Hey guys, KC is here again.
Today is my last day on the job and my internship is coming to an end. I haven't really been able to blog much during my internship because my working hours are pretty unstable. For a small company, I could get called up outside office hours if work needs to be done (and sometimes urgently).
Where was I...oh, yes. As I countdown the final hours of my internship, I should get back to thinking of the days working for Silverhand Events & Creatives. Hopefully I can post them up as a string just to keep you reading.
I started work the moment I touched down from Miri on the 24th of November 2008. I actually received my job offer much earlier which was conducted through emails. Silverhand was already underway for a major event on December and the technical side of things were starting to wrap up.
All that was left was PR and promotion which is where I came in.
My first job was to draft a press release. My boss wanted to introduce me to the committee members of the event and some of the main sponsors whose names I had to include in the press release. After touching down, I left from the airport (already in work clothes) straight to the location of the meeting.
The client was clickstartplay.com, a local forum that is also a hotspot amongst enthusiasts that shares a various sorts of hobbies. Some of these hobbies are not very popular in this part of the world so that's why they are organising this event; a hobby convention or aptly named Hobbycon.
It is an annual event which started being held since 2007 so this year's convention is called Hobbycon 2008. The convention last for 2 days (6 & 7 December) and it is the place for hobbyists to showcase their respective hobbies like cosplaying, PC and Console gaming, PVC figurines, comics/mangas etc. The convention will be lined with booths of shop owners selling merchandises, performances and even a cosplaying competition.
Silverhand was co-organising this event on a pro-bono basis since the forum isn't a money making venture and my boss happens to be one of the main member and enthusiast.
As unheard as most of the hobbies are, Hobbycon is also a relatively young convention (since it's only in the second year running) so the best way to stir some hype for the event is publicity and the best media to start with is the local newspapers.
So there I was with my first assignment, write a press release and contact every possible paper that I could find. After drafting, getting it approved and editing the final version of the press release on that day itself, it was time to find every possible journalist or newspaper company to get it published.
At the same time, Silverhand as a new company was still building up their contact list so this was also part of my assignment. To contact and find new contacts to expand on their list.
After personally delivering the press release to most of the better known papers (we don't have a fax machine), I bought the small time newspapers to hunt down their office addresses.
Couple days later, only one paper published the news release but fortunately it was not edited. Seeing how ineffective this method was to sitr some hype among the press, my boss instructed me to prepare a press invitation for the journalists to come and see the event for themselves. That way if the news gets published on the second day of the event, it would draw a larger crowd.
However, the event was not only publicised through the press release. The president of the organising committee made a courtesy call to the local state assemblyman who endorsed our event as healthy for youths (which was one of our main target audience). Both my bosses are radio DJs of the local radio station and they also promoted the event through the airwaves. Forum members were informed about the event and we had their unanimous support. This showed that multiple medias can be used to generate publicity.
Still, the dissapointment of the press not giving us as much publicity as we wanted since it was our prime communication tool to reach to our target public required special action to be taken. Once again, I was back to the drawing board and wrote a press invitation addressed to each of the newspaper companies, asking them to assign a journalist to witness the event while giving them some background information to entice them.
After that was done, I was put to work with finishing up the finer details of organising the event itself. Banners, buntings stands, meeting the printers for the promotional materials, speaking with the location management and also the sponsors who will be setting up booths during the convention itself.
Most of my job was the leg and paperwork but I also followed my boss to meetings when he needed to meet with the client. This is where I picked up some negotiation skills on how to satisfy the client wherever their demands are not met.
Just one day before the event itself, preparations on the location had to be setup and alot of physical labour was involved. Everything looked ready after we were done and I was assigned to my duties for the event the next day. I wasn't going to be the MC (master of ceremonies), they hired a more experienced radio DJ for that so I was the one working behind the scenes which means I wouldn't get to enjoy the convention itself. Running as a messenger and controlling the PA system for the convention.
Finally on the day itself, participants and visitors came in by the throng. There were probably 200 people roaming the convetion floor all day at any given time. The location got so cramped that it caused quite a traffic problem which we did not forsee. It was also difficult to spot any journalists and for a moment I thought the press had ignored my press invitation. Still, my boss was in charge of dealing with any journalist so he was working on that as well while I was doing other duties.
Surprise came on the second day however. Just an hour before the convention was about to start, one of the journalist arrived with a copy of his newspaper. He showed it to use and our event received a full page coverage. ONE FULL PAGE!
This surely had a positive effect on our event because the crowd that came afterwards was much bigger and nearly doubled! Families brought their children to take pictures with the cosplayers, teenagers came to join in gaming sessions and looking through the booths. It was getting the hype that it should be.
At the end of the day, we were all tired but my job didn't end there. After the event, I went around buying papers for our media clippings. All in all, four and almost all the local newspapers wrote about our event, both the Chinese and English press. The event was deemed a success by our client and Silverhand. We were also popular among the local bloggers too.
It was a fun event to have worked on and I'm glad that my public relations skills did play a small part of it becoming bigger. Although it was the most tiring of my other events and the end of my internship, it was also the most fulfilling for me.
For more information (and pictures), check out these links:
http://81lions.blogspot.com/2008/12/hobbycon-2008-day-1-day-2_18.html
http://flaneganb.net/blog/2008/12/come-and-join-hobbycon-2008/
http://hangmen13.16ops.com/?p=708 (for more links)
http://forum.clickstartplay.com/index.php?topic=6401.0 (pics)
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=61510 (news)
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