And welcome to the City to Surf press conference!

I have been doing many tasks at my internship which include media releases, answering emails, official invitations to the event, schedules, newsletters, offline registrations and write ups for the City to Surf website (which you can have a look at here)

About a month into my internship I was then given my official role for event day - I would be the media assistant. This role would include helping out the Media Coordinator on the day, been at the finish line in the media tent, helping out the media with any queries they may have, making sure the athletes that place get an interview with them and organising the official pre-event press conference. 

To say I was excited about my role was an understatement. To be the organiser of the Chevron City to Surf for Activ press conference, their main media opportunity was amazing! About four weeks prior to the conference I started organising it, making sure I had athletes from each ‘field’: elite, human interest and interstate, writing out the MC Notes for event commentators Jon Kappler and Ray Boyd, the floor plan, working with the PR team from Chevron, the running sheet and the official invite.

Another first for the City to Surf is the attendance of two Japanese elite athletes, an agreement that was made with Japan and the Department of Sport and Recreation where Japan will send two of its elite athletes to compete in Perth’s top running events and some of WA’s elite athletes will compete over in Japan, further placing the Chevron City to Surf for Activ on the international running calendar. 

For the conference I secured the following speakers:

Elite Athletes: Kenyan athletes Luka Chelimo and David Kemboi and two Japanese elite athletes Chihiro Tanaka and Takeshi Niki.

Interstate Athlete: Sam Maxwell and Lauren Shelley

Human Interest Speakers: Monika Volpi and her guide dog Jonnie, Activ ambassador Beth Ebert and her family and Richy Bear, a man who will be running the Half Marathon in a bear suit. 

Working on the press conference made me think back to PR Media 250 when we discussed if media conferences still have a place in today’s industry, looking at the pros and cons. The positives of a media conference are that it gives journalists the ability to ask questions, relays on one key message, involve your employees (i.e. them attending), information is more controlled, able to personalise the story, gives the opportunity for simultaneous announcements and adds credibility. 

For example, a press conference that worked extremely well was during the Queensland floods when then Premier Anna Bligh used many press conferences to update the media with information about the floods and ensure that the people of Queensland were kept informed and understood the government knew what they were going through and that they were trying to fix it.

The negatives of a press conference however can include the opportunity to make you vulnerable to negative questions.

In my opinion, having a press conference for the Chevron City to Surf for Activ worked successfully. This was their chance to showcase key participants to the media and release information such as ‘event organisers are expecting a record 45,000 participants to attend the event’. See here for the article published on PerthNow after the press conference with this information. After this experience I also agree with the fact that press conferences do have a place in the industry given that they are organised well and for the right reasons - there is no point holding a press conference to release information that is not valuable or would give your company the opportunity to be vulnerable to negative questions. 

So after getting minimal sleep the night before due to nerves, I couldn’t wait to show off what I had been working on for the past month. We went to the Chevron office to get ready to set up. We went to the conference room and started to put the media backdrop together. The thing is, no one knew how to put up the banner. That’s right no one knew how to do it. This was what I was fearing the most - something going terribly wrong. How could I hold a press conference without a media backdrop? You just can’t. At the same time, speakers started to turn out so it was fair to say the beginning of the conference was a bit of a nightmare. I had to go to a corner and calm down for a bit and work out what needed to be done. Thank goodness for my fellow intern Alanna and the Chevron girls who figured out how to set up the media backdrop whilst I briefed the speakers of how to the conference was to run. Once the conference started I could breathe and I must congratulate on the fantastic way Ray Boyd and JK did the event - the way they speak and engage with the media was amazing and so inspiring to hear, you can understand why they are the event commentators for the Race. 

The press conference didn’t run as smooth as I would have liked - but there was a lady with her guide dog, a man in a bear suit and a three year old toddler, so maybe next time I would think more about what kind of speakers will attend and the flow of movement a bit better. I also learnt a very valuable lesson that I should have thought about before - to test out the media banner.

Rob de Castella, Sam Maxwell and Lauren Shelley speak at the Chevron City to Surf for Activ press conference

Overall I loved having the trust of the event organisers to be the organiser of the press conference. Not many people get to take on such an important task as an intern! I felt very honoured that the people at Corporate Sports gave me this responsibility and it was a fantastic experience.  I learnt so much about planning all the little details and how important planning is to ensure that the event goes smoothly and nothing is left out. It is the little details that may not seem like a great deal but at the event you realise that without those little details it would all fall apart. I also grew confident in my ability to tackle tasks and work in the PR industry and with other people.

What are your thoughts on whether a press conference still has a place in today’s industry? And what amazing tasks have you taken on in your internship? Would love to hear them!

Thanks,

Steph Sbrocco