Devahasdin Communications part 2

I recently learnt how PR overlaps with event management and coordination when I attended the launch of TheWest.com.

The launch officially acknowledged the partnership between Yahoo7 search engine and The West.com website. David the account manager managed to publicise and coordinate the event
within two weeks. It was actually funny at first when I asked him 'how many months had he been working on this?' and he said ''hmm two weeks' (!!). So I was impressed out how well it all turned out, especially considering the fact that I assumed he was just doing the 'PR' side of things, when he was actually organising the whole event.

When I say 'organising the event', I mean he chose the venue (FORM Art Gallery, Murray st. in the Perth CBD), he organised the decorations, colour schemes, florist, furniture, lighting, invites & RSVPs, catering and entertainment, including musicians and artist as well as the models (named Webbettes) and models costumes. So all of this as well as publicity in two weeks! -maybe after years of experience and connections in the right places it just gets easier to organise events? Also over the last few days leading up to the launch, David scanned weather reports and rang the Weather Bureau to ensure precautions for wet whether were made. As a result on the night there were umbrellas, a canopy for the catering company, and venue decorations took into concern the cold, wet weather!

One feature that was particularly impressive was the reason for the choice of venue and the use of IT displays and features. FORM Art Gallery is a fabulous gallery (here we go I'm doing free publicity!!) I'm not sure of all the artistic terms for the art that is displayed there, however the majority of art work (if not all) is Western Australian and is intricate and colourful and particular peices come from the north west and inland areas, so it represents WA's artistic abiltities I suppose - which is why I think it was such an appropriate venue for hosting the launch of, what I think is a new web 2.0 frontier really.

In terms of IT usage; David hired about 6 MAC desktops from America for the event and set them up so that people could check out TheWest.com during the launch. This included calling in an IT guy at the last minute to rewire the internet access in the building because the wireless kept dropping out. A visually impressive and modern presentation was also shown to everyone incorporating spokespersons thoughts, insights and opinions and excitement for the future of such a venture and long term relationship. The Whole theme was to be contemporary, modern and technically impressive. Even the musician was considered in coordination with the theme - an electric clarinet player was hired - even though at the last minute the Clarinetists' music file got corrupt and he had to play, non electric music.

I think this was achieved and sometime during this week the event will be appraised as to how successful it was.

I realised also how important it is for a successful event to maintain close and mutually beneficial and positive relationships, with the vital participants in coordinating events. The catering business, the florist, the lighting and technical works firm were all businesses that Devahasdin Communications has worked with and relied on in the past. The uniqueness of the clarinet player and the Art Gallery could possibly provide some benefits or options for future events or publicity stunts if relationships are maintained - I assume they will be.

Till next time