Back in 2012, London was gearing up for the Olympics, the logistical challenges, resources required, and sheer hard work needed to pull it all together was prodigious.
In September and October 2012, Local authority events managers in London were wiped out, exhausted by their herculean efforts. In November and December, they began to examine what had gone right, and what had not.
The London Events Forum – an organisation made up from event managers in councils and agencies in London, decided to look at the way event applications are made. They wanted to come up with a common application process.
This is an unusual step for London, Historically, each one of the 33 local authorities would go its own way, create their own process, and bamboozle the applicant. There was never very much appetite to work together, because that would mean compromise.
The LEF did partially achieve their aim, we did manage to create a “one size fits all” application process. EventApp asks a set of questions which define the event proposal. The applicant submits the proposal, at the same time agreeing to the terms and conditions.
The clever bit is what comes next. The applicant and administrator can communicate using the app. The admin can ask colleagues (like Police or Fire dept) to comment, or approve (or decline) the application. All records of these transactions are kept in the activity stream.
Sadly, the one size fits all approach was not sustainable. After 5 years, many boroughs made it clear that they required different functions or wanted different questions in their front end. We had to adapt EventApp so that new questions could be asked, at an instance level. In EventApp v4 we will retain as much of the old common system as we can, but the homogeneity we sought after in 2012 is no longer possible.
