I am so happy I got to be a part of helping organize the 10-year anniversary of the Flagstaff Oktoberfest! I always have a great time working with Jen and Deb on their events but having so much previous experience with them played a large role in my ability and willingness to take on extra responsibility during set up and execution.
I am currently the oldest intern on the team, so the other girls came to me with any questions they thought I could answer, knowing that Jen was busy with larger aspects of the event. I felt that with the previous experience working Oktoberfest, I was able to keep myself busy most of the time. Oktoberfest set up is a lot of hurry up and wait. When you’re waiting for things to happen, you feel somewhat useless. There were very few times that I felt useless. I was able to teach some of the other girls about setting up vendor spaces, and I was also able to explain what event day would be like to the other girls.
On set-up day, I helped with vendor spacing, placing some vendors, setting up different areas of the event, and placing the Port-a-Johns. I always love working with vendors because there is a lot of problem solving and conflict resolution involved and those are my strong suits. I love working with people and coming up with solutions when issues arise.
On event day, I finished placing vendors with one of the other interns and worked ticket sales. Placing vendors is a little bit more difficult on event day because the vendor entrance is also the vendor exit, so if we aren’t careful there could be a traffic jam. All vendors were on site and ready by 10am, and we were able to close the gate exactly on time!
I had fun working ticket sales because there is communication involved, and some conflict resolution. I got to work with people all day, so I was happy. It was nice to get the opportunity to gain experience in a new area than I’ve previously worked.
Clean up went by super quickly! We were all on a roll and got to leave earlier than anticipated. There were less people in the event than last year because it rained on event day this year. So, there was less trash to pick up. We also had some great volunteers who had been picking up trash all day. The event was great despite the smaller than usual turnout, and I had a fantastic time.
Emalynn