The original request was for 40 people.
The day before Forbidden Kingdom, it became 80.
This was also my first time running a staffing project solo.
Perfect.
I’d worked plenty of events before, but this one was different. Event Aces had given me responsibility for recruiting and staffing the event myself. Because Forbidden Kingdom was in Orlando, I was working from home in a city where I already had a network.
Still, doubling the request the day before an event changes things.
I recruited, interviewed, and personally spoke with everyone before hiring them. I used Google Forms to collect applications and built a spreadsheet to track hiring statuses, positions, start times, and check-ins. Pivot tables gave me a quick view of how many people were expected at each call time.
Then I used my texting tools to communicate at scale.
Staff received the information I’d want if I were walking into an unfamiliar event: app downloads, maps, check-in instructions, payroll information, and start times. I followed up to keep everyone informed.
The bigger challenge was getting 80 people through two check-in times.
I also had people I’d recruited as backups. I was honest with them: I couldn’t guarantee them work, but if they showed up, I’d try to find them a spot.
Then the spreadsheet started filling in.
People arrived.
We hit 80.
And I still had a handful of extras.
Rather than simply sending them home, I spoke with the client. Their own operation was dealing with late arrivals and no-shows. Those extra people could help.
One by one, I found places for my backups.
That’s the moment I remember.
I could look at my sheet and know who had checked in, who was supposed to be there, and which backups were still waiting for work. Something I’d organized on a laptop at home had become a real workforce inside a festival.
The request had doubled the day before.
We hit the number anyway.
Then we sent more.
There wasn’t a big congratulations afterward. Nobody pulled me aside to tell me what a great job I’d done. I didn’t really get any follow-up at all.
But I knew what the sheet had looked like before the event, and I knew what it looked like when everyone was checked in.
More importantly, I knew what it had taken to get there.
Forbidden Kingdom didn’t suddenly change every system I used afterward. What it gave me was something harder to build in a spreadsheet:
Confidence.
I’d been trusted with my first solo staffing project. When the request doubled, I recruited the people, organized them, kept them informed, and delivered. When my backups showed up, I found work for them, too.
I’d wondered what would happen when there wasn’t another staffer beside me to lean on.
Now I knew.
Give me the number. I’ll figure out how to hit it.