My Final Blog

Over the past 15 weeks, I have shared with you the ins and outs of the event industry from the perspective of an intern, brand spanking new to the event world. I have given you the behind the scenes details from 5th Element’s events as well as my own personal experiences.

I can’t thank you enough, my loyal community, for following my blog as well as all the thoughts I have shared with you via Twitter and Facebook.

I want to share my final thoughts with you on my experience working as an intern for 5th Element Events.

In my last semester at Humber I was busy preparing my portfolio, resume and cover letter, all of the things one must do before they take their first real step towards reality.

Being a student is nothing compared to all the excitement and challenges and everyday occurrences that come with a full time job. The term “intern” really means taking the first step up the career ladder.

When Jared and Aaron offered me the job as event intern at 5th Element Events, I knew that this was going to be my first real learning experience. I couldn’t have asked for better teachers or a better environment to make the first move towards my career. The 5th Element Events team did not glamorize the job and were truthful about the challenges that lay ahead.

There are everyday challenges that occur while trying to plan events, such as dealing with all the vendors, making sure the client is always happy and always being prepared for last minute changes and cancellations. Such as the last minute change of Sony’s Mardi Gras themed event to a “Go Canada Go” Olympic hockey event. I remember feeling the need to write a blog about making this last minute change, because I never thought  that it was possible to change the theme of an event the day before it was going to happen. This is a great example of being prepared and being creative and working with the demands of the client. Being an intern in the 5th Element office everyday, I was able to see exactly how much work goes in to designing an event, especially since 5th Element offers full 360 degree event design including lighting, decor, entertainment and more.

The biggest surprise to me was how much social media I would be responsible for, our marketing manager Jared Golberg is a thought leader in the social media world, and I would have to follow in his footsteps and start tweeting and blogging. To be honest, at first I thought there is NO WAY I was going to be tweeting 3 times an hour or blogging twice a week but, much to my dismay, I wrapped my head around the concept of social media. I felt the desire to also become a thought leader within the online community. I started to do more research so I could push useful content through my Twitter account as well as the 5th Element account.

It was an amazing feeling having people in the event community re-tweet the content I posted. I started to feel like i was a part of a bigger community outside of my office, and that feeling helped me grow to appreciate social media.

Even though I say that the event industry is not glamourous and exciting all the time, I am still confident that I am on the right career path. I have known this since the first event I ever did, and thankfully Aaron and Jared didn’t scare me off. The rush and excitement and challenges that come from an event is worth every minute because when the event is over, you have a sense of accomplishment. If I can have a career that continually gives me that sense of accomplishment, I would consider myself lucky!

Below are some points I feel would be useful to anyone who is following the same career path:

1. Do your research and know exactly what being an event planner entails, there are always going to be surprises but being prepared for the challenges is useful.

2. Get your creative juices flowing, event planning can give you the opportunity to get as creative as you want, sometimes you will have a small budget to work with and you have to get really creative and other times there will be an unlimited budget where the sky is the limit, and go beyond the limits!!!

3. Network, Network, Network!! Get to know as many people as possible in the event industry. Social media has helped make this very easy. Join the #eventprofs community on Twitter, and become a fan of the many event company Facebook groups. Having a strong network is key!

I hope the little tidbits of advice and everything I have shared with you over the past 15 weeks has been useful or at least interesting!

I will continue to share my thoughts and future endeavours with you via a personal blog that you can look for in the coming weeks and please feel free to follow me on Twitter (@CarlyAshR) or Facebook!

It has been an amazing experience at 5th Element Events and I look forward to whatever the future holds

Until next time,

Carly

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