The Guardian on Saturday, 31 May featured stories that should make every event professional pause: a radio host, illustrator, copywriter, voice artist, and graphic designer—all made redundent by AI, one of them with the casual instruction to "just put it in ChatGPT." While we've been celebrating AI's efficiency gains in our industry, we've overlooked a critical question: when automation eliminates the entry-level positions where event managers traditionally learn crisis management, how will the next generation develop the split-second decision-making skills that separate great event professionals from the rest? This week, we examine the training crisis threatening our industry's future and the innovative solutions that could preserve the human expertise that makes exceptional event management possible.

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How AI Is Disrupting Event Management Education and What We Must Do About It

The seasoned event manager stands in the convention center at 2 AM, watching water cascade through a ceiling tile onto the main stage where a Fortune 500 CEO is scheduled to speak in eight hours. Her phone buzzes with messages: the backup venue is also flooded, the AV team is stuck in a road diversion due to the unexpected storm, and the catering truck just broke down. Yet within minutes, she's orchestrating a solution—moving the keynote to a nearby hotel ballroom, arranging emergency lighting, and coordinating with three different vendors. Her decisions are swift, confident, and ultimately successful. But here's the question that should keep our industry awake at night: How did she develop this crisis management intuition, and more importantly, how will the next generation learn it when AI is rapidly eliminating the entry-level positions that traditionally provided this training?

The Gladwell Problem: Why Experience Matters More Than We Think

In Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," he explores how experts make split-second decisions based on accumulated experience—what he calls "thin-slicing" the situation. Event managers are masters of this process, drawing on years of crises, near-misses, and successful recoveries to make instantaneous judgments under pressure.

The traditional path to event management expertise has always been experiential: starting in coordinator roles, handling vendor relationships, managing smaller events, and gradually building the mental library of solutions that enables confident crisis management. Each mishap becomes a data point, each successful recovery a blueprint for future challenges.

But this pathway is under threat. AI and automation are systematically eliminating entry-level positions across the events industry. Chatbots handle initial client inquiries, automated systems manage basic vendor coordination, and AI-powered platforms streamline logistics that once required human oversight. Fast disappearing a human managed registration desks, replaced by kiosks. While this efficiency is beneficial for the industry's bottom line, it's creating an unprecedented gap in professional development.

The Hidden Curriculum of Crisis Management

What exactly are we losing when we eliminate these traditional entry points? The answer lies in understanding what event management crisis training actually involves—and it's far more complex than most realize.

Pattern Recognition Under Pressure Experienced event managers don't just know what to do when something goes wrong; they recognize warning signs before disasters fully unfold. This pattern recognition develops through repeated exposure to similar situations, building what cognitive scientists call "expert intuition."

Emotional Regulation in Chaos Managing an event crisis isn't just about logistics—it's about maintaining composure while everyone around you is panicking, communicating confidence to stakeholders even when you're improvising solutions, and making clear decisions when information is incomplete and time is running out.

Stakeholder Psychology Every crisis involves multiple personalities: the anxious client, the overwhelmed vendor, the frustrated attendee. Learning to read these dynamics and adjust communication strategies accordingly comes only through extensive interpersonal experience.

Resource Optimization Crisis management often involves creative problem-solving with limited resources. Knowing which vendors can deliver on short notice, which venues have flexible policies, and which solutions are feasible within specific timeframes comes from years of building and testing these relationships.

The New Reality: Training Without Traditional Pathways

So how do we develop these capabilities when the traditional learning ladder is disappearing? The solution requires reimagining professional development from the ground up.

Accelerated Experience Through Advanced Simulation

The most promising approach involves creating high-fidelity simulations that compress years of experience into intensive training periods. But these can't be simple case studies or theoretical exercises—they must replicate the full sensory and emotional experience of real crises.

Virtual and augmented reality platforms are beginning to offer this capability. Think of flight simulators for pilots—sophisticated training environments where professionals can safely practice handling emergencies they hope never to encounter in real life. Similarly, we need event management simulators where aspiring professionals can face cascading crises in real-time: dealing with simultaneous catering disasters, weather emergencies, and technical failures while managing stakeholder communications under authentic time pressure.

The key is ensuring these simulations include the emotional weight and interpersonal dynamics that shape real decision-making. The stress of disappointed attendees, the pressure of budget constraints, and the complexity of coordinating multiple vendor relationships must all be part of the experience.

Intensive Mentorship Programs

Even as entry-level roles disappear, experienced event managers still exist and are actively managing complex events. Structured mentorship programs could pair newcomers directly with veterans for intensive shadowing during high-stakes events.

This approach telescopes the learning curve by providing guided exposure to complex situations without requiring years of gradual advancement. Mentees could observe decision-making processes in real-time, understand the reasoning behind specific choices, and gradually take on increasing responsibility under expert supervision.

Cross-Industry Learning

Event management shares decision-making patterns with emergency response, military operations, healthcare, and other high-pressure fields. These industries have developed sophisticated crisis simulation methodologies that could be adapted for event contexts.

Emergency response training, for example, emphasizes rapid assessment, clear communication protocols, and resource allocation under pressure—all directly applicable to event crisis management. Military decision-making processes offer frameworks for handling incomplete information and rapidly changing situations.

AI as Training Partner

Rather than viewing AI as competition, the technology could serve as a sophisticated training tool. Advanced AI systems could generate endless scenario variations, track decision patterns, and provide immediate feedback on choices.

The AI could simulate difficult personalities, unexpected complications, and resource constraints that build the experiential foundation future managers need. More importantly, it could adapt scenarios based on individual learning patterns, ensuring each trainee faces appropriately challenging situations that build confidence without overwhelming them.

Building the New Training Infrastructure

Implementing these solutions requires coordinated effort across the events industry. Professional associations, educational institutions, and event management companies must collaborate to create new pathways for expertise development.

Industry-Wide Simulation Centers Major event hubs could establish shared training facilities featuring advanced simulation capabilities. These centers would serve multiple companies and educational programs, making sophisticated training accessible even to smaller organizations.

Certification Programs New certification frameworks could validate crisis management capabilities through practical demonstration rather than theoretical knowledge. These programs would require candidates to successfully navigate complex simulated scenarios before earning credentials.

Continuing Education Requirements Even experienced event managers could benefit from regular crisis simulation training, ensuring their skills remain sharp and up-to-date with evolving industry challenges.

The Urgency of Action

This isn't a problem we can solve gradually. The disruption of traditional career pathways is happening now, and companies are already struggling to find mid-level event managers with the experience necessary for complex project leadership.

The event management industry has always prided itself on adaptability, our ability to handle whatever unexpected challenges arise. Now we must apply that same adaptability to our own professional development processes.

The stakes are high. Events are becoming increasingly complex, with shorter lead times, larger budgets, more sophisticated technology, and higher stakeholder expectations. The margin for error is shrinking even as the potential consequences of failure are growing.

Looking Forward: A New Model for Expertise

The solution to this crisis training paradox isn't about resisting technological change, it's about consciously designing new systems that preserve and enhance the human expertise that makes great event management possible.

We need to recognize that professional intuition is a legitimate form of expertise that requires intentional cultivation. It doesn't emerge naturally from theoretical knowledge alone, but it can be developed through thoughtfully designed experiences that compress and intensify the learning process.

The future of event management education will likely combine the best of multiple approaches: immersive simulations for safe practice, intensive mentorships for real-world exposure, cross-industry learning for broader perspective, and AI-powered tools for personalized skill development.

Most importantly, we must act quickly. The window for implementing these solutions is narrowing as the traditional pathways continue to disappear. The event managers of tomorrow are counting on us to solve this puzzle today.

The industry that has mastered the art of creating memorable experiences now faces its greatest challenge: creating the experiences that will create the next generation of event management experts.

The irony is perfect, the urgency is real.