Interview - James Payne

James Payne is the Founder and President at Halo Travel & Concierge Services, a company that provides a wide range of bespoke and luxury concierge services tailored to all clients for their personal or business life. He also provides event planning and management for private groups and corporate organizations. In this interview, we are picking his brain and getting tidbits that can help take your events to the next level.

Fourteen years ago, James Payne and his company were selected as the official concierge service provider for the Indianapolis Colts in Lucas Oil Stadium. When he got the call, he told them they would need a number of individuals to pull off the idea of a great game-day experience. What is a game-day experience? While people think they are coming to the stadium for popcorn or the game, James and his team look for different ways to create experiences. According to him, the game does not begin with the Colts on that day, the game begins long before with parking, accessibility of tickets, their wardrobe, helping them get hats, and more. “Most people think it’s just about a football game. I take a different lens and perspective.”

A game event is not very different from a business event. James suggests that in doing an event, event planners should start with the end in mind. Don’t go chronological by planning the first day and so on. Instead, do it in reverse. Think about what it is going to be like when the attendees leave. What do you want your attendees to talk, say, and share about the experiences that you provided? What do you need to provide to level up the experience? You can do this by asking your client questions and knowing who the attendees are so that you can create a bespoke program for them.

In some business events, especially multi-day events, attendees gradually become fewer towards the end because people are leaving early. To fix this, James suggests planning things around the event because it is the experience that complements what is taking place at the venue. Things like the registration process, break rooms, logistics, and transportation assistance. Event planners should also plan how they communicate with the attendees about the next speaker coming up. James’ big tip is to utilize technology resources like mobile phones to keep hyping the event. They can use it to send out highlights and fun facts about the speaker at specific intervals. “Technology is a cost-friendly and environment-friendly opportunity to generate the sizzle about the person and the event.”

James said that assumptions and missing details could ruin an event. “Do not assume that your entire team knows everything.” He suggests giving information in 3s or 5s so the team can easily understand and remember them. An example of one of his company’s miserable failures was when they picked up a high-profile athlete at the wrong house because they assumed and did not ask which of his two houses was he at. They never had the same problem since then because they ask for every detail. They utilize technology, and they added one extra step: they call. James highly recommends event planners to use this mobile function because “a phone call is worth a million words.”

James wrapped up the interview with a piece of advice for the event planners. Establish your USP or unique selling proposition. It is that one special unique thing you can do to an event that nobody else can. This way, people would start coming to you for your service.

It was great talking to James Payne. I hope you have collected a lot of great information that you can use to level up your event. If you want to know more about James and his company, you may visit his website at www.haloconcierge.com.