting on notes from every conference I attended that year. Setting up for 2026: wall calendar, invoicing, financial review, small business planner update. Updating QuickBooks across clients, projects, time tracking, and mileage.

Later in the week: company P&L work, a full website rebuild and platform migration, the Q4 newsletter drafted and sent, and a post-event recap published.

And then: a big glass of wine, and an actual holiday break.

April: Four Months Later - Same Energy, Different Season

Fast forward to April. The rhythm is the same. The specifics are entirely different.

Week of April 20

A glimpse into the unglamorous side: reviewing rooming blocks and booking links so attendees never h

CEO hat on. Working through the numbers, one challenge at a time.

Behind the scenes of the website you're probably reading this on right now.

Monday started with transitioning the company from ChatGPT to Claude - because we evolve - alongside a weekly hotel pickup report, new client prospecting, and then: a proposal due that same day for a prospect I had just found. Dropped everything. Built the whole thing.

Also on Monday: scheduling May marketing content, reconciling the books, paying AMEX, and running payroll.

Tuesday: continued proposal work, took a client call from the hair salon chair, answered attendee emails on hotel reservations, speaker logistics, exhibitor questions, and AV. Sent rooming list updates, reviewed speaker AV needs, assigned sessions to rooms, and sent an exhibitor e-blast.

Wednesday: submitted the proposal. Then spent several hours answering emails. Built a mobile app for a conference. Learned an entirely new software for conference surveys and session evaluations.

Thursday: booked flights for a planning visit and an upcoming conference, met with a client about contract renewal and collaboration for the new year, revamped the BME service offerings sheet, built a post-conference survey, ordered event t-shirts, secured a new sponsor, and worked on the marketing calendar for June and July.

Friday: a late evening catching up on email - because that's the life. A manicure and facial carved out during the day - because that's also the life. Several client meetings, a yoga instructor sourced for a client special event, white space activations brainstormed, entertainment and dinner figured out for a different client event, and staffing secured for an event I'm planning but can't attend.

So What Does This All Mean?

It means this job is never what people think it is.

It's not just logistics. It's not just pretty venues and polished events.

It's running a company inside a company - or in my case, running multiple companies at once across industries that have nothing in common except that they all need their events to be exceptional.

It's financial leadership, crisis management, sales strategy, and production execution - sometimes all in the same afternoon.

It's manicures and the mayor's office in the same week.

And I genuinely wouldn't have it any other way.

Because no two days are the same.

And that's exactly the point.