Event Recap: Chapter Chat – Risk Management by Janet Green

We began our discussion with the question, "What does Risk Management mean to you?" I started by discussing how I learned so much in my finance course in SDSU Graduate School during our week on risk management. My instructor, Heather Mason, taught us to list every event's risk and rate the top three assigned values. 

Then people discussed current threats that we had not considered, like attendee comfort level, weather, economic environment, crime, and travel restrictions. 

We discussed, and Heather was asked to define force majeure. She explained that force majeure is tied to acts of God. It is unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. Other risks include natural disasters, labor strikes, fires, floods, or other circumstances that would prevent people from traveling. 

Heather mentioned tying risk management to attendance, and many people thought this was a great idea. A question was asked on how to best move forward with contracts in today's environment. Heather recommended doing a stair-step in the contract and basing the agreement on local laws. She also discussed other clauses or terms for contracts to include commercially impracticable and the frustration of purpose.

Heather shared a website for more information: https://hospitalitylawyer.com. 

Further discussion included if a cancellation does occur, do you refund? Most planners agreed it is not a good idea to refund but offer a credit to transfer to another event.

We had a great discussion; the overarching sentiment was that people will have to determine the risks based on current circumstances in the future.