THE WILEY EVENT MANAGEMENT SERIES The essential guide to making your events extraordinary Practical strategies for designing and decorating special events Event planners need professional-caliber information that explains how to decorate a venue for a special event—from assessing the client's decor needs and objectives to staying within a budget. Art of the Event serves as the ultimate guide to designing and decorating events and celebrations, from eight to 8,000 guests. Written by James C. Monroe, a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) and Certified Special Events Professional (CSEP) with decades of experience in special event design and decoration, Art of the Event is divided into three comprehensive parts to help readers redefine the modern profession of event design: Principles, Processes, and Practices: examines aesthetics, the design process, and professional practices The Decorative Elements: describes the various decorative elements that are used in special events and discusses how to use them in practical and specific ways The Universe of Special Events: describes various types of events that the designer is asked to create and discusses the different requirements of each, including nonprofit events, corporate events, social events, weddings, fairs, and parades THE WILEY EVENT MANAGEMENT SERIES—Series Editor, Dr. Joe Goldblatt, CSEP THE WILEY EVENT MANAGEMENT SERIES provides professionals with the essential knowledge and cutting-edge tools they need to excel in one of the most exciting and rapidly growing sectors of the hospitality and tourism industry. Written by recognized experts in the field, the volumes in the series cover the research, design, planning, coordination, and evaluation methods as well as specialized areas of event management.

"In The Art of Event Planning, Gianna Gaudini demystifies the process, challenges and joys of event planning at the highest level. She comes to the table as a highly seasoned professional, but she delivers incredible information that can be applied to a large event or the most intimate dinner at home, interchangeably. She is so generous with her experience and has so clearly outlined an effective work flow and process that her words will truly inspire even the novice. This book is also an empowering guide to leadership, communication, partnership and visionary thinking. Whether interested in an events career or simply a leadership role in any kind of organization, Gianna provides inspiration and clarity for the most basic and effective interpersonal skills that are central to any great working relationship. That's a truly unexpected bonus, and I recommend this book whole heartedly. BRAVO!" -- David Stark, renowned Author, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of David Stark Design and Production Do you want to create live or virtual events that are memorable, engaging and impactful? Do you want to take your career in event planning to the next level? Then, read on... Amazon best-seller, Art of Event Planning, will forever alter the way you look at your next corporate event, gala, conference, dinner party, and virtual event-and create better engagement and success. This book is both an enjoying journey and tactical guide with exciting ideas and real-world applications. It's time to learn how to make a lasting impact for your company, your attendees, and most importantly -- your professional identity. The Art of Event Planning: Pro Tips from an Industry Insider, currently included in the California State School hospitality and tourism management course curriculum is a valuable and insightful guide for event planners. Gianna Gaudini, former Event leader for Google, Vision Fund, and currently Head of Events, Training and Certification for Amazon Web Services, reveals her secrets for event planning and career success. Whether you're a well-seasoned veteran, just starting out, or anywhere in between, you'll benefit from her case studies, advice and lessons learned through years of experience. Gianna is passionate about helping event planners create events that are memorable, meaningful, impactful and most of all successful. She is a sought-after writer and speaker and holds certifications in interior design and as a court master sommelier. You can learn more by visiting www.giannagaudini.com/press for press, podcasts, and webinars by Gianna. The Art of Event Planning will help you: Guarantee event planning success using her pro-tips and secret sauce formula Build a career in event planning and establish your unique niche Create unforgettable experiences at live or virtual events Surprise And Delight Your Audience Build your rockstar event team Develop successful and win RFP's Define your target audience Find the perfect venue Measure and create ROI Learn best practices for working with clients and stakeholders Market your event Navigate contracts and negotiation like a pro Incorporate diversity and inclusion practices at your event Personalize your event experience at scale Identify and acquire your target audience Create a winning event strategy Execute flawless events

"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

Named a Best Business Book of 2021 by Soundview Magazine Reclaim the power of genuine human connection Networking is often considered a necessary evil for all working professionals. With social media platforms like Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at our disposal, reaching potential investors or employers is much easier. Yet, these connections often feel transactional, agenda-driven, and dehumanizing, leaving professionals feeling burnt out and stressed out. Instead, we should connect on a human level and build authentic relationships beyond securing a new job or a new investor for your next big idea. To build real and meaningful networking contacts, we need to go back to basics, remembering that technology is a tool and more than just a means to an end. We need to tap into our humanity and learn to be more intentional and authentic. As a “serial connector” and communications expert, Susan McPherson has a lifetime of experience building genuine connections in and out of work. Her methodology is broken down into three simple steps: Gather: Instead of waiting for the perfect networking opportunity to come to you, think outside the box and create your own opportunity. Host your own dinner party, join a local meet-up group, or volunteer at your neighborhood food pantry. Ask: Instead of leading with our own rehearsed elevator pitches asking for help, ask to help, opening the door to share resources, experience, contacts, and perspectives that add diversity to your own vision. Do: Turn new connections into meaningful relationships by taking these newly formed relationships deeper. Follow through on the promises you made and keep in touch. Woven together with helpful tips and useful advice on making the most out of every step, this book draws on McPherson’s own experience as a renowned “serial connector,” as well as the real life success stories of friends and clients. Filled with humor, humility, and wisdom, The Lost Art of Connecting is the handbook we all need to foster personal and professional relationships that blur the lines between work and play—and enrich our lives in every way.

The Event of Art presents, in fifty-two modular chapters and over eight hundred pages and images, the works of artist Marc Lafia. The book interweaves essays, notes, photographic archives, and a host of exhibitions wherein Lafia traverses his wide body of work and examines how his early strategies of cultural reading of photography and film, of interface, network culture, and social media, transform into an investigation of materiality itself. If his interest was once the way media becomes the message, his interest later becomes the realm of the sensible and the sensate in themselves. Here he presents art as the medium itself, giving us wide permission to explore and examine our deepest feelings and senses, our world and its becoming. The book is introduced by two essays. The first is by curator and art dealer Mathieu Borysevicz, where he recounts meeting Lafia at his first artist residency, and the many projects they would go on to do together. He introduces Lafia's interest in recording as it becomes digital and computational where "recording is not only memory, and a data structure, but a permutational instrument and ever-changing horizon of iterations." The other introductory essay is by critic Daniel Coffeen, who writes, "while Lafia may not have a traditional medium - there is no such thing anymore - he does in fact have one consistent medium: imaging making itself, its apparati of creation, consumption, and circulation. In fact Lafia's medium is the discourse of art - what it is, how it comes to be, how we experience it." The Event of Art presents the work of art as a complex material and societal event. The event is multiple, a continual becoming of perception, being, materiality, participation, a coming to the senses and the making, shaping and opening to them, not only of one's self, but the world becoming.

Ritual today can be encountered in the midst of catastrophic and transforming events. This collection reassesses and revises traditionally understood relationships between ritual and politics, ritual and everyday life, ritual and art making, and ritual and disaster. The methodologies as well as the subject matter are interdisciplinary: they range from the anthropological to the art and dance historical, from the theatrical and literary to the linguistic, philosophical, and psychoanalytic. It will be a valuable tool for scholars of Theater and Performance Studies, as well as Anthropology, Art, and History.