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!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
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!
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!
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