Preparing for the Grad Jobs Fair

Don't you just love it when you come up with the idea of throwing a surprise party for your bff (best friend forever) or planning a party with your friends?  At first, is that great feeling of excitement that you are going to be putting it all together, all your friends are going to be there, your bff knows nothing about it and no matter what happens the party will be a success. Well, that's probably how you get your first experience in events management, before even entering high school and discussing with your parents what you wanna do for the rest of your life.  Throwing a surprise party at age 12 is probably a little bit different with being 22 and organising a major event for a big organisation.  The feeling and structure might be the same, for example demonstrating the idea, telling everyone about it, planning who is coming, sending invitations, ordering catering and executing the event.  But it is that simple that when you are 12 you don't really think that something might go wrong, don't have a 5 page bulleted point Action List and the event doesn't take up to 6 months to plan.  

Am i loving it? Yes, a challenge is always welcomed in my life and events are always challenging !

My Big Event, the Grad Jobs Fair, is in 2 weeks !  What goes on in my mind atm? 

 

I need to create the poster, oh wait before i do that i need to find the sponsors. 

Once you find the sponsors you can proceed with printing your promotional material.  This year our main sponsor will be Cummins ! 

I need to do the floor plan, oh wait before i do that i need to: make sure i know who is coming, know how many people are coming and order catering, then create a catering area.  

Do not assume that it is easy to do the floor plan.  Companies cannot just simply be placed in a random order.  Companies who have high stands/boards need to be placed in a certain area of the room where the ceiling is high enough, oh wait some companies do not know what their board height is yet! Well you cannot wait or assume, so the ones who do not know just go in the high ceiling area. Also you need to think about companies who need plugs, internet and the most important, company competitors.  It is silly to place competitors next to each other.  

Marketing:  So you want to market the event?  

There are hundreds of ways you can market an event but first you need to know all the laws and Uni regulations regarding social media, flyers, posters etc.  Before you start with marketing, make sure you know who is the event for and why is it for them?  Think about demographics, know your target market.  For example in my case the target market is University of Huddersfield students who will be graduating this year, or have graduated already.  There's no point advertising the event to my 50 year old neighbour or my aunt who lives in London.  So i now know the event is for students.  How do i get their attention?  That's where my life starts to get busy.  Make sure that staff know about the event so they advise their students in class or by emails asking them to attend.  Print posters and send out to each School in the University.  Facebook helps a lot.  Display power point slides on plasma screens around campus, put it on our careers 

website, University website, flyers and the list goes on.....  

Jaguar Land Rover will be displaying a car once again !  Watch out for one of their cars on campus!