For the love of football

From the very first day of my internship at GO Communications (GO) I have been assisting in preparing for an event for our client Zurich Insurance Malaysia Berhad.

Zurich is running a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign called ‘Love for Football’. The campaign is in conjunction with Little League Malaysia and involves going to schools and teaching children essential football skills. Zurich will also be donating money to each school to be put towards football related expenses.

GO Communications’ role is to ensure the event gets coverage in the media. Two and a half weeks before the event my team members and I delivered the invitations to the media in the form of a yellow card. The invitations were hand delivered to about 15 media and emailed to over 50. For more information on the delivery of the media invitations refer to my previous blog ‘same same but different’ posted on 13^th June 2014.

In the days leading up to the event it was my job to call the media to get their RSVP. Unfortunately for us, most media departments do not assign their reporters until 6pm the night before. This means we often have to wait until 7pm at night before we can call them for their RSVP. On some occasions I was told to call back at 10pm. Zurich however, want to know final media numbers by 3pm the day before, a somewhat impossible task.

Today was the day the event finally took place. I woke up at 5am to arrive at the Football stadium by 6am. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself having to wake up so early, until I got to the stadium and met the event crew who had arrived at 1am in order to set everything up in time.

The event was MC’d by two local Malaysia personalities. The event program included a speech from Zurich CEO, a speech from the King’s brother, a performance by the keepie uppies and a friendly indoor football match between a local school versing some football legends and Little League coaches. The football legends include Datuk Santokh Singh and Abbas Saad who use to play for Australia.

Wondering what a Keepie Uppie performance looks like? Watch the video below.

My job on the day was to register the media and ensure they were well catered for and comfortable. It was really good to be a part of an event and see how much preparation goes into it. We ran through the script with the MC’s at least five times.

My fellow intern Felicity and I with our 'event crew' passes.

It was interesting to see the things that went wrong that you could simply never predict. During this event the wind picked up and blowing the balloon arch over and ants infested the media desk. It made me realise no matter how much you prepare something can always go wrong on the day that you hadn’t thought of. I guess now I have experienced those things going wrong I can prepare for them at future events. Note to self, always bring extra string and fly spray to an event.

Whitney