This past Saturday night (the 31st of October), a
lot of our hard work culminated when the annual Pink Ribbon Ball was held. It
was an exciting (and exhausting) night!
I arrived to the venue (Perth Convention and Exhibition
Centre) at 3pm. Because the ball itself didn’t start until 6, I got a firsthand
experience of an event setup. It was great to see all the different
subcontractors and sponsors that we had been talking to over several months
come together and put together a vision we had been working towards for a long
time. Pre ball activities for us interns
included setting tables with the catalogues and signs we had been working on,
liaising with the set up crew and running through the run sheet and assigning
tasks for the night.
Once the ball started it was all systems go! There were 5
interns to help run an event with over 500 people, which meant we were kept
busy throughout the night. Our duties included co-ordinating a reverse raffle
(where the last number drawn is the winner), which meant running around to over
50 tables and collecting entries and sorting them ready to be drawn. I was the
lucky (unlucky?) intern that stood on stage holding the entries whilst they
were drawn, which was to be honest, a little intimidating!
The other highlight of the night was the live auction. The interns were in charge of approaching
auction winners to take their details and process payment. Keeping track of the
highest bidder in a dark, crowded and loud room was certainly a challenge,
especially when people were aggressively trying to outbid each other for items
such as diamond rings! It was a pleasure talking to guests that were having
such a good time for a wonderful cause.
This experience at such a prestigious and large event was a
look in to a side of PR that I had never really considered getting in to. I
enjoyed it far more than I was expecting (I’m not always the most outgoing of
individuals) and I’ll certainly now look into developing my event planning
skills further.
Thanks for reading!
1 comment:
Hi Sarah,
That ball looks awesome! Such a fantastic looking event that you created, I hope it all went off smoothly. You mentioned how nerve racking it was being up in front of all those people but did it help you get the most out of your internship experience?
Unfortunately with the nature of my internship I didn't get to make an event like this but I wish I did as it looks to provide so much experience in many fields from communication to planning and execution.
In regards to being up on stage I'd class that as being lucky as it's a once in a lifetime experience the other interns wont have (your competitive advantage)!
All the best with your PR future and thank you for the insight into large events like the Pink Ribbon Ball.
Cheers, Lewis.
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