One of my many life plans (I take after my dad) was to attend UNLV’s graduate, hotel administration program after I had graduated from Chapman. I decided that my parents already sent me to a good undergrad school and didn’t need to be spending that much more money. As I spent time in Vegas this past week, I was biting at the bit to apply. What a cool opportunity it would be to experience that side of events. I have been doing weddings, but I have always wanted to learn event production from every angle to make me more valuable. This fall, as I’ve said before, I will hopefully be learning all about nonprofit and fundraising events.
Anyway, a friend of the family, Steve, is the general manager of the equestrian arena at the South Point in Vegas. He was very excited about my career goals and offered to let me shadow him at a concert this past weekend. It was a big event called Junefest that hosted the bands War, Three Dog Night, and The Fixx. He also said that I could shadow his staff anytime I wanted! I am highly considering taking him up on that! He took me on a tour of the arena as well as the stables. Since it is an equestrian arena, they have 1200 very high-class stables to house the horses that come through for rodeos and other similar shows. Next week they will have a jousting competition…pretty intense! I think I'd fit in quite nicely in the equestrian center being the farm girl I am and having grown up raising pigs..wait, what?? Yep, I am a true blood former 4-H member.
I got to hang out with him as well as the general manager of the hotel (No big deal, right??) and watch how things were run during the event. He took me back stage and showed me where they put the artists and how they take care of them. He was very relaxed and laid back through the whole thing, which kind of surprised me. He told me that if he did his job ahead of time, that he could just hang out and enjoy the event. As a very successful event planner, all he had to do was press “go” and everything he put together in advance went to work. Any problem that could arise, would quickly be mitigated by his staff whom he has already prepared. For example, the fire alarm went off during the concert and as soon as he got on the radio, he was alerted by an employee that it had already been taken care of and within minutes the alarm was off. I asked my family about it, and they never even noticed it.
Whether it be weddings or other type of events, I aspire for mine to run this smoothly. I want to be able to push “go” and have everything run just as planned without any stress the day-of.
 |
| Arena |
 |
| Horse Stalls |
 |
| A-List Horse Stalls |
 |
| Watchin' the Concert |
Walking around Vegas, I felt very small and intimidated, which is why I would love to intern with Steve. I feel like I would learn so much and realize that I am capable of more than I think. I may just have to take him up on his offer to come anytime! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment