Managing Chaos: The Hidden Operations Behind High-End Event Production
Event Logistics Is About People Before Process
Corporate event planners often see the finished product: the seamless dinner service, the elegant table settings, the perfectly timed courses. What they don't always see is the controlled chaos happening behind the scenes to make that experience possible.
Jodi Fyfe, CEO and Founder of The Paramount Group Chicago, has spent 15 years orchestrating this chaos across multiple hospitality brands: off-premise catering, farm-to-table dining, business dining solutions, and staffing. Her perspective offers a rare look into the operational rigor required when event logistics meets high-stakes execution.
"I think with off-premise catering, it's never going to be perfect," Fyfe explains. "The client will think it's perfect, but it's utter chaos. And it's managing everyone to make sure that you get the best result at the end."
Why Event Logistics Start with Budget Reality
Before venue selection, before menu curation, before any creative decisions get made, there's one conversation that determines everything: budget.
Fyfe uses a compelling comparison to ground client expectations. She asks clients to imagine a dinner for two at a high-end steakhouse. Think, “cocktails at the bar, wine with dinner, appetizers, entrees, sides, dessert.” That experience costs a minimum of $500 before gratuity. Now consider the infrastructure behind that meal: hosts, managers, servers, food runners, bartenders, chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, porters.
"All of that makes up why that meal costs that much," Fyfe says. "And I think people don't realize how many people it takes."
For off-premise event production, you're replicating that entire infrastructure—except there's no existing kitchen, no established workflow, no permanent staff on site. You're building it from scratch, often in unconventional spaces.
Fyfe's minimum entry point for off-premise catering? $250 per person for food, beverage, and equipment. And that's before customization, premium ingredients, or seasonal menu development.
The Equipment Equation Most Planners Miss
One of the biggest blind spots in corporate event planning is equipment. It's easy to focus on the menu and the staffing while overlooking the physical logistics required to execute at a high level.
Want to serve a hot plated dinner on the 45th floor of an office building with no kitchen? You'll need warming equipment, plating stations, portable cooking units, and service infrastructure. Each piece must be transported, set up, operated, and broken down—often within tight building access windows.
"We have to have the linens, the chairs, the tables, the china, the flatware, the stemware, the napkins, the chargers," Fyfe outlines.
The list extends to portable bars, refrigeration units, and sometimes full mobile kitchens operating out of parking garages to maintain food safety standards.
This is where event planning operations become a strategic discipline. It's not enough to know what you want to serve, you need to understand the systems required to deliver it.
Building Kitchens in Parking Garages: Event Production Reality
Chicago's beautiful historic venues present a particular challenge for event logistics. Many don't have commercial kitchens. Some don't have kitchens at all.
The solution? Mobile production facilities set up in loading docks, parking garages, or outdoor spaces. Catering teams build temporary kitchens complete with food prep areas, cooking equipment, and sanitation systems, all while maintaining the same health and safety standards required in a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
"We are out in the middle of the field covering every surface because food sanitation qualities can't dip just because there's not a kitchen on site," Fyfe emphasizes.
For nonprofit galas where individual tables sell for $50,000 to $150,000, the expectation is restaurant-quality execution. The guests don't see the parking garage kitchen or the coordination required to get 300 plated entrees from production to table within a four-minute service window. They see seamless hospitality.
That gap between perception and reality is where experienced event logistics teams earn their value.
The Human Element Technology Can't Replace
As AI and automation continue to reshape industries, event production remains stubbornly human-centered. Fyfe sees potential for technology to create efficiency—automated scheduling, streamlined ordering systems, faster quoting processes. But the core of event execution? That requires people.
"A human is always going to be necessary because we feel," Fyfe notes. Events are about reading a room, understanding unstated needs, and delivering moments that transcend the written requirements.
Technology can process inputs and generate outputs. It can't replicate the experience filter that tells a seasoned event professional when to adjust service timing, when a client needs reassurance, or when a menu needs a last-minute pivot based on energy in the room.
The culinary component is even more resistant to automation.
"You can buy everything pre-made, you're not going to get that feeling," Fyfe explains. "When something is different, exciting, you know, magical, it's because it was made from someone who is excited about it, who has love and passion."
The most successful events happen when planners understand that chaos isn't a failure of systems, it's the nature of live production. The goal isn't to eliminate chaos. It's to manage it so effectively that no one else knows it's happening.
Behind every seamless corporate dinner, every flawless gala service, every "effortless" event experience is a logistics team orchestrating controlled chaos. They're managing people, equipment, timelines, expectations, and countless variables that can shift by the hour.
That's not just event planning. That's operational rigor at the highest level.
About Event Logistics Lab
Event Logistics Lab explores the systems, processes, and strategic thinking behind successful events. We believe event logistics is a professional discipline built on operational excellence, not improvisation. Each episode features practitioners sharing real-world experience from the field.
