Before Peak Events, I had never worked a festival, let alone such a big festival! The buildup for this event was a little bit nerve-racking. We had countless meetings going over the different parts of the event and where we would be stationed and how to work each station. I was pretty nervous for it, but also very excited! The day before Oktoberfest was set up day. It was a long day, but it was so cool to see the empty park in the morning and then be able to compare it to the finished product on Saturday morning! Saturday finally came and we were up very bright and early. We finished setting up the last few booths and tents, before we were sent to our stations to set up those. I was working the Merchandise Tent, which I ended up liking very much! We hung up a few of the different shirts and other merchandise and set up the rest of the tent. When the gates finally opened, it took a while for people to make their way over to me. But eventually they did! At some points, we had long lines of people buying t-shirts, beer-stein hats, stickers, beer cozies, and lots of other cool Oktoberfest Merchandise. If I didn’t have the help of a few really awesome volunteers, it would have been pretty hard! But luckily, I did have volunteers helping and they made it lots of fun! I would say that the Merchandise Tent was in a pretty great spot because we were right by the stage, so we could see a lot of the contests and bands. The night finally came to an end, so we broke down the Merchandise Tent and then helped breaking down a few other tents. When we finally got to go home that night, we were so excited to just go to bed. But we weren’t quite done yet! The next morning, we had to be back to finish cleaning the park. Eventually, it was back to the way it started on Friday morning. This event was long, chaotic and pretty intense. But it was so much fun, and I learned a lot about a different side of events! I am definitely looking forward to Oktoberfest next year!
Emily