Event Day

Mundo Lingo

0xe2A0

December 29th, 2021

How to run Mundo Lingo like an absolute Pro.

New Managers, keep this open on your phone during your first events!

🚲 Arrival

Arrive 20 minutes before the event. Because:

The bar should be clean, staffed, fridges stocked, fruits cut and furniture set-up according to our agreement. However we don’t take it for granted. Arrive early to assist the host in checking readiness.
Occasionally, things go wrong. We arrive early to accommodate it. Parrallel events, water leaks, power cut, pigeon behind the bar… you name it.
We need to set up the Reception table before the first people arrive. Trying to focus on set up while simultaneously keeping the first arrivals is difficult and stressful.

👋 Greet the Staff

Greet every single bar staff, security, glass collectors, shift manager, ignore nobody. Seriously. Ask them to help you with your Setup Checks…

📐 Setup Checks

🔀 Flow

Push the tables to the walls so that people can’t get between the table and the wall, this allows groups to naturally move, mingle and flow. Ask bar staff to help you.

🪑 Chairs

It’s a standing event. Seating for no more than 10% of participants.

🍋 Bar

Check the bar areas are clean, fridges are stocked, cut fruit, toilet paper in the bathrooms and everyone ready for an invasion.

☯️ Music, Lighting, Temperature - 🎸 Fun bar volume, loud enough to tap your feet but low enough to not shout. 💡 Bright enough to see the Reception table, dark enough to be a romantic candle-lit date. 🌡Cool or warm enough to receive 200 people bringing the outside hot or cold with them.

Reception Table

Location

Near the entrance or somewhere participants naturally pass on their way to the bar. They should get their flags before reaching the bar

Flags

Count local flags for the attendance tally.
Setup the full Table Plan.

Team

The reception table is open for 3 hours, staffed exclusively by trained Flaggers. Before the event start time check your team have everything they need including drinks and bathroom breaks.

✅ Reception Table Checks

Managers return to Reception every 20 minutes for the duration of the evening to:

Offer team drinks / allow bathroom breaks
Check there’s full sheets of each ‘popular’ design on the table
Remove empty flag sheets from the table.

Rotation

Managers spend at least one hour as a Flagger at the reception, as well as rotate between acting as an Ambassador, receiving the photographer, and performing Ambiance Checks. No Manager is ‘above’ any role. A 20-minute rotation between the reception table and the floor works best for most.

Once the reception table is set and the team is in place, get out on the floor. Talk to people, learn their names, ask why they’re here, how they found out about Mundo Lingo, and suggest connections for them. Keep conversations under 20 minutes (you’re working!) let them know, “I have to step away to do my rounds,” when transitioning to your Ambiance Checks.

✅ Ambiance Checks

Every 20 minutes stop what you’re doing; drop everything including your conversation. Choose 3 or 4 random points around the venue and go to each one making these checks. Avoid eye contact, come back to the people later.

✅ Flow - See any bottlenecks? Remove chairs, push tables to the sides.

✅ Broken things - Look for broken glasses, spilled drinks, rubbish on the floor. Toilets should have toilet roll especially in the Ladies.

✅ Waiting Time - Are people waiting a long time at the bar? Make sure access to the bar isn’t obstructed by bar stools or people socialising at the bar.

✅ Music, Lighting, Temperature - Music loud enough to hear without shouting in your ear. Lighting like a romantic candle-lit date.Temperature like a spring meadow.

✅ Shy People - Look for people standing alone, if you see one, send an Ambassador or a Cupid if you have one.

✅ Random Survey - Approach someone you don’t know, perhaps someone stood alone, and ask what they think of the music, the ambiance, bar waiting time, anything they would improve. If they don’t know you, they will be brutally honest (great right?!)

✅ Speech - Listen to your Flaggers as they greet guests. Don’t be obvious, but check they’re getting the key points of ‘The Speech’

⏸️ Reception Close

The event continues, but Reception closes after 3 hours.

Why? Reception hour (the first hour) can get akward. While it’s actually the best time for newcommers to meet new people before they form into groups, it’s also a time when a few people may find themselves standing in a group that isn’t bonding organically, leaving these people tredding water with small talk and feeling awkward.

People who experience this Awkward Zone avoid it the following week by arriving at a later time. Problem is, a new set of newcommers now enter the awkward zone and now the Awkward zone is longer than last week, so they… come even later the week after that. This cycle compounds, the awkward zone goes from 15 minutes to an hour, at which point newcommers find it so unbearable they leave before enough people arrive to form that critical mass, this elusive critical mass gives way to the Magic Roundabout.

The Magic Roundabout

When 20 people arrive at 7pm and are in the awkward zone for too long, they will leave just as 10 more arrive. New arrivals barely replace people at the rate they are leaving with critical mass only being attained after 10 or 11pm. Even though 200 people come thoughout the night, there’s never more than 100 at any one time as people leave quickly.

Set a 3 hour limit on the flag availability and tell late comers that they should arrive earlier in the future. It may feel counter-intuitive to refuse people the flags, but it works long term and avoids the infamous “Magic Roundabout”.

Close Attendance Tally Count those local flags before closing, figure out how many people came. More info.

Collect Receipts

When the bar stops serving or if there are less than 10 participants left you can ask the manager to close. Collect the till receipt, take a photo for your Telegram group. Collect the corresponding cash.

Last to Leave

Mundo Lingo is always staffed with a Manager until there are less than 10 people left in the bar. Your public is your duty. If the bar ask for help asking them to leave, you’re not obliged to help but it can be a nice gesture.