Postgrad Course Final Project

Isobel Crawford talks through her experience of the final project for the Spring Postgrad course  week, after weeks of preparation and dedication, we held our live events on behalf of Ambition UK, Britain’s largest UK charity for their 90^th Anniversary, and what a fantastic and unforgettable experience it was! The class was divided into two groups, each with two team leaders and every person was given a specific role and responsibility. This was a brilliant opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in the organisation and implementation of an event. The experience has been a fantastic preparation for our careers as event managers. Compared to our other projects, it was certainly more challenging (and slightly daunting!) but once we grasped our creative concept and our objectives, everything seemed to click into place and it became exciting and rewarding from start to finish, with the expert assistance and guidance of our tutors every step along the way. The brief required us to hold a fundraising event with our target being £4000, focusing on the charity. It was interesting to see how although we both had exactly the same brief, the events created by each group were very different from each other. On Tuesday 16^th June my group, ‘Magnify Events’ held the event ‘The Pursuit of Dreams’ at an edgy venue called ‘Cargo’ in Shoreditch. The evening consisted of various entertainment, including Eden, a British singer, a football freestyler and singer/songwriter Nick Stephenson and a ping pong competition. In addition we had a raffle and auction with prizes such as a weekend in Bournemouth, vouchers, and a Cagliari coffee machine, all hosted by Paul Deacon, a toastmaster who kindly offered to assist us. The highlight of the evening was our social media campaign, whereby we had a lip sync film challenge, creating buzz and excitement in the run up to the event. We even created a group lip sync which we showed to the guests in the venue. It went down a storm! In all the evening went very smoothly, with a good turn out and we reached our fundraising target. This was achieved by donations to our Just Giving page but also the generosity of our guests on the night. The following evening I attended the other team’s event, at the very swish ‘Eaton Square Bar’, Belgravia. ‘Blink Events’ created ‘A summer night with Ambition’ with refreshing Pimm’s on arrival and sponsors such as Lola’s cupcakes and Roots and Shoots. The evening began with the emotive Ambition video, followed by entertainment including an exciting raffle with the main prize being a week in Barbados which was won by a fellow student! Various bands and singers made the evening dynamic and buzzy and the crisp atmosphere and service in the venue made it a seamless event. The team leaders concluded the evening thanking their supporters before a DJ ensured everyone ended up on the dance floor relaxing after all their hard work! The live events were a totally unique course experience and provided us direct experience of the skills required, particularly working as part of a team to achieve the best results possible. We actually found the greatest challenge was selling tickets, due to time constraints and our stretchy targets, but social media and word of mouth led to incredible results. Our tutors Rosie and Martin, and Course Director Justine were extremely supportive and we thank them for their wisdom and advice. Now our final piece of work is done, we are off into the events world, excited and prepared for the challenges to come in our placements. Watch this space!