How Small Teams Power Complex Conferences: Event Logistics Lessons from Association Planning
Event Logistics Is About People Before Process
Association conferences are unique. Unlike one-off corporate events, they rely on long-term relationships, returning attendees, and deep community trust. In a recent Event Logistics Lab conversation, Jack Voorhees, Senior Director of Events at URMIA, offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at how small association teams execute highly complex annual conferences — without the massive staffs or budgets people often assume.
His insights reveal why event planning remains one of the most demanding operational roles in modern organizations, and why technology alone isn’t the answer.
Jack put it plainly:
“People aren’t coming just for the content, they’re coming because this feels like home.”
That sense of continuity raises the stakes for logistics teams. Every room set, meal, and schedule change affects people who notice when something feels off and remember when it feels right.
For association planners, logistics isn’t just execution. It’s stewardship.
The Reality of Small but Mighty Event Teams
One of the most consistent themes in Jack’s experience is scale without surplus.
URMIA’s annual conference doesn’t have the luxury of a large internal staff dedicated solely to events. Like many associations, the team wears multiple hats year-round. Programming, member engagement, governance support (just to name a few), and all of this while producing a flagship event.
As Jack shares, “I don’t have a big staff, so I don’t have people to do all of this for me. That’s why efficiency matters so much.”
This reality shapes every logistics decision. Time spent re-entering data, reconciling documents, or fixing version errors is time taken from strategy, content, and community engagement.
Where Event Tech Helps & Where It Doesn’t
Technology has improved parts of event planning dramatically. Tools for registration, abstract management, and digital contracts have reduced friction compared to the early days of email-only workflows.
Jack noted how abstract management platforms transformed one of his most time-consuming tasks, “Once people rate the sessions, it moves directly into the event and becomes part of the app. That alone saves me seven hours of work.”
But not all technology solves the same problems...
Many event tech platforms focus on attendee experience, like registration, apps, networking, while leaving planners to manage logistics through spreadsheets, emails, and PDFs.
That gap shows up in places like:
Food & beverage specifications
Room sets and space allocations
Vendor communications
Version control across documents
These are the areas where errors create real operational risk, not just inconvenience.
AI: Accelerator, Not Replacement
Like many planners, Jack approaches AI with curiosity and caution. He uses it for tasks like marketing copy, website text, and other places where speed matters and risk is low. But when it comes to core logistics, accuracy and trust outweigh novelty.
“When our annual conference is the biggest event of the year, we can’t leave it entirely to technology. There has to be a human experience making sure it doesn’t go off the rails.”
This sentiment echoes across the industry. AI can accelerate specific tasks like document analysis, scheduling assistance, and summarization, but it still can’t replace judgment informed by experience, relationships, and institutional knowledge.
Event planning isn’t linear. It’s layered, iterative, and deeply contextual. What works for one association, venue, or year may not work the next. As Jack explained, even something as standardized as a banquet event order still breaks down in practice:
“Even today, the banquet manager is running around with paper in his back pocket.”
The issue isn’t a lack of software, it’s a lack of systems built around how the industry actually works under pressure.
The Future of Event Logistics
Association conferences aren’t getting simpler. Expectations are rising, budgets are tighter, and teams are leaner.
The path forward isn’t choosing between humans and technology, it’s designing systems that support context-driven decision-making, where planners stay in control and tools do the heavy lifting.
Event logistics will always require judgment.
The goal is to give planners the clarity and confidence to use it well.
Want a deeper dive?
This article is part of Event Logistics Lab Season 2: Critical Decision-Making in a Tech-Accelerated World, exploring how planners, operators, and founders navigate complexity without losing the human thread. Watch, listen, or read the full conversation with Jack on Event Logistics Lab.
