Be Prepared

In doing a lot of cross work with the development team, it might seem like I'm a fixed member of that department. However I know I have quite a bit of work to do next semester, and it's time to start the early work that goes into my department before we start receiving guests. I took my time to re-read my manual and schedule the next important things I have to do such as figuring out if we'll receive the 500 dollar donation from catering to cover our breakfast. As well as securing the coveted Clocktower Lounge to serve for our filmmakers lounge and a spot for our Galaxy Gala. Also It's time to start talks to arrange everything for next years Cinemixer, formally known as the Film Kid Mixer. It'll probably be difficult to arrange a meeting right now with the heads of each club or group to discuss things, but sending out an email to everyone of them to get them thinking about it wont hurt at this point. I've enjoyed watching my classmates present but I'm also excited for them to hate seeing my face so frequently.

Not Very Swaggy

I'm quoting young upstart, Justin Bieber with his former use of the phase "swaggy", deviating from swagger and just plain swag. Getting to the point, this past weekend was the celebration of Cucalorus finally becoming legal, aka they celebrated their 21st year as a festival. Rather than wasting time by talking about all the amazing films (and not so amazing films) I saw this weekend, I'll be turning my focus towards again swag bags and a little bit about the parties. Again returning to the title of my post, first impression upon receiving my beautiful pegasaurus pass was the slight disappointment in the lack of swag altogether. The only thing received was the very lovely tote bag, rumor has it that others received t-shirts and posters in their bags but it differentiated across the board. The Lounge was really cool, except it's placement wasn't too great on the first day because it was the backstage area of Thalian Main, which wasn't helpful for performers during dancealorus, they probably could have closed the lounge for the duration of dancealorus. I'm still a little confused as to why they didn't exactly do that. But it was a nice space until it filled up and you're squeezing past the bar line to find your friends so it's not the best place to network unless you go in during it's down times. Back to swag, the best place to get swag had to be at "That 21-minute party", which was so interesting because it was just that, held at Planet Logo, they had snacks and beverages and a ton of freakers laying around for anyone (I'm assuming) to take. They also had small devices provided by the venue to open beers (that again I'm assuming) were to take. I thought it'd be cool for either the lounge or the after party to have little things like that (if we have the money or surplus to spare) for guests to take beyond what they're given in their initial bags to take home with them. A little bonus on top of the bonus to make them feel like we really wanted them to get the most out of our festival like I did with Cucalorus.

A Dreamlike Experience

Over the weekend, myself and a handful of other Visions members and directors had the chance to go to the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, VA. Located adjacent to the University of Virginia, most of the venues are located along their Downtown Mall which is a long strip of stores, restaurants and theaters. Now coming from a hospitality spectrum it was pretty great, the swag bag came with a tote with the festival's name on it, a complementary tee, water bottle, a wine cork and a few magnets, mostly advertising the support the festival has from the state. The other in-kind sponsorships were shown at their lounges and after parties  with the sponsored wines/ciders/liquors were listed on a menu card for guests to look at. The Filmmaker's lounge was a good place for filmmakers to relax between screenings but also help them save money on food because the venue, The Whiskey Jar also provided guests with food from the beginning of registration to the end of registration. To leave having been very satisfied with the festival from beginning to end (from them trying to help us with our timing issues) is an experience I want to make sure our guests have at the end of their time with us.

Keep All Dogs on Leashes

Last week marked the beginning official sponsorship groundwork, as in going out to meet with people who we decided would possibly be very interested in donating money to our lovely cause. Adrienne and I started out by taking a list of names compiled from class suggestions, past visions sponsors and a few from the city board that seem like businesses that would fit our festival and we would fit them. When provided with an email and name to contact we send out well structured emails to them, for those with addresses and names we went out with copies of our sponsor packet and met with them in person to talk about Visions with them and explain anything that they didn't understand or wanted to know more about. A key thing is understanding the language of what you're selling and so its less like you're trying to sell them something and more like they're making a well advised financial decision. At the end of the day after what was a very thrilling experience where the owner of one of the venues we spoke with watched his dog get hit by a car made the day one that will go down in infamy.

Late Log # 4

It's getting closer to Call for Entries and our events! And a lovely brain child created by the Art/Marketing/Hospitality/Development team has been born in the name of a sponsorship packet. All that was left is to get it approved and read over by the class and then finally we could start showing it off to people and start seeing some results from weeks of research of the area. Of course for some where the information is available we'll be sending out preliminary emails with the packet attached to get them to start thinking about it/save us gas so we don't go out there and they were never interested to begin with. However with areas that don't have that information available we'll have to meet with them personally to explain who we are and how we'll be beneficial for them by becoming a sponsor. Which could be because of tax write offs or just plain ol'publicity to a young crowd. I hope for a bit of success this time around compared to last where it did not go well at all. I believe in myself and Adrienne to do well no matter what comes a long the way.

Late Log # 3

Bringing up again that I'm a bit of a free agent, it's nice to do this sort of work because you get to understand a little more about each department as you help them out. It also helps build as a team, but this time around I helped the Marketing Team try and find the best photos that would be put on the filmfreeway page. So then you have to think of who's seeing these pictures, and what kind of photos would be the most appealing to them. Also Call for Entries were coming up soon, so I also devised a plan on which classes here would be best to talk to talk those and our upcoming events and again you have to think of the same things. Who's our best audience and who'll be the most responsive to these things? New ideas to think about and further understanding of a department that's not my own.

Late Log #2

My job at the moment is essentially floating to where i'm needed, but when my time comes next year I'll have quite a bit to do. So the departmental research is needed to keep me refreshed and on my toes plus I have new ideas to possibly use or keep in mind for any fires that might arise in the future. http://festivalsandevents.com/festival-planning/Backstage_Hospitality.shtml A sort of blog post, deals more with concert like events, but there's something in here that I think fits this department very well. "The first important step is to try to get a diverse group of people who are energetic, sociable, and extremely dependable" which sounds like a no-brainer but having a team with these qualities is honestly so important when dealing with guests because then you have a group of people who are understanding and if there's something you feel as a team member you might not be strong at you'll know that possibly there's someone else on your team who can do what you cant. Though not faced with any challenges quite yet reading about what makes a good hospitality manager makes me calm because this is just a different field of customer service and i'm confident in this field.