Southbound festival preparations in full swing!

Hi all,

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and will be starting off the new year nicely!

Well, it's full steam ahead at Sunset Events because the next festival, Southbound is only 10 days away! It's a hard time of year to be organising festivals because Christmas and New Years are family times and holiday times for many, but for the team at Sunset it seems there is no rest for the wicked! I've been thinking about how many people take holidays this time of year, but everyone at Sunset is so busy it would be virtually impossible. The communications manager (and my supervisor) Janelle is on holidays in Singapore but she is working away on her laptop to organise everything before Southbound kicks off on the 7th of January.

My main role in the lead up to Southbound has been helping to sort out media accreditation for the media organisations wanting to write reviews, film or photograph at the event. They each get packs with welcome letters, information and passes. I've also been organising flights and car hire for big media attending from the Eastern states. I'm continuing media monitoring and have been doing all sorts of little jobs like ordering disposable cameras, editing the Southbound program and promotional material, updating spreadsheets for ticket allocations and emailing those that did not receive media accreditation this festival.

1 word that I would say there is ALWAYS alot of, is: emailing. The communications intern inbox is constantly filling up, but no where near as much as Janelle's. She sends and receives hundreds of emails constantly- all day every day. Her role isn't communications manager for nothing! The capabilites and wonders of emailing, messaging, Facebooking, Tweeting, blogging and all forms of new-ish communication methods are incredible, but I've also been starting to think about the downside to this ease of access and fast communication.

Emailing is so useful in sending and receiving info and contacting people from all over the world, as is other online communnications, but I've noticed that it is so demanding and puts a great deal of pressure on the person to respond in a timely fashion and act upon the email content. I think of Janelle and how she has to meet everyone's needs and read every single email. It's a good thing she is very efficient, focused and hard-working! A good email filing system is essential I think..along with the ability to not get overwhelmed by the number of emails flooding in constantly! Now I realise how necessary good time management, typing and communication skills are because in a job like this there is so much happening and so many things to do that you won't survive if you don't have these skills! And emailing is only one of the online mediums Janelle has to interact with on a daily basis...!

My internship so far has given me such a great insight into the industry, I know there is so much more to learn about not just the event industry but about communications in any workplace. As a keen festival girl I'm now so much more aware about the effort and preparation that goes into events and how important every single person's role in that process is. The operations and logistics managers, the artist liasion managers, the site manager and every single staff member, plays a huge part in organising each festival. I'm looking forward to working at Southbound and seeing how it all fits together and I can't wait to help out at the event! Will keep you updated!

Hope you are all enjoying your internships a great deal and have a happy new year!!

Lisa