Event Horizon

My job involves organising events. It isn't glamorous, it certainly isn't fun and no matter what the event, they are certain things that are guaranteed to happen no matter how well it is planned:

1. Booking will start off slowly and everyone will be pessimistic My manager will talk about cancelling the event or never doing another one
2. There will be lots of last minute bookings, creating havoc
3. People feel the need to make excuses about why they are booking so late - 'I've been on holiday' (what for 2 months?), 'I lost the booking form' (what all 3 we sent out?), 'My PA ate the booking form' (its only a matter of time before this one is used)
4. Several people won't be able to remember whether or not they have booked - they never have - this is just a variation on the excuse for late booking (see above)
5. Someone will turn up who hasn't booked
6. Someone important won't turn up
7. Someone's name will be spelt wrong on their badge
8. There will be an interesting range of dietary requirements
9. Someone with a life-threatening food allergy will have forgotten to mention it
10. People are obsessed with tea - no tea, not enough tea breaks, too much tea, no herbal tea, no fruit tea, no biscuits with the tea
11. No matter how feel the event goes, somebody will complain about something which will put a downer on the whole event
12. Manager will vow never to do another event again

Tomorrow is our second largest event of the year and a large stress cloud is looming over my head.