Journal · Leading under pressure

Why people in events struggle to switch off

We're brilliant when everything's on fire. It's the quiet bit afterwards we can't handle.

By Holly Mann · 15 October 2026 · 5 minute read

If you work in events, you'll know the feeling. The show's done, the venue's cleared, you're finally home. You should be exhausted, and you are. But your brain is still running the radio channel. You're replaying the moment the AV dropped out, checking emails on the sofa, half-planning the next one before you've even unpacked.

I've spent more than ten years in events, most recently as an operations director, and this is one of the most common things I hear from people in the industry. Not "I'm stressed", although we often are. More "I don't know how to stop".

So why is it so hard? And what actually helps?

We're trained to be always on

Events reward a very particular set of skills. Spotting problems before they happen. Staying calm when they do. Being reachable, being the person with the answer, being the one who makes it work.

Those skills are genuinely valuable. They're also habits, and habits don't switch off when the event ends. If your nervous system has spent three days scanning for what could go wrong, it doesn't stand down just because you've got a day off.

Being good in a crisis doesn't mean you have to live in one.

Our sense of worth gets tied to being needed

This is the one people don't always say out loud. A lot of us are good at events because we like being the person everyone depends on. It feels good to be the fixer.

The problem is that when being needed becomes how you measure your value, rest starts to feel uncomfortable. Switching off can feel like letting people down, or like you're not quite earning your place. So you check the inbox "just in case", and the line between work and everything else gets very blurry.

The industry runs on peaks

Most jobs have a reasonably steady rhythm. Events don't. You go from planning mode to show mode to wrap-up, often with the next project already overlapping. There's rarely a natural pause, so you have to create one, and that takes a decision most of us never quite get round to making.

What actually helps

I'm not going to tell you to take up yoga or put your phone in a drawer. You've heard it, and if it were that simple you'd already be doing it. These are the things I see make a real difference.

• Treat the wind-down as part of the event. You'd never finish a show without a get-out plan. Give yourself one too. A proper debrief, a clear handover, and a defined point where it's done.
• Notice what "just checking" is really about. Next time you reach for your phone after hours, ask yourself what you're hoping to find. Often it's reassurance, not information.
• Separate who you are from what you deliver. You are not the event. When it goes well, that's great. When something goes wrong, it says very little about your worth as a person.
• Plan recovery like you plan everything else. If you only rest when there's space, there will never be space. Put it in the diary before the busy season fills it.
• Talk to someone outside the bubble. Everyone in events normalises the pace, because we're all in it. Sometimes you need a conversation with someone who isn't.

Where coaching comes in

Coaching isn't about telling you to work less or leave the industry. Plenty of people love events and want to stay. It's a space to step back and look at the patterns underneath: why you find it so hard to stop, what you actually want, and what would need to change for work to feel sustainable rather than something you survive.

If any of this sounds familiar, you're not bad at switching off. You're very good at something the industry asks a lot of. The question is whether it's still working for you.