Blog 18

09 JUN 2022

Looking back at the event, I think the most challenging part was the initial planning stages.

We all had a heavy workload from our other class, so all our meetings occurred under various states of mental exhaustion. Initially, it didn't feel like we were getting anywhere because our whole discussion lacked structure; we were just throwing out ideas, and it was difficult to link everything together coherently. Working together in a team, I found that our discussions had more progression in real life rather than online.

During our meetings, there were times I wasn't sure if I was being stubborn, too lazy, or genuinely thought the idea couldn't work for the exhibition. I felt that as a leader, it wouldn’t be right to just reject ideas simply because they didn't fit the image I had imagined. I definitely have to consider and improve this when working in a team in the future. I also feel like the group had plenty of “ideas” people, but not many “execution” people. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, as I am an “ideas” person myself, but we did find it hard to balance all our propositions with practicality. It helped that some members were more committed to the execution than others, so even though the process was messy and stressful, we managed to follow through with what was planned in the end.

Overall, I think the event was pretty successful. There was generally good feedback, with many people saying it was an interesting event with engaging content. Someone did mention that we could have provided more in-depth information in some areas. For example, we could have provided more information on specific materials and their harmful production practices in the sustainable innovations section.

I don’t regret how the event turned out, as I think we did the best we could in the time frame given. However, if provided the opportunity to improve, I have a few things I think we could have done differently. Firstly, being more creative with the presentation of our displays. The information was interesting, but I think we might have used too many foam boards. There was a lot of reading, and the sustainable solutions section could have been made to stand out more.

Another key thing would be to check everything more thoroughly. I only checked the QR codes once or twice, but when I tried them again during the event, some lead to completely different links. The venue could also have been more thoroughly scouted as we planned the layout. During the set-up, we weren’t able to follow the original plan as there were issues with lighting and finding spots to hang things from the ceiling. It would have been helpful to have a plan B or C to fall back on. The last thing I would do is to find a way to communicate for efficiently. We had many miscommunications along the way, resulting in a lot of wasted time doing tasks that other teams had already done. There was a real difficulty communicating between groups, and we didn't have a good grasp of exactly what each other were doing.

I learned from the event that nothing will go perfectly as planned; unexpected issues will always arise so you have to be adaptable. For example, at one point, the interactive wall was basically vandalised. I had to creatively cover it with drawings and also asked others to cover it up. I did suspect this could happen but didn't think people would be that immature. Someone else had also previously run an event in the same venue, and left something big behind, so we had to change the layout to accommodate for that. Another big issue we ran into was that Fleawear (which we were borrowing tables from) suddenly changed their minds at the last minute. They were suddenly unable to lend us one table for the pop-up, but luckily we happened to bring an extra table.

Personally, I feel like running events is something I don't really enjoy, but I dont regret stepping out of my comfort zone in doing production. Learning that there were many considerations and how things are organized would be helpful even outside of running events, which would be a good lifeskill to learn regardless. There is a different commitment to it than what I’m used to, and more groundwork like running errands, talking to people, and checking the venue. The execution aspect for me has become less intimidating now that I’ve experienced it, although it was just as hard as I imagined.