The time has come for the Kings Park Festival to draw to a close, which sadly means the same for my prac with the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority. My time with the BGPA will conclude this Sunday with the ever-popular Wild Fairyland Festival - the biggest fairy party in Perth! Kids come dressed as fairies, elves, wizards and pixies and there is fairy floss, pony rides, magic shows and so so so much more! I won't lie, I'm definitely excited to get dressed up as a fairy! Hopefully the weather will be kind to us this weekend - we had to trek though the Lotterywest Family Area analysing the site plan and figuring out what is going to go where in the rain the other day!
Luck hasn't really been on our side with the weather lately! Since my last blog we had a bit of a disaster. Unfortunately, Tree-mendous Family Day on Sunday the 18th had to be completely cancelled due to extremely wild weather and storm damage to the park! Driving into Kings Park early that morning I had to dodge huge branches strewn across the roads that had snapped off during the storm. It wasn't until I arrived at the main Festival site I saw the worst of it... one of the large Tuart trees had completely ripped out of the ground at its roots. Not only that, it had taken out another large tree on its way down, landed on a marquee smashing to pieces the tables and chairs inside and also destroyed some promotional signage and tree-wrapping displays. It fell directly on the limestone pad where we conduct activities and also where the food vendours set up; only about 15 metres from the stage for the live music. We were definitely thankful it fell early in the morning when it did because any later and the outcome could have been extremely worse! But seriously, out of the hundrends and hundrends of trees around the park, why did it have to be one right in the main area! Not a good start to the day!
The area was roped off and the guys with the big machines that demolish the fallen trees into mulch (I'm not sure what they are called) were on the scene immediately. The combination of the storm damage and continual rain meant it was just too dangerous for the days festivities to go ahead. All we could do was retreat to the offices and start calling everybody and anybody to let them know Tree-mendous Family Day had been cancelled.
Situations like this make you realise that no amount of planning can prevent some things from going wrong; in the end, some things are beyond our control. We obviously couldn't control what the weather was going to do so we had no other choice but to cancel. Its so sad to see all that hard work go to waste but what can you do! You will come across unforeseen circumstances in your working career and you just have to deal with them the best you can. In this situation I learnt the best thing you can do is get on the phone straight away and let those involved know what the scenario is. I felt terrible calling people at 8 on a Sunday morning - the majority of them were half asleep when they answered! But ultimately they all said thanks for letting them know early because they were grateful they didn't come all the way to Kings Park and then find out the bad news!
Its sad to see my time with the BGPA coming to an end - being a part of the Kings Park Festival was an experience I'm really grateful of. Looking back, its rewarding to know the activities I've been a part of and to see the work I've produced. I know its corny but I love reading the website or a brochure and thinking "I wrote that!"
Fingers crossed the weather is nice for us this weekend,
Au revoir fellow bloggers!
Kate Brown
Bentley Campus
14290138
3 comments:
Hi Kate,
It sounds awful that an event you put so much effort into was destroyed by the simple act of unpredictable weather! Not to worry though, it sounds like you and everyone else around you had good crisis management in place to cope in the event of something like this happening.
Your placement still sounds like such an amazing experience, and definitely one where you can take away a lot of new and exciting ideas and techniques on how to manage events and pr. The added bonus of being able to dress up as a fairy sounds pretty cool and fun.
Hope it all goes well and I'll keep my fingers crossed that the weather stays nice and fine for you.
Kate
Hi Kate,
Your placement sounds like so much fun! It must have been a great experience to work with an organisation that plans such family orientated and high profile events. What a fantastic addition to your resume.
As Kate Caine said in her comment, your blog really highlights the importance of an effective crisis management plan. Even though the cancelling of your event was possibly the safest 'crisis' you could have opted for, it was still a huge blow to the hours of preparation and effort you and your team put in.
Good luck with writing your report!
Jess
Hi Kate,
So sorry to hear that your event didn't go as planned! It must have been such a disappointment after all your hard work. Though, as the other comments have said, it really was beyond your control and you just have to tackle the situation as best you can in the circumstances.
It sounds like you were very quick and effective and rectifying the situation which is great. I just finished reading a crisis communication journal article by James Lukaszewski and he said that prompt action is essential as 'bad news never improves with age' - which I thought was a great quote for situations like this. I'm sure everyone was happen with how quickly you let them know of the cancellation.
Thanks for the interesting read.
Lucy Clifford
139656500
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