ITS A WRAP!

#4 ITS A WRAP

Perth Fashion Festival 2012 is over! The week went by so fast; it was a blur of excitement and exhaustion. Its been a week since Day 1 and I am still recovering!
Whilst I have worked in events for a couple of years now, I have not experienced a week long event. It is so much different to an event that goes for one night, or one day. You really cannot prepare yourself for something like PFF if you haven't worked it before.

Some of my highlights from the week were:

1. Social Media

I was one of a few girls on the PFF Instagram during the week! It was an amazing experience approaching 'celebrities' to take photos of them, or capturing a run way show and then uploading it to see so many people 'liking' and commenting. Whilst it was fun, it did come with great responsibility. There were PFF rules about how and what we upload, concerning boarders, filters and tags. This task really helped me understand the power of social media and how important it is in the public relations industry. 
On a personal level, taking part in the PFF Instagram was also very effective from a networking point of view. I had underestimated the impact social media can have on your work life until this experience. Through Instagraming people I met lots of designers, bloggers, stylists, industry people and journalists, who after meeting, I followed their Instagram from my person Instagram account, with them following me in turn.  
With my online presence now existing in a work environment as well as personal, I have taken on the responsibility of 'cleaning' up my own social media. Yes it is a bit of fun, but it is important to give off a professional, 'ideal' online image. 

2. Watching 'my' event

There were two PFF events I solely focused on during the Festival, as my boss was the Project Manager for them. The great thing about this industry, is that you have something tangible to show for all your hard work. It was an incredible experience to see it unfold first hand, as well as to read all about it in the media the next day. Such as on The West:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/full-coverage/perth-fashion-festival-2012/a/-/article/14923523/local-collections-hit-the-mark/

3. Networking

The amount of people I met and the relationships I have gained as a result of working throughout the PFF week and my internship there for the past 3 months are invaluable. On a personal level, I have made some great friends and on a work level, I could not be more grateful for the experience and the doors it has opened up. 
In the PR world, you never know who is watching, who you will meet, or who a person is, so my greatest lesson learnt is to always be professional, always be presentable and always be on your A game, no matter what your feeling on the inside. Events is very hard work and long hours, which often goes unnoticed and unappreciated, so you really need to develop a thick skin. Go out of your way to introduce yourself, don't be shy and make an effort with everyone, because you don't know who they know. Perth is a small city, use every opportunity you can to network. 

ITS A WRAP

The Festival was so well received and it's amazing feeling knowing I contributed to it. I have decided the PR industry, in particular, Events, is definitely the area I want to work in once I graduate soon. Hopefully I made a good impression at PFF and they will consider me for next year!

The Count Down!

#2 The Count Down

I have been organising Perth Fashion Festival since June and all of a sudden the Opening Night event is tomorrow!

As one would assume, the office is exceptionally frantic today, as it has been for the past week or two.

We have a few people who are more tanned than usual from appointments last night and racks of clothes lined up, not to mention a crazy store room full of volunteer passes, giftbags, posters etc.

My tasks as of now are mostly finalising run sheets, emailing these to the necessary people, organising parking for government members who are attending our events, sorting out my schedule with my manager and lots more 'logistical' things.

The key to keeping sane and organised amongst the maddness is writing and ticking off lists I have discovered. My manager also often emails me with a task in the subject box so she doesn't forget to tell me. I can keep these in my inbox so I am always reminded and don't forget it. We also have a few drop box folders that we share to keep documents in one place we can both access/update/cross reference. Our system seems to work well. 

Needless to say, I am very excited and admittedly a little nervous. I can't wait to see all my hard work unfold and 'watch our industry come to life'. I just hope it unfolds successfully!

I will try to blog during the Festival if I can, otherwise I will recap once its over.

Erin

Do we need to be S.M.A.R.T?

I am well into my internship having completed 12 days now and loving it!

It is more recently, as I have been handed more ‘proper’ jobs to complete, that I have noticed I am, in fact, putting university theory into practice. Once I realised this, I began noticing it more and more and the differences between what we are taught in class to how it is incorporated into ‘the real world’ is quite surprising to me.

Event Report- Marketing Plan

I was assigned to an Event Report, in which I had to read over last year’s and adjust accordingly to this year’s event. Of course the finer details would be different, such as the date, time and venue of the event, but a large section of the report included a Marketing Plan and therefore I had to consider the company’s vision and mission and the event’s goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. As I read over last year’s report, I noticed some interesting things:

1.       Not S.M.A.R.T

The objectives in particular where very general and not S.M.A.R.T. There wasn’t reference to a specific percentage increase they were aiming for or a specific time frame in which to achieve any of them. Often, each objective is quite long, almost a small paragraph. It would seem as though strategies are kind of being incorporated into the objective perhaps.

2.       KPIs

Key Performance Indicators- I haven’t come across KPIs before. In some of the reports I have worked on, objectives are linked with KPIs, making the lack of S.M.A.R.T objectives even more confusing. I have found KPIs to be similar to tactics, however they are usually grouped together with a number of ‘actions’ underneath. For example, a KPI would be ticket sales and dot points underneath would be: achieve full capacity as per 2011, ticket revenue neutral, growth in retail attendance.                                    

Naturally, as an intern, I didn’t want to change the document to how I think it should be laid out so at the end of the day I raised this issue with my manager. In a casual way I mentioned the way we are taught to write such things at uni and without questioning the way her and the company works, I asked why things are written differently. Having studied the same degree at Curtin, she laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about. She replied saying that yes the way we taught is ‘the correct way’ and she appreciated my understanding of this. They simple do not have a strong marketing department dedicated to this area nor need to put emphasis on their marketing plans and other areas within this field as they are a straight event company. Employing an outsourced PR consultancy and the fact that they are the Perth Fashion Festival, means most of their marketing is done for them. Interestingly, she was happy for me to amend the Marketing Plan to make it more academic, as long as it still tied in with the flow of the document.

It is a good experience putting into practice what we learn at uni; it makes me feel like all my hard work does and will pay off!