After the Halloween Carnival our department was split into two teams to tackle the next two events. I was on the team to handle the Christmas Market, the other team was to tackle the Christmas Gala.
My assignment, along with another intern, was to find more local vendors who would be interested in selling their product for the Market.
Oh background! This was the second year that home city was putting on this Christmas Market. Last year they had about 1,000 attendees but there was this horrible blizzard that cut it short because everyone was freezing. For vendors I think they had about 20.
Anyway, I spent a good 3 weeks on Etsy (there is so much weird stuff on there *twitch, twitch*) searching through sellers asking if they would be interested in participating. My fellow intern disappeared during this time. Or if she did show up she would stay for an hour and then leave. No one is really sure what happened there. Before Thanksgiving break we had about 20 vendors that had sent in applications, but that included 9 food vendors. I was disappointed because I was hoping to have at least 35 without food venders.
When everyone came back from the break we had about 41 venders!!! I was so excited. With the help of my boss we assigned everyone to a booth while the others on my team handled getting electricity, entertainment, and the Photo Booth.
Well, December 12th came and it was beautiful weather. Set up of the event was a little iffy but it was set up and we had over 2,000 people there! We had fireworks for the "lighting of downtown" and everyone loved it!
We did have one vender come and randomly set up their booth. When I told them there was a contract and vender fee they needed to pay they disappeared pretty quick. It was one of the more random events of the night.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the event. But know it was awesome, we strung strings of lights everywhere and we had LIVE llamas and reindeer. Those might have been my favorite part.
While I didn't really help for the prep for the Christmas Gala (for 50+) all of us were required to help out with it. We had a coat check, live music, a dinner, and a photo booth. Surprisingly it was more stressful than it sounds. But I wasn't in charge so hey!
After each event we always take a picture as an events team. We always have a nice photo and then some crazy ones. For one of them Mary suggested we do an awkward family photo. I'm not sure of what all happened but at one point Becks yelled "JUST TOUCH ME!" to Brit and all the girls erupted into laughter, and we got it on film.
Is this one of my favorite photos? You know it. Becks is holding her head in shame by the way.
This is actually what we were going for
The last event I was privileged to be a part of was The Countdown. It's a huge event put on in the local mall for New Years. While I only had a small part, being in charge of crafts, it was still a blast. The only downside was that it was the only time this winter that we were in the negatives. It was soooo cold outside. We think that's what affected our numbers so much. We usually have about 8,000 people come but this year we only had 5,000. But it was still a hit to those who came. Not to mention we cleaned out in record time. We were out by 1 or 1:30. Some years they were there till 5 am. So glad that wasn't us.
We had a closing dinner for the end of the semester and we were complimented that we were the fastest clean up crew that they've had for every event. I think it's because we were highly motivated not to stay for hours and hours cleaning up haha. That closing dinner was amazing by the way. It was Asian themed. We sat on pillows at a low table had the lights low and lit by lanterns, and had sushi. Our director even dressed up as a ninja. It was awesome. We also went and played laser tag. So sad they don't have an opening right now.
