Event Manager’s Dreams are Destroyed

My colleagues and I are working our butts off trying to get things up and running for an event we’re holding at the beginning of July. We are going to present all of our school projects of the last two years.

Even though I like all of the projects, my personal favourites are here, here, here, and here. The reason I like these projects is because the school children get to go outside of their classrooms, beyond the restrictions of their curriculum, and the boredom of frontal instructional methods to discover the world around them. Sorry the English translations are not yet completed except this one.

I always thought that I would like to be an event manager. I was even under the illusion that it might be something that I would be good at. Let me tell, it really is a lot harder than it looks.

At the moment we are trying to get the web site up and working both in German (40 projects) and English (dito), do the layout for forty handouts and print up a total of 1600 copies, layout and printing 40 posters, print out quotes from the teachers and students, print out extra photos, work out the layout of 55 pin boards, make up a 200 photo slide show, make up eight large ceiling banners, set up a technical schematic for the event, write and send off invitations, make up a schedule, and get our graphic designer the information she needs to complete a hundred page brochure.

And, do you know what… nothing works! Printer drivers, Windows/Os operating systems, system administration rights, software programs, software versions, task coordination, document versions, and people’s temperaments… they are neverever compatible. I think I am going nuts.

Then, just to make myself feel really miserable, I browsed through Oprah Winfrey’s site on her Legends Weekend. I look at her party planner, Colin Cowie, and can totally understand why he is so neurotic. It’s not because he is gay, or British (though he is now an American), but just because he has so many fricking things to see to all day long and none of the square pieces fit into the round holes.