Production Manager at Meeting Tomorrow


Production Manager

Meeting Tomorrow is a 19-year-old company with a startup feel, with a team of 80 friendly employees, headquartered along the Chicago river, although many of us are currently working remotely due to the pandemic. We service the event industry by providing technology services and equipment to enable thousands of in person, hybrid and virtual events nationwide. We shifted our business during the pandemic and had our most successful year yet and kept our team together in the process. We offer the best coworkers you’ll find anywhere, extensive training and professional development, great benefits, and the opportunity to work in a fast-paced, team-oriented, entrepreneurial environment.

Meeting Tomorrow is a 19-year-old company with a startup feel, with a team of 80 friendly employees, headquartered along the Chicago river, although many of us are currently working remotely due to the pandemic. We service the event industry by providing technology services and equipment to enable thousands of in person, hybrid and virtual events nationwide. We shifted our business during the pandemic and had our most successful year yet and kept our team together in the process. We offer the best coworkers you’ll find anywhere, extensive training and professional development, great benefits, and the opportunity to work in a fast-paced, team-oriented, entrepreneurial environment.

The opportunity:

The Event Production Manager is responsible for managing medium to large-sized production/virtual events from beginning to end, ensuring the profitability and successful execution of these events. The role is a resource to sales during the pre-sale process creating and designing high impact and highly creative events, and then manages the operations scoping, planning and contracting processes with vendors and technician teams as required. The role may also travel onsite to act as the main point of contact for clients and oversee event execution.

In order to be successful in our industry, you must be passionate about live events and enjoy helping customers execute their creative vision. We hope to find someone who is excited about being behind the scenes and on-site!

Who you are:

In this role, you will be supporting a large variety of our productions. It’ll be important that you have experience both on-site at events and behind the scenes, particularly with audio-visual services. Here’s what else we’re looking for:

– On-site experience at live events. The majority of the role is working with our clients and local partners to ensure our clients’ needs are met or exceeded and their expectations are transparent to everyone working on a particular event. Onsite experience is critical to understanding how best to approach each event’s unique challenges.

– Clear communicator. You’re able to clearly communicate a message, and can cater your approach to anyone and listen to anyone.

– Organized. There’s a lot to keep track of between the many shows you’ll work on. It’s important to keep information and details organized while simultaneously communicating to multiple partners and clients.

– Creative. Able to come up with compelling and visually striking stage set solutions, combining both AV and scenic resources from many different places to meet a client’s theme.

– Resourceful. You’re technically savvy and able to come up with solutions with little information.

– Build Relationships easily. You’ll be working both remotely and onsite with our clients and technician teams.

– Dynamic. You’ll need to switch gears often and be comfortable wearing a couple different hats.

 Excellent negotiator. You have a proven track record and are comfortable with negotiation to ensure budgets are met for each project.

The Impact: Within 1 month, you’ll:

  • Be familiar with our value proposition, client base and what sets us apart from our competitors
  • Get all the tools you need to be successful in this role: training on how our teams work together and our processes. And, you’ll build relationships with colleagues and clients.
  • Practice and implement negotiation skills
  • Become a trusted technical advisor to our sales team
  • Build relationships with our technicians and partners

Within 3 months, you’ll:

  • Have fulfilled over 15 production level events sized up to $30k with minimal direction
  • Be comfortable and knowledgeable of all production gear, understand our owned inventory and how best to leverage it to save costs and meet event needs
  • Have worked with technicians on at least 15 events to understand our local service delivery model
  • In combination with our 3D artist, created at least one rendering for a proposed event
  • Have gone on-site and managed at least one event
  • Be an expert on union labor markets and how to manage and book the labor

Within 6 months, you’ll:

  • Have full knowledge of all department processes and resolution abilities
  • Are able to create event floor plans and diagrams using the tools provided by MT
  • Communicate event details for nationwide events to clients, technicians, and vendors
  • Work with your department to develop new ideas, create new processes, and implement new or improved systems to enable continuous improvements
  • Have mastery of role and be able to fulfill and do on-site execution for many events
  • Have managed at least 3 production level events over $30k from beginning to end including assisting sales with the initial scope, scenic design, partner fulfillment and onsite execution

At Meeting Tomorrow, our mission is to foster a culture of respect and affection. We embrace our differences and are committed to having a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer that believes in second chances and strongly encourage BIPOC, women, LGBTQIA, veterans, persons with disabilities, formerly incarcerated and all other individuals to apply.

Our benefits include: full medical coverage (health, vision, dental, short term disability and life insurance), PTO and 9 paid holidays, annual profit-sharing bonus, 100% charitable giving match, employer match 401k with subsidized brokerage fees, gym membership reimbursement, free divvy membership, Ventra transit program, employee-led social action teams, fully paid parental leave, paid bereavement leave and fun social gatherings!

What makes Meeting Tomorrow’s culture so special is the people, and we look for candidates who are a match for our company’s core values: commitment, kindness and humility. If those words describe you and you see yourself in this posting, you’re ready to apply!

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