wanie as an events coordinator

yes i am. even during high school, with most of events coordinating tasks are voluntary and never paid for it which really was never an issue since i enjoy doing it and i love the fulfilling feeling when at day's end, you see all your efforts translated into something, larger than life.

as a public relations assistant at my company, one of the biggest challenges is that our target market is global. and though we are based here, we aren't supposed to market here. even if we do online advertising campaigns, sometimes, we are required to attend shows from all sorts of places and thus, coordinate an event.

if the event is to take place in hong kong or macau, what we need is to just do the designs, send them over email and the people from our office there will take care of it. but if not, we coordinate the event from here to there. looking for people we can work with via web, endless phone calls, and tons and tons of emails.

my first taste of events coordinating in my company is the CAP Euro Barcelona 2007 joined by leading casino affiliates in the industry. we have a booth to design, some info sheets and a give away poster (500 each), sash, business cards... and there's the hotel accomodations, payments, search for models and furniture.

so it took me about 2 months to finally settle with a contractor. we dont basically need a contractor, we need a GOOD one since we have no idea what to expect and we dont know anything about them. let me enumerate ( i love doing this!) a few things that made this events coordinating a little stressful.

1. emails arent answered immediately. yes, takes a few days before you get an answer.
2. the event is in barcelona, which means we are 6 hours ahead. at 5:00 PM, an hour from the end of my work, will they start working and attending to their offices which means, i have to stay a bit later at the office.
3. not all of them are good in english. some, really terrible! and even though you're nice and all, they won't talk to you because you dont speak their language.
4. i am here, they are there. i cant monitor the quality, the process, the status of our stuff. and i do worry with those stuff.

but all efforts paid off. sabi nga ni jarvik, sulit ang pagod. it was a good, successful show. even if im not there, at least, i know a job was accomplished and hopefully, they did enjoy.

more to come. to be held in london, macau and manila.