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Will Donovan | Episode 1120
Will Donovan is the founder of Donovan Pottery, where storytelling and craft collide to create fantasy-inspired ceramics. Passionate about blending history, literature, and art, Will explores how pottery can bring stories to life. Will also runs Mathom House, a brand championing craft, community, and creative storytelling.
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How do you come up with the concept for your events? Do you do it alone or with a group and how do you brainstorm for them?
A couple of different ways we conceptualize events in collections is one I try to listen a lot. I pay attention to what is happening online and what people are interested in, participating in with social media, books, or stories. I am always paying attention to what I think people are interested in, in a big scheme of things and I try to create in a little way in the middle of that.
Once you have decided on your theme how do you go about planning your budget for something like this?
That’s a great question and I don’t know if I have a perfect answer for how to plan a budget for an event. What I probably should have in place is a better system for that. But I tend to err on the rule of cool and if I can I fund it.
The rule of cool. (laughter)
If it’s cool we will try to do it.
How many people do you bring into the planning process?
It’s a whole team endeavor wo we have at any one time between five and seven employees and staff that help us coordinate everything. And when we are coming up to an event it’s all hands on deck to make sure we have the pots, the food, the entertainment and the people who feel like they are a part of something that is happening and not disorganized chaos.
Do you have an agenda laid out for the day of the event?
We do. We schedule everything out as best we can with some flexibility to make sure that people coming to the event know what’s happening and when, but also the team can be prepared for anything that we need to make sure we are coordinating and doing.
How do you keep the event tight and in control?
There is always room for strange things to happen when you are trying to control something like an event that contains a lot of people. One of the ways we try to mitigate that is clear communication. Whether that is through the staff or through people that are attending. If people are coming we say, Hey, this is the scope of the event. Here are some important things that are happening at these times and we want to make sure that we are able to do them for you and that you are able to enjoy them. We tend to post a schedule of any moments that we want to make sure that people are aware of and that helps to make sure anyone in attendance can be a part of it.
On the day of the event how do you keep yourself involved with both the participants and “staff”, the event leaders?
I try to make myself as available as possible to attendees when it’s the day of the event because I know I am the front-facing person and the one people are most familiar with, so if they have questions or want to so hi, that’s mostly me. A lot of it is pre-delegation of making sure the team knows what’s happening, what their role is in it, and then mostly getting to enjoy the day.
What kind of evaluation do you do after the event about what could have been done better etc?
That’s a great question. We do two things. One is we make sure we publish and share the story of what happened either on social media or our newsletter list. And we invite feedback from all the attendees who went. And two, we have a debrief meeting with the team and we go over in the studio after the weekend is done and we just check in with each other and see what went well, what could have been better, and what we will improve on next time based on what we hear.
Book
Hundred Million Dollar Leads
The Alchemist
Contact
donovanpottery.com
Instagram: @donovanpottery