Dear /p/

Around month ago I photographing at anime con and while I did some good photos, I also realized that I still lack one aspects and I would like to kindly as for some advice.

First question is about photographing large groups of people. I can only guess that, just like with portrait or similar photos, there must be some kind of "focus point", element that would draw attention of the viewer. But aside from that, what are general rules? I mean, I could just shoot groups here and there but they could turn out as rather boring to most viewers. How to make interesting large group photos of the events?

Second question is about problem of shooting in bright light of the middle of the day. In this case, it was very sunny, hot summer day and most of areas with trees and such were already taken by gastro (including my favorite spot from previous years). Even when I would ask model to move into some shadow area, I still faced problems of underexposed faces, very strong shadows or overexposed background. I know about reflectors but when Im photographing alone and there is nobody to support, plus I cant carry tripod and similar equipment around, how to combat this? I wont lie - Im afraid of using flash in bright light, that it would result in clearly artificial look. But at the other hand, I heard that this IS the proper solution, along with diffuser. So, what's the solution?

(Third question in second post)