Love is lovelier the second time around.
– Sammy Cahn, from The Second Time Around (music by Jimmy Van Heusen)
Just as wonderful with both feet on the ground.
The second time doing an event has a special place. In a few years, you’ll find yourself in traps of “we always do it this way.” You’ll have built an infrastructure that rolls smoothly, but also a little bit predictably. There’s none of that the second time.
But the second time also doesn’t hold the stress, the utter unpredictability of the first time. You’ve done it, you know the basic map, and if you’re lucky, you’ve saved or remembered a lot of the good bits from the first time.
The second time, then, is the right time to plant your feet on the ground, find your groove, and polish the remaining rough spots into something you can repeat successfully.