My FIRST event

It is exciting to get your first media release published for all to see, however for me that was also a moment of panic. The pop-up Style Exchange in Subiaco was going to be my first event that I have done on my own, for my intern company Pro Subi and for the general public. The first published article on the pop-up Style Exchange and the event was going ahead.

I’ll go back to where it all started with being asked to come up with some fresh ideas for Pro Subi’s pop-up initiatives. I took this task to heart, as events management is my idea of a dream job and I really wanted to show my creativity. I took a week to really fine tune some ideas before I pitched them to my supervisors. I was in shock when she loved them all and told me that I had a budget and to go ahead and implement them. I was so excited that my supervisor loved my ideas that the realization that I was now responsible for their success had not hit me yet.

My first task for the event was to secure a location for the event. Pro Subi has, in the past, done a lot of pop-up events in vacant locations in Subiaco that I thought that this would be a breeze, how wrong I was! Securing a location turned out to be the hardest task of them all. Getting hold of leasing agents was a task in itself and in the words of my wise supervisor “stalk, stalk, stalk!” was exactly what I had to do to get a hold of them. At what felt like the last minute, before having to throw in the towel, I had success and promotion could begin and all other decisions could be confirmed.

I had a lot of anxiety, as the days got closer to the event. Would my idea work? Would people show up? Would people enjoy it? What would my supervisors think of the work I had done? Overall it went great, I worked the event and had a great time seeing all my hard work pay off, and getting lots of first hand feedback from the public. I have learnt a lot from this event and how I would do things differently for future events, however I feel that it was a success and achieved the main goals that I had hoped it would.

Events are a great way to connect with audiences and learn about perceptions and opinions on how successful they feel the company is meeting their mission. I have learnt that the key to a successful event (and minimising anxiety) is organisation, even though there are parts that are out of your control the best cure for uncertainty is to be organised for everything within your control.