Groovin' the Moo 2013: featuring a lot of laminating

I have come to the realisation that event planning is not all fun and games. For me, I think I envisioned a more play in the park, party planning deejay-vu from when I was 5 years old planning my teddy bears picnic birthday party. This is most definitely not the case, as I have come to understand. Rather I have witnessed a few days of event pandaemonium leading up to the Groovin' The Moo (GTM) event that Sunsets was holding on the 11th of May in Bunbury, that was nothing close to fun and games!

The tasks that I was deliberated during these couple of days included a mass load of laminating. I can now say that going from not knowing how to laminate to professional laminator in about 2 hours is quite impressive. I was laminating event passes for musicians, media, staff and volunteers, staff contact and emergency lists, signs for cloak rooms, stage information, play time information. You name it I laminated it!

I was also in charge of label making, 'stickering' and 'lanyarding' all of the passes which gives access to the artists, media, volunteers and staff during the event. So if you worked at GTM and you had one of those amazing lanyards around your neck, I made it! I was also in charge of putting together an 'info point' document. This was a document with all the information needed for patrons. It included transport, taxi numbers, bus routes, Sunsets recycling initiatives, set times of artists, stage set up, venue map and FAQ information about tickets, what can be brought into the festival, what to wear and everything else that needed to be known.

I also worked with the staffing co ordinator to get together staff packs for everyone working at GTM. This was a task that involved printing out excel sheets of the people working at GTM, sticking them to A4 envelopes and placing their access passes and wristbands that they needed to work at GTM. This was a tedious task as you can imagine there are a lot of people working at a large scale event like GTM It was also one of the most important tasks in staffing as everything needed to be correct or else the staff would not have the right access passes and in turn cause issues on an already hectic day.

As a sat in the office on the Wednesday before the event, I noticed a lot of tension in the air, a lot of grunting, sighing and the occasional wail from someone. It seemed to me the stresses of event planning never ended. With such a large scale event, with countless people involved in different areas of business there was a lot of frustrations. The main issues seemed to stem from staffing problems and especially volunteers. The fact that the event was in Bunbury made it more difficult and the small storm like weather was not helping either. The weather however, was not going to stop this event, the weather was only going to deter people who were working and volunteering at event from coming. There was a lot of engaging phone calls happening with desperate plights for more volunteer and staff just days before the event as well as follow ups with vendors who seemed to be unreliable, clueless or un-contactable. Just writing about it makes me feel anxious let alone first hand dealing with the issues.

One of the things I love about Sunsets is their green initiative and shows their corporate social responsibility is that they bring to every festival they produce.  It is what really sets them apart from other events and music businesses the fact that they put a lot of effort into ensuring a green event that is helping our environment which is such a major issue in todays world. The Green initiative that was implemented at GTM was the 'Aluminium Can Recycling'. For GTM nationally they introduce a recycling program where $1.00 is added to the cost of every alcoholic beverage. Once you have finished your can, you crush it and take it back to the bar ticket tills for either, $1.00 cash back; or $1.00 off your next drink. This was to help increase the amount of waste recycled at GTM festivals nationally.

It was obvious that the event had taken a toll on everyone as I walked into the office on Wednesday morning after the event I noticed a lot of sniffly noses and absentees in the office. However, apart from the chaotic lead up, the event was extremely successful despite the weather, issues with staffing and other problems arising throughout the duration of the event. It just goes to show that even though a large scale event such as GTM has many issues and challenges throughout the set up stage, it is probable to say that with a collaborative team it is achievable to create a great event. I have learnt a lot through out the process of helping out and watching what has been happening and now fully understand the work needed to undertake major events.

With only a 5 or so more days left of my placement at Sunsets I have already started thinking about other places I would like to work in the future. I have been thinking of some place, that is the complete opposite to a business such as Sunsets just for the reason of furthering my experience and understanding different work environments.

Until my next and final post

Ella

A lil' bit of this and a lil' bit of that and realisations!

At Sunsets there is no distinguished PR team, rather it seems to intertwine with the marketing and events management. This is interesting to experience as I am able to experience a bit of PR, marketing and events management all in one! As Sunsets is such a small team environment with only a handful of full time employees,  I have also been lucky enough to work with a range of people in both junior and senior roles and learn from them immensely.

Some of the tasks that I have been given over the past couple of weeks have dealt with issue management, stakeholder relations and media relations. I was delegated the task that I think every PR intern is asked of media monitoring. Although a tedious task it is also probably one of the most critical. It involves monitoring press; online and print publications of sunset related media, which are collected, dated, scanned and stored for future references. Also, looking at Sunsets social media and blog postings or more formally known as 'buzz monitoring' to see what people are talking about sunsets and how they are using Sunsets social media. Overall, Sunsets uses media monitoring to stay on track of what media they are being promoted through, what is being said about them, what is trending, their competitors and staying on top of media news.

Another task that I embarked on was a research and write out responses for the Fremantle Business Awards 2013, which Sunset Events were entering themselves into. This was an important task and my grammar and spelling had to be impeccable. I learnt a lot more about the company while writing the report out and was surprised that my supervisor, Madi was extremely impressed with the written work and left it as it was before sending it off. Job well done for myself I say and a small confidence booster in writing business documents for the future.

After reading several blog posts from other students placement positions, I have come to realise even though, I have been given a great opportunity at Sunsets I don't believe I am experiencing everything that I want to. One task I would of loved to have been able to do is write media releases, so that I could get feedback on what I need to improve on as I feel media releases are a major part of public relations that really needs to be practised continuously. However my time at Sunsets so far, has made me realise that events management and especially in such a small team is not where I want to be in a future career. I think that rather, I would be more suited to somewhere more corporate, in a larger team, dealing with clients that I can interact with!

Until next time..

Ella

Follow Your Gut Feeling.....

I had known I’d be doing this unit for nearly 3 months, I had all of the 3 month University break to look into different placements and what I wanted to do but, being my ‘ill find something, it’ll be fine’ leave it the last minute self, I found myself in a panic and absolute chaos trying to find a placement. The panic started to set in the first week leading up to the start of semester I eventually started sending out emails and calling places that I really had an interest working with however, there was no answers immediately and I started thinking that I was not going to find a placement. Everywhere I contacted had seemed to already have interns or didn’t need interns at this stage of the year. As I got desperate I frantically ‘googled’, emailed and called any places not minding where my placement would be, just anywhere so that I could graduate this semester. I eventually found my self with an offer from Momentum Events, which sounded like a great placement, but I just had a gut feeling that there was something else that I was meant to be doing. I emailed a few more places that I was highly interested in and what I want to pursue after graduation, in the areas of fashion, events and music. I was extremely excited to find an email the following day from Sunset Events, one of the places I was extremely interested working at. Madi, the Admin and Events Coordinator said that there may be a position available for me as the ‘Groovin’ the Moo’ festival is coming up and help would be needed on the event. I was extremely enthusiastic about getting this position and I think that’s the reason that Madi ultimately offered me a position.

As I rocked up at their ‘office’ I was slightly confused, in my nice business wear, expecting to be interviewed in an air-conditioned office I had found myself in a large misplaced shed in a backyard in Fremantle. The girls were all nicely dressed, but not in business clothes but, rather casual trendy clothes, feeling totally uncomfortable in my outfit and out of place. However, Madi was extremely nice and at the end of the interview I asked her ‘ so I’m assuming I don’t come dressed like this to work’? She answered saying that if I wanted to I could wear my pajamas to work because she certainly does half of the time! After that I couldn’t wait to start the following week!

On my first day I was set to work on some basic tasks as Madi had said there was not much preparations for me to do for Groovin’ the Moo yet but, when it came time there will be a lot of work and I will be not only doing public relations but a little bit of everything as well as attending the festival with the rest of the team! My first task I was given was to create excel spreadsheets for up and coming artists who were emailing Sunsets, interested in getting exposure and playing at events. The spreadsheets were also used to keep updated with who Triple J was featuring on their station and up and coming artists they were also playing. Lastly, I used the spreadsheets to record artists that played at Sunsets 2013 festivals and whether they were local, national or international artists. The reason for the spreadsheets is so that Sunsets can stay up to date with trending artists, who plays where on what stages and what artists that are trying to break through the music scene are extremely imminent on getting their music out there.

On my second day, I rocked up to find a list of things on my desk to do. Some were PR related items; others were admin types of jobs. One of my tasks was to set about writing out answers for the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce Business Awards 2013, which Sunsets was entering. This was challenging as I had a small amount of background knowledge of Sunset Events, but I was surprisingly able to write a fare bit with success and also learning a lot more about Sunsets. Secondly, I was asked to change the ‘about’ section on the Sunsets website as the last person who had done so was not so literate and there was many grammatical errors and inconsistency’s. I enjoyed doing this task and using the first paragraph with persuasive and emotive language to encourage people to keep on reading, which I felt what was missing from the previous ‘about’ section.

Lastly, I was asked to compare survey results from 2012 and 2013 about the 2013 Southbound festival. The data collected needed to be analyzed to understand any trends or large differences between the festivals in the previous year. It was interesting to see the changes in responses one year on and one highly notable trend was that in 2013 people were much more environmentally conscious, which I think Sunset will notably take into consideration for Southbound 2014.

I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks bring, especially leading up to the festival and what other tasks I will be instructed to do. But, for now I am glad to have found a placement and finally on the pathway to graduation.

Speak soon!

and then the sun sets on my degree...

I never thought I would see the day, were I was finally finishing my last ever university assignment. My final assignment would be my professional practise report for this unit. Even though this report would be the biggest I have ever written or had the most percentage worth within my entire degree. I would have to say that I have actually thoroughly enjoyed writing every component of it. You could tell that I enjoyed writing it because it would be one of the only assignments that I have started weeks before hand, unlike the majority of my assignments, which would have most likely been products of the night before caffeine fueled cramming sessions. I think it’s safe to say that all of the Public Relations students, who are winding up their studying days like myself, are all experiencing a variety of emotions. To be honest,I’m feeling a variety of emotions, mostly feelings of relief and excitement for the new chapter of my life and that I have finally reached this milestone in my life. It’s taken me a lot of obstacles, tears, caffeine and sleepless nights but it is great to reach the finishing line.

As it’s come to my end of my internship, I have been exposed to an entirely different industry, in which I have taken in every moment of the experience. I was very lucky to be placed within an organization with such down to earth people especially Janelle and Angel. I don’t think I could have asked for better supervisors to be placed with, were they didn’t mind answering any of my questions I had, or showing me multiple times on how to correctly transfer a call with the new hi tech telephone system (which I think I mastered finally, -thanks angel).  They made me feel incredibly welcome, and not like a work experience student, and that my contribution and assistance was appreciated. PR393 would be one of the most valuable units I have ever completed within my degree, because it’s one thing to know and master the theory, but it’s completely different ball game in real life. You need to know how to take this knowledge from the last 3 years and put it in practise within the work place, and some people may struggle with that and some may been incredibly successful. I have defiantly seen the other side of events and festivals, something many will never see- the amount of work, time and effort that goes into to planning just one of these events is enormous. There is a lot of love and passion for music and culture, especially within the team.

To all the students reading my final blog, I wish you all the best with your future endeavors!

We finally got here :D

The view from the eyes of the promoter

My internship is slowly coming to an end, and the last couple of days here I have been exposed to different activities which has been pretty awesome.

As we have recently begun festival season, one of my tasks I was given was to compile a publicity folder that required me to select photos from each Sunset Event from the 2011/12 season that could be used to showcase the event at any given time upon request. I found this activity quite fun and interesting, not only getting to look through some amazing photographs, but getting to select photos which grasped the feeling of the festival and really seeing how so many people are affected by music was intriguing. 

One of the main tasks that every practitioner will be exposed too within their career at some point is writing a media, or press release. Janelle gave me the task of constructing a media release for an upcoming Sunset activity. To be honest, it was quite a daunting task to be given as it had been a while since I had constructed a media release and not to mention Janelle is an excellent writer. This would be one of the tasks that I enjoyed the most, but I was a little disappointed with myself with some silly errors made through it. I guess it is a learning curve, and one lesson I learnt through this task was YOU MUST PROOF READ. Such small grammatical errors could have been avoided if I had proof red more efficiently than I did.

Southbound is one of the most popular music festivals held at the beginning the year and the Sunset team is hard at work at promoting the event. As Sunset is located in Fremantle, they formed a partnership with Notre dame student chapter. They joined forces were Notre Dame where they were launching their mezzanine area; this opened up the opportunity for Sunset to do a southbound promotion which gave the students who attended a chance to win tickets. It was my job to compile a music playlist that included 2 tracks from each artist performing to play at their launch. As I am not very familiar with many of the artists performing, I really enjoyed this task because it allowed me to listen and be exposed to a different genre of music and other artists that I am unfamiliar with. Once I had finished the playlist, Maddi (another sunset intern) and I were sent down to set up some promotional material around the mezzanine.

The next upcoming event that festivalgoers are anticipating is Stereosonic 2012. I was lucky enough to sit in with the whole Sunset team, including the directors to discuss the progress and Stereosonic issues. I took in every moment of this meeting because it was really interesting to see the different aspects of business and how they assist or affect the planning of a festival. Stereosonic would be one of my favourite festivals, where each year I have thoroughly enjoyed myself so it was great to view it from the opposite side of the fence; through the eyes of the promoters.

Until next time were I will be wrapping up my blog!

Tahlia

Festival Season is upon us!

I was very much looking forward to writing this blog entry. I am about a quarter way through my internship and have thoroughly been enjoying every minute. Since it’s been a while since my first blog, I thought it was about time to update you on my time here at Sunset.

There is one thing that I have learnt, the general public does not know how much work goes into organizing an event, and the volume and quality of work that is undergone through the planning period is incredible. Recently, the team at Sunset travelled up to Port Hedland to host the inaugural Northwest music Festival. This festival featured such artists such as the hilltop hoods, the Living End and the cat empire. The event was deemed highly successful! One of the tasks I was given was to construct a publicity report to be presented at a debriefing of the event. I was to compile all the pre and post event advertising regarding the festival, and to label it accordingly. Such advertising included newspaper articles, magazine articles and online advertising. This publicity report can give feedback to the amount of coverage it was given in the lead up to the event, and can give an adequate response to see how the event was perceived by all involved. 

With the Northwest Festival wrapped up, it was onto the next! As we are approaching the busiest time of the year, festival season; planning was in full force for Stereosonic and Southbound music festivals. As there were numerous artists playing at Southbound my task was to research the particular artists performing to enquire on they had any upcoming single or album releases. By having an artist having an upcoming release it could be intertwined with the promotional and marketing activities surrounding a particular event. 

As a lover of music festivals myself, I can safely say that I give credit and respect to the Sunset team and other similar promoters for the amount of time and effort placed into organizing a one day event. Working at an events company such as Sunset, it isn’t your ordinary 9-5-weekday job and what I’ve learnt is the work never stops even! The environment at Sunset is such an easy going and comfortable environment and like angel said, “it has to be for the amount of time that we spend here".

Until my next blog!