CAREERS & EDUCATION
From Issue #18
Event Planning
Who Doesn't Like A Good Party?
by Ted Kritsonis
Michelle Planche has been living a fast-paced work schedule since her
teens, and insists she wouldn’t have it any other way. As president
of her event planning firm, Paradigm Events, Michelle also
maintains other responsibilities, ensuring that her plate always stays full.
“When I was in high school, I organized several different fashion shows,
so I knew right then and there that I wanted to
do something in event planning,” Michelle
says. “But the best tool for me in high
school in developing my skills and
figuring out what I was good at was
consistently putting myself in
situations that were perhaps outside my
comfort zone. I went to three different high schools and
created a fashion show at each of them, so I was working with new people
and new students.”
Fearless in her approach, Michelle took the same attitude to Bishop’s
University in Quebec, where she was able to organize a fashion show there
as well, along with whatever else she could get her hands on.
“In university, I got involved in other events at school, like a winter carnival
and my own talk show, and anything else that I could do while I was there,
so that kind of opened up my world above and beyond fashion shows,”
she recalls. “And in the summers, instead of getting a regular job, I would do
freelance work, like organizing fashion shows and product knowledge shows
for companies like Levi’s and The Bay.”
Michelle was so committed to her dream that she fast-tracked by finishing her
four-year university program in just three years. Not to mention that she
turned her back on collecting a regular pay-cheque working a conventional job,
instead throwing all her resources into freelancing, which meant that she
would have to live a more low-key lifestyle. After graduating with a BA in
Sociology, Michelle needed work, and decided to create a full-fledged event to
showcase her skills and build a larger network of contacts in Toronto. And with
that, Art of Fashion was born, “The first year I held Art of Fashion, it was a big
success,” she says. “It sold out, there was a line-up at the door, and my first
client approached me that night, so the entire purpose of creating the
event succeeded.”
“If I could do it over again, I would probably spend a few years and make some
mistakes under someone else’s business, and watch what they do and how
they run things,” she says. “As long as you learn from the mistakes that you
make and take the lessons given to you, then it’s worth it. I’ve been through
some trying times and trying clients, and they’ve both made me realize what
I want and don’t want.”
Michelle is now part-owner of Take One Film and Television, a production
company where her ideas for television shows become reality. She also sits on
the board of directors for IMPAC (International Meeting Planners Association
of Canada), and teaches event planning two mornings a week at George Brown
College in Toronto.
