The night i almost lost it at a sip & paint event (but didn’t)
I’ve hosted over 380 public events and 150+ private and corporate sessions from birthdays and bachelorettes to team builds and baby showers. I’ve dealt with every kind of guest you can imagine. but this one night… this one woman nearly tested every bit of my zen.
Picture this: a fully booked sip and paint night, 50 painters, brushes flying, glasses clinking, everyone laughing.
The vibe? immaculate. until it wasn’t.
In walks one of the last guests fashionably late and dramatically offended. Before she even sits, she looks at her seat and declares (loudly enough for mozart to stop conducting),
“This is unacceptable. I can’t sit here. my legs won’t fit. I always come to your events, but this is the worst one yet!”
Now, i had already checked with everyone, plenty of space, all smiles. But apparently, her seat was an insult to humanity.
I calmly offered her a refund. she declined, because, of course, she needed to make sure everyone in the room knew she was unhappy first. fifty people watching, paintbrush in hand, and i’m standing there like, “ma’am, I paint sunflowers, not miracles.”
Part of me wanted to scream. Part of me wanted to hide under the table. The other part (the professional part) smiled, apologized, and kept the class running.
That’s the thing about running events, you will meet difficult clients. Some people just need to project their bad day onto someone, and that someone might be you.
But you learn to breathe. You stay calm. You don’t let one person ruin it for the other 49 who are having the time of their lives.
Because professionalism isn’t just about how you plan an event m, it’s how you handle the ones that go off script.
And when it was all over, I went home, made myself a cuppa coffee laughed about it with my husband, and thought,
“Well… at least she didn’t throw the paint.”