The Sandwell Conference

After all the preparations the day before the Conference finally arrived on Friday. Simon and I arrived at The Public around 7am with the Stage Point guys to begin final checks for the day and for a tech run through for all elements of the day.

The final call sheet needed to be printed and copied, as did the awards script for Liz. The day was split into 3: morning, mid-morning and lunch. For me and the PowerPoint it meant 3 presentations in the opening section, 4 presentations at before lunch and 1 massive presentation and awards within it.

After we had set up and grabbed a little breakfast Janice aka Barbara Nice was having a run through.

Barbara Nice was absolutely BRILLIANT! And…she did her stage dive!

The Conference ran really smoothly and so did the PowerPoint!

The Day Before…

Thursday 6th was the day before the Sandwell Council Conference at the Public in West Brom, for the next two days I would be helping out Simon and be the chief ‘PowerPointer’.

We arrived at the Public at around 1pm and met the guys from Stage Point who were doing the get-in and looking after the production of the conference. Simon has worked with Stage Point on many of his events and he gave me a couple of important tips about event management:

• Always look after your Crew – keep them feed and watered and they in turn will look after you.

• Find a supplier you can work with and trust – once you’ve found them continue to use them and they will pass on savings you can pass on to your clients. You remain competitive and they you know you will get quality service.

•Hire help – As an event manager you can’t expect yourself to do all the other jobs within the event that will take up your time. For example, leave the rigging to the production team and manager, PowerPoint Operator.

• Maintain great relationships with your clients. Simon has managed the conference for a number of years and chooses to work with them as he has such a great relationship with his contact and the CEO.

On arrival we set up home on a table in the Theatre with the laptops and the mini-printer. Earlier that morning we had received a couple of PowerPoint presentations from the speakers ready for me to edit the look of the slides.

Another tip Simon gave was that once the slides are on the big screens they look completely different, white background slides have too much glare and black background with white writing looks the sharper.

Once all editing was completed and changes were made and agreed all what was left is for me to spell check them over night.

Reflection: RSC Open Day

Helga suggested I should reflect on the day and compile a list of do’s and don’ts for event management based on my experiences of the Open Day. I thought this was a great idea, so here are a few of them…

Do’s:

· Prepare, but remember you can’t prepare for everything!
· Work as team
· Communicate at all times, before, during and after
· Swim – sinking is not an option! You have to adapt, solve problems on the spot and think fast
· Be honest and open
· Relax and enjoy it!
· Trust your ability

Don’ts:

· Panic – this will not help anyone
· Jump ship, make sure you face any problems head on and come to a resolution.

I’m not sure if these will be in any event management reading, but I am still looking for additional reading so if you know of any practical books I’ll be happy to hear about it below!

Thanks!

I looked online to find if anyone had commented on the Open Day and only managed to find this on What’s on Stage

The Open Day!

The day had arrived, Sunday 31st August 2008, the RSC Open Day!

I arrived at 9.00am after going around in circles trying to find a car park and then change. I got to the Production Office to see Helga, Mark, Simon and Jo.

The plan for me had slightly changed rather than being in the production office I was on the free ticket desk (the majority of events were free!).

From the moment we put up the desk and before there were two queues and I heard some were there from 7am. The David Tennant and Patrick Stewart talk ‘Shakespeare and Me’. I was joined on the desk by two girls Mel and Vicky and we tried our best to get into a system.

It seemed like pandemonium to start with especially as our table was pre-book pick-up only and many were queuing for non-booked tickets and the rule was these were only to be collected “30 minutes prior to the event at the venue”.

The Costume Tour was extremely popular and what I thought was happening with bookings, actually wasn’t. There were only three tours in the afternoon for 15 people per tour and we only had 5 tickets per tour available on the day! By about an hour before the tour there was a queue of people forming for the tours and Simon came to act as crowd control. He informed them the situation but they wouldn’t budge.

The first tour tickets were given and the queue didn’t disappear. Simon contacted Mark to make an instant programming decision. Mark arranged two extra tours of 15 people – we did our best to accommodate the visitors.

At 5ish I managed to grab another bit of break, Helga kindly swapped with me before Jo arranged for the press office to take over for the final two events at the Courtyard. This gave me chance to go to the gardens where the Ukulele Band was set to play in the Yurt. At around 6 it was ok for me to go and make my way home.

See Flickr and the RSC Site for images.

RSC Open Day…the preparation!

The RSC Open Day is an annual event which opens the doors to the public with a range of free and paid for events (mostly free!). Simon Fierce’s Event Manager has been working on this for the last couple of weeks alongside the RSC Events and Exhibitions Team: Mark Ball, Jo Whitford and Nicky Cox. My role for the next two days was to pick up on tasks that they had no time to do.

Based at the RSC Admin office at Chapel Lane I found myself surprised by the amount of people working there…I don’t know why but I thought it would be smaller but the second floor was open plan, and although the amount of people working there was vast this did not affect the friendly atmosphere.

Meeting with Simon each morning I was allocated tasks to complete. Namely: finding a stool and table (Thank you Golden Bee, Whetherspoons); updating the volunteer schedule; liaison with Jane Cromack the Volunteer Co-ordinator for the Friends of the RSC; booking the table for the Ukulele band at the Dirty Duck; compiling an actor’s worksheet to ensure we have actors where they are needed throughout the programme; laminating signage; re-organisation of the production manual; producing working sheets for the day and eating cake!

It all sounds a lot simpler than it was I promise! It was a great experience but the proof, as always, is in the pudding so it was a wait until Sunday to see if it would be a success…