As I turned off my alarm set to 6:00 a.m. I had no idea how big of an adventure the day would be. I scooted my groggy ass out of bed and put on my fancy Peaks Event polo and Oktoberfest hat and headed out the door to what would be one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. As I approached the event location there were already tents being set up, fences lining the sidewalks, and banners promoting the event. It was then that I started to realize how much goes into making an event successful.
You never think about the set up when you are attending an event. You’re just happy there is food, drinks,entertainment and that it looks nice. The work it takes to make all of this happen however, is extensive. I was ignorant coming into this event about the amount of work, but I was willing to do everything possible to make the event go smoothly and hopefully take some stress off Jen’s shoulders. However, jen is a perfectionist much like myself so I don’t actually know how much stress I could really take off. I hope Jen and I can bond over this someday because I think there are a lot of positives to being a perfectionist, especially in the event planning industry.
One of the biggest learning experiences I had was that in order to make an event successful, you have to hire others to help. Yes, it is not physically possible to do everything by yourself. This is something I need to remember as I progress in my career. I want everything my way, but sometimes that is just not the case and I need to accept that. When we arrived to the event, another event company was already there, doing the heavy lifting, wiring, and setting up. I guess that makes sense that we would have help I just didn’t even consider it beforehand. The company was cooperative for the most part and it helps to know people and show them respect. There was one problem though that opened my eyes to how stressful an event can be. That was that the company brought some tents of the wrong sizes. This probably doesn’t seem that big of a deal to an outsider. To the event planner though, this is a big mistake. You see you cant just plan an event on a whim. There is meticulous details and organization. There is a method to all of this madness and when something goes wrong it messes with that method. Another lesson through this was that you can’t always rely on people. Even if you do hire them to do a particular thing, there is no guarantee that it will actually get done.
This leads me to my next learning experience, which is that a lot of event planning is thinking on your toes and having to make last minute changes and adjustments. Rarely in the world does anything go according to plan, but in event planning almost nothing goes according to plan. It is just something event planners have to be prepared for.
As for the overall event, it went pretty smoothly. Everyone seemed to enjoy their time and except for a few hiccups and a few naked drunks humping each other, everything went fairly well. It felt awesome to be a part of the success and with this being my first event I have ever worked, I was pretty damn proud of myself. We can only hope to get better as the years go by. We got to share a drink altogether at the end of a 14 hour day and celebrate the successful event. I am part of such a great team and I can’t wait to see what is next.
Michaela Cogan