Final Day

The last day of my internship was April 22 and it was really bittersweet! I walked in on my final day to find my desk decorated with streamers and little signs saying things like "We'll miss you!" and "Super-intern!", here is a picture I took.

I kept the streamers up while I worked that morning and just sat in the middle of my own little party! I was only working a half day so my boss and my co-workers took me out to lunch, where they presented me with a card and Target gift card!

I tried very had not to leave in the middle of anything, but somehow managed to leave in the midst of 3 projects anyways! It has been my goal to organize their messy storage room, but when my internship got cut a few months short, that idea went out the window. I blogged about the problem on the "Offering a Solution" discussion board and at the weekly meeting before my final day I passed off a sheet of paper with ideas on how they should organize their storage room as they'll probably have the time to tackle that project this summer. I had also been working on Sponsor Reconciliation Binders, but was never able to finish them as we didn't have time to gather all the estimates on the different values of our advertising campaigns, so Heidi the talent manager will be wrapping those up when the numbers come in. Finally, the day before I left there hadn't been much for me to do so I came up with my own project of entering the contact information from prospective vendors that had sent their information in during 2006-2008 (there were several binders on a shelf) but only got through 3 of the 5 binders, if only I'd thought of that project sooner!

Overall I loved my internship experience and it has been a little weird not making the trek out to Glendale anymore, but I've been keeping busy. I picked upmy graduation cap and gown today and have been picking up a lot of hours at the spa I work at (I celebrated my 2yr anniversary with Marriott this past Saturday, woo hoo!). It has been a pleasure sharing in your internship experiences with you, I wish everyone the best of luck in their future careers and hope to see you all at graduation!

Whirlwind

Whew! The past week and a half has been really hectic, both personally and professionally. The week of April 14-20 is always crazy for me because in that short period of time is my boyfriend's birthday, my birthday and our anniversary- throw is wrapping up an internship and career searching and one gets exhausted pretty quickly.
After posting my last blog on the 17th it seemed that I had spoken too soon, I logged onto the Marriott website and one of the administation positions that had disappeared had mysteriously reappeared! It was a part-time job with the timeshare property that adjoins my hotel property and I didn't waste any time discussing the opportunity with my manager who told me to go for it and ask the HR directoor about taking on a second job, as the application process within the hotel only refers to transferring. I held off applying for a day or two, waiting for an answer from the HR director and in the meantime discovered not one, but two full-time administration positions that had opened in the hotel in the event booking center- everything I had always wanted (one's ticket into the event planning department)! I was beside myself and called my manager to get her blessing to transfer and then applied. When the HR director returned my previous call I asked her about the admin positions I had applied for and found out they were literally for some event booking center that lists through our site and is located somewhere in Phoenix, not near my hotel at all. I was really frustrated, I think it is pretty ridiculous to list jobs as being on a certain hotel property and not even note somewhere that they are off site! As of now I haven't heard any response from this potential new job, I am not sure if it is something I want to do, so we shall see. While I had the HR director on the phone I asked her about the other part-time admin job, as it turns out, I can't have a part-time job with the spa and a part-time job with the timeshare company, I could only pick-up extra hours, but it is still somewhat of an option. To top it off, on Friday the Association of Bridal Consultants sent out a note about a possble part-time job, which I considered calling about but realized I don't have time to give at this point so let it go. It's crazy, there are either no jobs, or you're trying to juggle 10 choices at once, I would much prefer things to come one at a time, choices are good, but I guess I get overwhelmed.
My final posting will be about wrapping up my internship and my wonderful last day, but for now, it is time to work on my final report!

Action Plan, Getting Ready to Graduate

Yesterday my supervisor handed me a calendar for the month of April with all the days we had already passed crossed out and a marker for me to count down the rest until my internship ends next Wednesday. My co-workers and I didn't think it was the nicest gesture, counting down the days for me to leave, but he just insisted we were looking at the glass half empty and he was looking at it half full- after all we get to have a party on my last day! I'll have to take his word for it, after all he was happy to write me a recommendation.
The glass half full / half empty scenario really describes how I'm feeling at the moment. I'm a bit nervous to be graduating with the current job market and not knowing what is going to be happening in the next few months, while on the other hand I'm really excited! I've been waiting a long time to graduate, instead of doing full time school and work, I'll just have work, imagine the amount of time I'll have to do the things I've been unable to enjoy since I started college, like scrapbooking! I've been so busy the past few years that when I do start scrapbooking again, I will be starting with moving into my dorm my freshman year of college!
With only a few days left of my internship, I'm still in the middle of some projects- like sponsor reconciliation binders; and I have several loose ends to tie up, like reorganizing the files I saved on the computer so my co-workers can find them after I leave (unlike the last intern, they still have no idea where he hid his stuff!) We've wrapped up Jazz and Blues minus a few payments from several vendors, but this morning I officially filed away the folder with all the printed material we need to save.
Looking forward I'll be checking the job market on an almost daily basis, jobs seem to disappear as soon as they're posted. I've actually been kicking myself because Marriott posted two part-time HR positions that were ideal for me but I didn't apply because I wanted to talk to my spa manager about my hours at the spa first, next time I logged on the jobs were gone (within maybe a week or less)! I've expanded my search to other area hotels trying not to be too picky in the process, but the commute to Glendale has exhausted me- I don't want to work too far away!
During the month of May, while I sit at home job searching, I'll be completing several courses offered by the Association of Bridal Consultants and will apply to be a "Professionall Bridal Consultant", even though I've only ever worked at one wedding (the irony doesn't escape me). Hopefully, the economy will pick back up and I will be able to transfer to the catering department at my hotel where I can get hands on experience wedding planning until I feel comfortable enough to go out on my own- as I've planned on doing the past two years. If not, I'll just go with the flow and take any opportunity that arises.

Jazz and Blues

Wow! The event was the 4th and 5th and I am just getting around to writing about it- I spent last week recovering! Even though the event was only two days instead of three like Chocolate Affaire, it wiped me out the most. The event itself went really well, luckily the strong winds died down on Saturday and every vendor was able to set-up their tent. My responsibilities included covering all the tables with plastic cloths Saturday morning (as well as cleaning and replacing the dirty ones on Sunday) then wandering around the event answering questions, looking for problems and maintaining the snacks / beverages in the VIP areas. It was interesting to see how the Jazz and Blues festival differed from the Chocolate Affaire- it was much more laid back for one! There is a difference in the feeling of the crowd when people come to shop as opposed when they come with coolers and blankets to relax and watch performers all day. Here is a picture of me on Saturday 4/5 in my work outfit!

Not the most flattering picture, but I got my Jazz and Blues shirt, VIP pass, radio, and a Chocolate Affaire hat to protect my eyes, very official!

So, the event went well, but of course there were a few problems...

• I had ordered 100 white bath towels for the talent to use, the towel company had called and confirmed the delivery, etc. Well, Friday came and went, no towels. My co-worker, Heidi, who needed the towels (and had given me the company to call) was in contact with our point person and he told us the delivery time had changed and then said they were delivered- we never saw them! One of our sponsors ended up lending us the towels, whew!


• The VIP areas were often quite empty in the early hours of the show and having a lot of shade attracted event goers who wanted to sit in them, an old man cursed me out Sunday morning because I wouldn't let him up! We had security guards stationed at the VIP tents and my guard had happened to be about 20 feet away throwing something in a trash can, talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! I did make the suggestion to my boss to start selling seats at the VIP tent areas in the future (instead of just reserving them for sponsors and talent)...


• Sunday I was making one of my final rounds at 5pm when I noticed the kids inflatables had been deflated and were being rolled up, even though the event wasn't ending until 6pm. I was considering if the company was supposed to be packing up early and I had forgotten when a confused event attendee who had purchased tickets for his children approached me. I called my co-worker Dory who headed over to the area as the inflatable company definitely wasn't supposed to be packed up. We called the owner of the company, who was incredibly upset that his team had packed up (they claimed the papers said 5p) and issued refunds to the event attendees that complained.


• We had a really unique art installation at the event, a pink porta potty that made noise juxtaposed next to a picture booth- something that would need a bit of explanation. Well, the artists felt if people didn't understand the concept on their own, then they just didn't understand art, and they refused to remain with their piece. If the attitude wasn't enough, toilet paper was ending up on their red carpet that led up to the toilet and started scattering across the lawn- not a nice effect.

Although there were some problems, the event was incredibly successful and we had great attendence (even with all the other music festivals in town that weekend). Here is a picture of our bike art installation which was a huge hit at the event!

How to Get A Jumbo-Tron in A Park On A Diesel

Let me tell you, it’s an experience! The Jumbo-tron is on a huge flatbed on a semi-truck. First several people from the office, who had to get certified in traffic laws, post themselves in the street to stop oncoming cars. Slowly, the semi pulls out and begins backing in onto the park sidewalk. I had the task of lifting the mud flap behind one of the massive back wheels to prevent it from getting stuck between the wheel and curb and being damaged. Along the way to the middle of the park we had to climb on the back of the cab to free tree branches, etc. Once we got to the grassy patch in the center of the park we had 6 boards of plywood that had to be shuffled as the truck backed in to keep the back wheels from digging into the grass too much. At the end we had to space the 6 boards so each was under one of the six sets of wheels. Lesson learned- gloves are incredibly important when working with plywood!I was also a part of history this weekend as the first stakes ever were hammered into the ground at Murphy Park, the central location of Glendale’s events. In the past, tents were always weighed down with cement blocks, water barrels or sandbags. Due to the high winds expected today and possibly tomorrow, staking became essentially the only safe option. It was a huge step for the city and some big wigs, including risk management, came down to the park for hours to discuss the situation. However, only the handful of tents in a small section of the park that were being set-up by our tent rental company were allowed to be staked. Ironically, this is the first event where Glendale is not providing tents for the vendors and the strong winds have thrown a wrench into that! Although it was forbidden, a lot of the vendors who set up their tents today used small stakes to secure them- we’ll have to be writing up infractions for them at the end of the weekend. There was also a tent casualty today! I walked by a small 10 x 10 tent that a food vendor had set up early this morning with all of their stuff, 5 minutes later I walked by again and the tent had collapsed and blown away from the tables. The tent owners had left so a few other people from the events office and I tried to secure the tent with extra sandbags and opened some of the flaps/walls that were acting as sails. Unfortunately, this solution didn’t last long as one of the metal legs actually snapped with the force of the high winds! Hopefully the wind will die down tomorrow and make way for a relaxing event.

ADA

My office hit a bit of a roadblock yesterday. With the big event 2 ½ days out- and people starting to load in today, the city’s Building Safety division denied our permit for our 2 VIP areas because they were not ADA compliant. Both VIP sections are platforms that are 24in off the ground with a step-up, and not wheelchair accessible. The platforms have been the same in the past, but were never denied a permit. My boss felt since the platforms are invitation only, and therefore private, we do not need to make them wheelchair accessible. Building Safety felt someone we invite could bring along a friend or relative in a wheelchair and we need to be prepared.
I ran out to the park with my boss and co-worker, along with the company that would need to build the ramps on the phone. We began measuring the area since for every inch in elevation, you need 1 foot of ramp- therefore we would need to squeeze a 24ft ramp into a small area. The situation was stressful because we needed to be mindful of access to the stages, not eliminating too much public seating with the ramps and how they were going to get built when the company needed is already fully committed this weekend due to the amount of events in the area. Once we had determined the best placement, we headed back to the office and explained the situation to my boss’s boss- who then went to the city attorney, spoke with Building Safety and made the whole situation go away by putting responsibility for accommodating anyone who can’t access the VIP platform because of physical limitations.I kept hearing in my head lectures in classes about being aware of ADA compliance and the importance of accessibility. While I can understand that the platforms are private and it would be an incredible hassle and expense, not to mention an eyesore, I think the VIP areas should have been equipped with wheel-chair ramps. Glendale events are supposed to be family friendly, so if some of our musical artists or big sponsors wanted to bring their family- which might just include an elderly parent or grandparent in a wheelchair we would have to scramble to accommodate them and make them feel welcome. As a family friendly event- we should be prepared to welcome family and friends of any physical condition.

Meetings

This past week my work load has really been ramping up to get ready for the Jazz and Blues Festival coming up April 4th and 5th. It will be interesting to see how many people attend as Country Thunder and the Tempe Music Festival are the same weekend! In addition to my heavier workload, I've also been able to attend 2 extra meetings this week.
First I went on a walk through with the company responsible for the children's area- namely the inflatables. they have a pletohra of different attractions- and you don't really know what they're going to bring out to the event until the day of. I learned about some of the things that need to be considered in order to place the inflatables. For example, they wanted to bring their most popular inflatable out (which they'd only recently determined by counting the # of tickets turned in at each of their attractions) that happens to be enormous, but it couldn't be in front of any stores, and they didn't want to put it next to the giant bike arch being erected by the Arts Commission as that would make that area of the event way too heavy. There will be a second company at the event with a euro bungee in the same area and it was also interesting to see how the inflatable company looked out for the euro bungee company and made sure they had a good spot, etc- even though they're technically competition.
My second meeting was a production meeting with the guys in charge of audio, the company providing and rigging the power, two other girls from special events and the company in charge of the scenery for the stages. It hadn't occured to me but putting the 4 different entities in one room allowed everyone to talk, work out any potential issues and pave a path so people will be familiar with each other when the event is actually happening.
Meetings can be a bit dry, but you get a lot done in a small amount of time and it really promotes cooperation among companies, departments, etc. Next blog, I'll fill you in on the projects I've been in charge of this week.

4th Avenue Spring Fair

Friday was really fun, I got to take a trip to Tucson with my boss and another co-worker to see what we could learn about the 4th Avenue Spring Fair. The event is celebrating it's 40th year- with nearly 300,000 attendees! The event is run by a the 4th Avenue Association, a small office of 3 people that produce more than 24 events a year on 4th Avenue, a street in Tucson with a lot of unique shops and restaurants. We were invited by the event producer as guests to learn how they do things at the event. Here is a picture from their website, this is exactly what it looks like, only the tents continue going! (http://www.fourthavenue.org/)

It was interesting to walk through the event with Nikki, Glendale's vendor manager and see the fair through her eyes- she noticed so many things that I didn't see- an empty spot where a vendor didn't show up, signs placed on the ground, how to spot a good vendor, etc. Although we came away with a wealth of information, we won't be able to implement all of it since the 4th Avenue Association is private and has a lot more flexibility than a city event does. My assignment (from my boss) for Monday was to come up with a list of 5 thing I learned from the event, here it goes...

1. Latex signs on the pavement are a great way to give directions AND get sponsors involved.
2. Charging a higher base price for vendor booths (rather than a lower price PLUS percentage fees) keeps things simple without the stress of implementing a new method to track vendor sales.
3. Small groups of street vendors (like 2 high school violinists) are a way to incorporate the community and keep activity going in all places of the event as you move away from the main stages.
4. A great way to get rid of pesky groups trying to take advantage of the event and not pay the vendor fee is to place a terrible musician next to them!
5. Be wary of giving a vendor several different spaces throughout the event- if they decide not to show-up, you'll have a big hole!

Bummed

Today was my first day back at work after taking off Wednesday-Friday last week for a short vacation (and using up most of the overtime hours I got from working on Chocolate Affaire). Unfortunately, I got some bad news Tuesday afternoon. My internship was originally supposed to continue on past graduation till July 4th, this is because fall interns with the City get to work on 6 events and spring interns only get 3- so they made the internship longer so spring interns could do 4 events. Due to the poor economy and some budget cuts my department can only keep me long enough to fulfill my granduation requirements- so now I'll be finishing up around April 20th. I am dissappointed because I love working with Glendale and was so excited to help with their 4th of July event, but at the same time I am just grateful they are letting me stay on to fulfill my internship so I can graduate in May! With this change in the length of my internship I am feeling a bit like an outsider, and it is so strange to think that roughly a month from Friday will be my last day! With this change I am also feeling quite distracted wondering what is going to happen to me a few months from now due to the bad economy and a rough job market-while I am excited to graduate, it isn't exactly feeling like the best time to do so either. This wasn't exactly my most cheerful blog entry, but I am sure things will pick up later this week as I get busy working on projects for the Jazz and Blues Festival- and continue being hard working and trying to generate some more connections so I have some options upon completeing my internship :)

Down Time

My first few weeks "on the job" were very fast paced because we had 2 events close together, these past couple weeks have been much less hectic since the next event isn't until April. Due to the slower nature opf my job lately, I've been getting to work on all sorts of odd projects...

• One day I organized 3 boxes of folders that had been left by the woman previously in charge of permitting events for the city. There were all sorts of events held by the city, private organizations and other area groups. It was so internesting to read through the different events people planned and see their thought process. The folders also contained e-mails between the special events committee and notations on the progress of the permit- great communication insight!


• Another day I got to generate and send invoices to vendors for the upcoming April festival, which I discovered that I really liked doing, it felt therapeutic.


• Another time, I worked on writing up vendor "infractions" for people who perhaps didn't pay their fees on time- a less fun side of events, discipline.


• I've also been doing a ton of research on everything from custom USB's, renting bath towels and companies that rent or sell tents to things like how other events classify their vendor applications!

I am off the next few days-using up my overtime from the last event, when I get back I am sure I'll be doing a lot more Jazz & Blues related activities- here is a picture from the Blues stage last year.

Internship Networking Lessons

On Monday I attended a meeting for the local chapter of the Association of Bridal Consultants, and there was an educational segment on the use of Facebook, Twitter and Blogs for professional networking. I was astounded when the presenter asked how many attendees were on Facebook, and nearly everyone in the room raised their hand! Up until that point I had looked at Faceboook as a mere social avenue- I was aware that many companies out there might look up your Facebook page and therefore you don't want to put up anything that you wouldn't want a future boss to see- but I didn't realize how popular it now is among every generation! My immediate reaction was so run home and update my page and start 'friending" anyone else in the association I can find as they could all be possible business and employer connections. It is also a great way of reminding someone who you are, bridal meetings are once a month, it is easy to forget someone's name in that time but if your friends on Facebook, you can look them up for a quick refresher.
The same speaker also discussed the benefits of a blog. Starting out this semester, I honestly wasn't eager to blog once a week and have had trouble keeping up with it, but now I am glad to be practicing! According to the speaker, who owns a wedding photography business, her website gets about 30-40 hits a day, but her blogs gets anywhere between 300 and 500 hits every day!! Not only does more traffic go through her blog site, but it is an avenue for her to talk about her experiences and offer tips- which in turn gets other photographers asking her questions on the blog and makes her look incredibly knowledgable to potential clients.
Now, when I make another blog post or listen to my co-workers at my internship talk about their Facebook posts on one anothers pages, I'll be looking at the big picture, networking :)

Research

I mean this in the nicest possible way to ASU, but I never thought all those library classes on reareaching and using databases was ever going to benefit me outside of writing research papers for classes, turns out I was wrong!
A food vendor wanting to operate a booth at a City of Glendale event has to pay a specified amount (that ranges on the size and length of the event) plus 20% of their gross sales. Until now, the City of Glendale has been using the honor system and counting on the honesty of the vendors in reporting their actual gross income from the events. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who aren't as honest as they could be, so the time has come to look for an alternative method in determining gross sales of our food vendors. On March 20, I get to take a little road trip to Tucson with several of my co-workers to attend the Spring Fair held on 4th Ave. there, the producers invited us to attend, get a backstage look at what they do, and most importantly, learn about register tape and how they use it. Here is a link to the Spring Fair map http://www.intucsonnow.com/4thave.html
Register tape is simply a long list of transactions and amounts printed from the register once transactions are complete for the day, obviously someone not wanting to report all their income for the day simply doesn't have to enter a chunk of their transactions into the register. That being the case, I was asked to research what other festivals that require a percentage fee from their vendors are doing to ensure they get accurate counts.
I began googling "festival percentage fee", "vendor percentage", "vendor fee" and so on without any luck. I asked my supervisor for some help and was given a few more phrases to work off of. Google wasn't helping, so I tried Google Scholar, surely methods for obtaining accurate vendor incomes is something as important as counting crowds at an event, and I was convinced someone had to have written an article on the topic. With still no luck, I decided to put my education to good use and hit up the ASU Library web site and tried my luck and searching skills with LexisNexus and Ebsco Host- unfortunately I never found anything, but how cool would it have been to have turned in a peer reviewed article from a scholarly journal on proven methods for obtaining vendor totals!?!?!
As a final shot I began googling vendor applications and reading through them to find out who else out there is actually charging their vendors a percentage fee, then finding their contact info and actually e-mailing the person in charge to ask them how they do it! I sent 7 or 9 e-mails and one person wrote back right away about how they use register tape, and I had a phone conversation with someone in Frisco, Colorado this morning about how her event uses tickets to keep track of consumer spending. I am still hoping a few more people will write back before Tuesday when I'll present my findings at our weekly event meeting- I'll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, check out our website, www.glendaleaz.com/events, we have the 26th Gendale Gibson Jazz and Blues Festival coming up April 4th and 5th so mark your calendars!

Chocolate Affaire

Now I’m really exhausted! The weekend before last I had the pleasure of working on the Glendale Chocolate Affaire- preliminary estimates are saying nearly 100,000 people attended during the event’s 3-day run. Physical set-up began that Wednesday, and Friday and Saturday I had to work 14 hour days and Sunday was only 9 hours, but that included tear-down (which goes quickly but feels long because you’ve been on your feet all weekend)! So, what were some big things I actually did! Let’s see…
During the event we needed 3 mini-buses to run between the main event site and Cerretas Candy Company to transport participants to free tours of the chocolate factory. I couple weeks prior the shuttle company Glendale had planned on using decided they would no longer be using mini-buses as of February 6th, forcing us to find a new company. I was given the task of calling bus companies and getting quotes and basically choosing who to contract with, a bit stressful since there was a lot of money involved. I took my findings to my supervisor and with my input, we decided which company to go with and I set things up. Well, day of the event, instead of sending us 3 mini-buses, the company sent 1 mini, 1 normal, and a really huge coach bus- my supervisor was furious! Luckily, it wasn’t my fault as the contract stated that we wanted 3 mini-buses and the company has probably just decided to “over-deliver”, which is fine and dandy in some situations, but we didn’t have enough room to line up the large buses. In the end things worked out, but this was a good example of when one shouldn’t over-deliver; more isn’t always better.
Another huge concern the weekend of the event was the potential for rain. The tents, although heavy and strapped down with sandbags have the potential to lift off the ground during a storm should there be gusts of wind- which would mean the staff would have had to run around unfastening the back of the tents so the wind could escape. Magically, it never rained during event hours, and all day that Sunday, one could see clouds in different directions surrounding the Chocolate Affaire, but the rain held off. However, it did rain overnight that Saturday- so Sunday morning we had to dry off chairs and tables- and while doing so I kept thinking to myself it didn’t matter because probably only a few people would show up and they surely wouldn’t want to sit down, but before the event started people were pouring into the park and some even gathered napkins and finished drying off the chairs themselves! One really interesting trend I noticed during the Chocolate Affaire was how early people showed up every day. The event is held in the middle of downtown Glendale and although some surrounding streets are closed, the public park where the event held never is and people can walk through whenever they please. The event opened at 10am on Saturday- which everyone thought was a mistake (and that it shouldn’t start till 12p), but early as 8:30am people came strolling through the park and soon as vendors arrived at their booths people were asking if they were serving food yet! Overall the event was a huge success and I loved being a part of it, I worked hard, and I got to try some new things, like chocolate covered potato chips!

Internship Exhaustion

I've completed my 3rd week of my internship and I have to say, I'm exhausted! I have a 50 minute commute out to Glendale and work on all sorts of different tasks throughout the day that use different parks of my brain and by the time I get home in the evening, I'm ready for bed! To answer Marni's comment, I found this internship on the SCRD E-Update and I have to say, I lucked out! For the past year I'd been planning on completing my internship as the JW Marriott Desert Ridge and Spa with the Social Catering department where I'd been working as a Spa Coordinator. After finding out in November that due to these difficult economic times they couldn't take me on as an intern (even though it was unpaid) I was devastated. I applied to about 10 other placees and not a single person answered me except Glendale. I'd been interested in the city of Glendale since taking Special Events with Vern Biaett who made it sound like such a wonderful community and really reminded me of Connecticut where I am orginally from. And even though I am exhausted, I am grateful to drive to Glendale every day and be given this opportunity to expand my horizons.
This wasn't an incredibly exciting week, it was filled with mailings and envelope stuffing- preparing packets for the vendors, sponsors and partners of the upcoming Chocolate Affaire that contained information on set-up and parkng passes and thank-you letters for their participation. On Friday I went with the Vendor manager, Nikki, to personally hand-deliver some of the sponsor and partner packets along with event posters. As all of us have been told in this major, networking is key and Nikki emphasized just that to me and I have seen first hand just how many people she knows! Being a lot more outgoing is a skill I am defintely going to have to work on if I want to get further in this industry.
My highlight of the week was the completion of a sign inventory. The City of Glendale has hundreds of signs that they put up throughout the year at their events and I was tasked with the job of taking an inventory, and in the process, I came up with a new organization system for the signs. I've recevied a lot of positive feedback on my sign inventory from my co-workers, boss, and my even boss's boss!
The next week will be filled with preparation for the Chocolate Affaire and some really long hours this weekend. As I said in my interview for this internship, my favorite part of event planning is the running of the actual event- and I can't wait to see how I handle a 3-day long event!

Introduction

Not only am I excited to be graduating in May, but I am so really grateful to be spending the next few months interning in the Special Events Department at the City of Glendale learning from a team of 4 fabulous event planners. My first week was a whirlwind adventure, I began 1/12 and my first event, the Glitter and Glow Block Party was that Saturday, 1/17! Blogging is a completely new concept for me, so I am going to go ahead and write about that event for my first post.
Let me tell you a little about what Glitter and Glow is! The block party happens every January to send out the holiday season in Glendale (during which the city has over 1 million lights glittering every night), a few streets are shut down in the area of 58th Ave. and Glendale Ave., and 24 hot air balloons line the roads and light up (glow). Vendors have crafts and food for sale, the area stores stay open late, a Kids Zone is set up with bounce houses and a climbing wall and a few large scale rides (such as a ferris wheel) are thrown in as well. Going into last Saturday, I had no idea what to expect, all I knew was that I would be running around from 10am-midnight and I'd been told to bring an extra pair of sneakers so I could switch half-way through the day (great tip!), extra deodorant, a lot of water and to dress in layers. I arrived amid a flurry of vendors "loading in" their supplies to the tents that had been set-up the previous day, and was immediately put to work setting up "ped fence" to establish an area for alcohol. The event didn't begin until 4p, and I spent my morning and afternoon setting up signs and assisting vendors get set-up. At 4p I began checking in the hot air balloon crews, assigning them radios, giving them event shirts, and making sure they didn't have any questions.
I was lucky enough to have some time during the event to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere- soak it all in. One of the highlights for a lot of the attendees was the presence of 7 Cardinals Cheerleaders, who were there to sign autographs and perform. At the end of the night, everyone grabbed a pair of clippers and took off in different directions to take down all the signs (for restrooms, the kids zone, etc). We then moved the ped fence to a place it could be picked up, gathered empty soda cases and tied up other loose ends. The entire tear down process took a fraction of the time it took to set up everything- probably because it was 10p and we were exhausted!
For my first large event, it was a great experience, I got to do a little bit of everything and feel much more prepared for my next event- the Glendale Chocolate Affaire, February 6-8, if you're in Arizona, you should come by, it is going to be delicious!