If it all goes pear-shaped: Low bar takings, thefts, unsociable behaviour and more.

An insurance policy

The Venue Guide is your insurance policy, it avoids most common problems. Leave The Venue Guide with the venue and they verbally agreed to its content and to communicate it with the rest of their team where necessary. If a problem arises it should be something not covered by the pitch and therefore is covered by this guide.

📉 Low Revenue

Low revenue sometimes happens with new events, usually because: • Venue doesn't take you seriously and so under-report takings. • Venue thinks 20% is too much so under-report takings. • Staff when busy forget to designate some drinks to a ML account. • Staff are unaware that they have to designate drinks to a ML account. • Staff allocate drinks away from our account resenting the extra work. • Staff don't register the drink and instead pocket the money (rare). • The magic roundabout: People turn up, see a semi-empty bar, buy a quick cheap drink maybe, and then leave quickly to another place. New people walk in as they’re leaving.

Important: You must have a good relationship with the bar; do not suggest or hint at foul play either by them or their staff.

Late payment by bar

According to the Events Service Contract payment is either on the night in cash, or < 3 days by bank transfer. Notify a Community Lead if your venue falls 2 weeks behind payment. We will help you (and you avoid penalties).

📉 Low Participation

The problem is usually either Environment or Marketing

1 - Retention (Environment of the event)

This means perform your Event Day mid-way checks, Take a stand, maintain buena onda, and ensure you have a big healthy and happy Ambassador team.

2 - Marketing (Associates)

Update your associates on your City Map. Get out there, meet new people, learn some names and make some friends in your city's language community.

🐤 Early Bird Foundation

A solid attendance at the beginning of the night protects your event from the ‘Magic Roundabout’ when people keep turning up and leaving because the place feels empty. Build a foundation by consolidating early birds during the “reception”. Negotiate generous drinks promotions for your early birds in the first hour, and close your flag table after 3 hours so latecomers come earlier next time.

Ads & Flyers

Advertising, leaflets and spamming online forums may feel like it helps but it’s usually a waste of time with any positive results being very short-lived.

🤹‍♂️ Venue hosts a parallel event

Mundo Lingo is tonight and the venue decided it would be great idea to put on a LadyBoy show at the same time (this actually happened). It’s going to be loud, fun… and disruptive to Mundo Lingo

1. Keep Cool → Anger makes us weak and dumb. Deal with the situation now, vent later. Think of ways to mitigate the damage to the event. Can we go to another area, can they? Negotiate(!)

2. Solutions → Next day write an Email to remind them of the agreement under the Event Service Contract and the Venue Guide. Ask for their re-confirmation that this will not repeat again. You need their answer in writing for possible later steps.

3. If their written response is “no”. Call a meeting with the Venue Manager in person. Bring printed copies of the Event Service Contract and Venue Guide. Insist on their agreement to end the issue.

4. Still No? Suspend Events. Get the green light from us, send us a screenshot of their “No” from step 2. Then, Email the venue owner notifying that you will suspend events for 2 weeks or until they return to agreed terms.

5. Plan B.. City Map If you didn’t update this through the year, you’ll be regretting it now, however don’t despair, just means a few extra hours work. Start a Venue Investigation.

Theft

Thankfully thefts are incredibly uncommon in Mundo Lingo. However if there is a theft, word spreads fast throwing your events into doubt. Some tips:

• Alert venue management. In turn they will help you alert security and their bar staff.

• If it's a small item like a wallet, head to the bathrooms. Often thieves loot bags or jackets in the bathroom leaving them behind as they leave through the front door.

• Telling other participants will only cause panic and encourage people to leave. Thieves often will only strike once in a night anyway.

• Call the police, it must be reported.

• If you know or find out who the thief is inform bar security and the police without attempting to intercept them yourself.

• Be sympathetic with the victim and help them resolve everything especially if they need a translator.

• The responsibility ultimately falls with the bar to resolve this issue. It's you're event, but before all else it's their venue, security and jurisdiction.

• Try to keep the incident from causing alarm online: don’t post about it on social media.

Rude Bar Staff

Bar staff are usually rude because they’re unhappy in their job, or they feel that Mundo Lingo is a nuisance to an otherwise quiet night of the week. They don’t get paid more for doing Mundo Lingo’s extra work, a bit annoying for them.

→ Donate 5% of your earnings at the end of the night to the tip jar. You may feel you can't afford it but you'll more than make it back when they start taking extra care to ensure all drinks go on the ML account. Thank them personally for their hard work ensuring you have their moral support.

→ Greet the staff, managers and security at the beginning of each event. Remember their names and show a genuine interest in them. They can make your life easier.

→ Stone cold faced security staff? Be bold, ask for a quick meet with the head security in the presence of the venue manager. Explain that you appreciate their work because the security of participants is important to you. However we want participants to feel comfortable to communicate with security staff should something happen, therefore it will help if they're greeted with a smile to encourage a stronger rapport between participants and security staff.

Rude Participants

See the EOM guide Zen – Maintaining Buena Onda

Flirty Participants / “Vultures”

See the EOM guide Zen – Maintaining Buena Onda

Liaising with Venues

✅ Basics

• Request a meeting in the early afternoon when it’s quiet + not on an event day.

• Plan the day before, write a list of 4 to 6 subjects. 2 to 8 mins each.

• Thank other attendees for their time before and after the meeting.

• Ask personal questions to break the ice before getting into serious stuff, but for no longer than 10 minutes. You can ask about holidays, work aspirations, recent business success, even family if you feel it’s appropriate.

• Remember eye contact. Explain things with few yet concise words, don’t repeat yourself.

😁 Easy conversation

• Use questions to guide the conversation in the direction you need and keep them talking.. “What would you do in my situation about X?”, “What do you think about option A compared to B?”, “If we remove bar stools, how do you think that will effect the way people buying drinks?”

• If they interrupt you, let them ramble on and on until reaching an awkward-as-possible silence. People who feel listened to are more allied to your ideas.

• When they finish talking wait a few seconds before responding. People who run out of things to say often get a loose tongue, speak more candidly, revealing valuable little truth gems.

• Approach each subject in a postive light avoiding negative words “No”, "Don't", "Never", "Terrible". If you think about it long enough anything can be phrased using only positive words and is much more likely to receive a positive reaction.

• Tap into their personal desire; often money. If you phrase something as being good for our participant’s happiness, they will 🙄... If you phrase it as encouraging more people to come and spend money, you’ll have their attention.

Do say things like:

• “We want to increase profits, and think that X will help this”

• “I totally agree, you make a great point… which is why I want to…”

• “It’s important to us that you benefit from this”

• “Doing X would help us to bring more people (and sell more drinks)”

• “We want to resolve X problem, what would you do in my situation?"

🤬 Difficult conversation

If they are truly unreasonable and uncooperative…

• If you must say something negative, try to smile or even laugh with them about it, keep tensions cool and pro.

• Do not be aggressive, don’t say 👇

  “That's not good enough" → "It's your job to…" → "We'll have to leave this venue if…" → "It’s just frustrating for us…”

Do say:

• "I understand, I’m just letting you know that that is a problem for us"

• “You understand then that you are going back on our agreement?”

• Let them answer their own questions. Propose the problem in a way that makes the solution obvious, then ask them if they have a solution.

• People like implementing ideas they think they came up with themselves. Ask the questions that open the path for them to come up with the right ideas.

Close the meeting

• “We will communicate these issues with our team, would you mind to make sure these issues are also fully communicated with your team?”

• Stand up, make eye contact, shake everyone’s hand and thank them for the time. • End on some personal notes “I hope you enjoy your holiday to..” etc

• Go home, get on the computer and write an email listing the subjects discussed and the conclusions drawn. Send it to the venue. That Email is as good as a contract! You can hold them to it later, don’t rely on their memory(!)

Need to cancel Mundo Lingo

To cancel Mundo Lingo a greenlight is needed. Usually there’s only one criteria accepted to cancel: The bar is closed. If the bar is open, Mundo Lingo is open. Chinese New Year, Tet, Easter, Summer Holidays, mas exodus from your city, sports games, Olympics, bad weather, pollution or transport strikes are not acceptable reasons for cancelling events. The bar being closed is.

When Communication Breaks Down

Now what?

Next up, it’s time for Maintaining Buena Onda

Or Go Back

👈 Events Operations Manual