Bob Mellinger Presents IAEE Webinar on Emergency Preparedness for Event Teams

3 Ways Event Teams Can Improve Emergency Preparedness

On September 16, 2026, Bob Mellinger, Founder and CEO of Attainium Corp., presented 3 Ways Event Teams Can Improve Emergency Preparedness for the International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE).

The webinar focused on a challenge familiar to event professionals: even when individual organizations and stakeholders are prepared, effective response still depends on their ability to communicate, make decisions, and coordinate their actions when circumstances begin changing quickly.

Communication Challenges Rarely Begin When Communication Stops

When disruptions occur during exhibitions and live events, organizations often discover that their greatest challenge is not simply responding to the incident itself. More often, it is ensuring that organizers, venues, vendors, exhibitors, and leadership teams maintain a shared understanding of what is happening and who is responsible for making decisions.

Preparedness is about much more than having emergency procedures. It is about creating the organizational alignment that allows people to communicate effectively, make timely decisions, and coordinate their actions when circumstances begin changing quickly.

The webinar explored practical ways event teams can strengthen that alignment before an event ever begins.

Three Areas of Preparedness

The session focused on three areas that can significantly affect how well event stakeholders work together during a disruption:

• Communication planning: establishing how critical information will move among organizers, venues, vendors, exhibitors, leadership, and other stakeholders.
• Decision-making and escalation: clarifying who has authority to make decisions, when issues should be escalated, and how those decisions will be communicated.
• Stakeholder coordination: identifying assumptions, responsibilities, dependencies, and potential gaps before they become problems during an event.

Rather than focusing primarily on emergency response tactics, the discussion emphasized the organizational practices that help reduce confusion and improve coordination during fast-moving situations.

Event organizers, venues, exhibitors, vendors, and other partners may each have capable people and established procedures. The real challenge is determining whether those separate capabilities will work together when information is incomplete, responsibilities overlap, priorities compete, and decisions need to be made quickly.

Watch the Webinar On-Demand

3 Ways Event Teams Can Improve Emergency Preparedness is available through IAEE's online learning platform.

Watch the webinar on-demand through IAEE.

About the Presenter

Bob Mellinger is Founder and CEO of Attainium Corp., a business continuity consulting firm specializing in crisis management, business continuity, disaster recovery, and organizational preparedness.

For more than three decades, Bob has helped organizations strengthen their ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptive events. He is a nationally recognized speaker and facilitator who has led hundreds of workshops, tabletop exercises, and executive preparedness sessions for associations, healthcare organizations, financial institutions, government agencies, manufacturers, and other organizations throughout North America.

His presentations focus on practical organizational challenges, helping leaders improve communication, coordination, and decision-making before disruptions occur.