Welcome to Traces of Capitol Hill, Tracy Parco's weekly blog about her experience being a fall intern for BRAVO!. We love our intern blogs and hope you enjoy following Tracy!
Week 5
September 28 - October 2, 2015
I can't believe it's already been five weeks—time here in DC is flying by. When I first arrived in the Capitol, everyone kept telling me that my time in DC would be packed with sightseeing, school and work, meeting new people, and so on, that I would learn to live by the expression, “you can sleep when you’re dead (or during winter break).” Well, this past week, I gained a better understanding of the phrase “you can sleep when you’re dead,” because as it turns out, your body doesn’t really appreciate it when you just keep going and don’t take personal time to relax. So, as a result, I spent this past week sick—trying to fight the desire to crawl under my desk and nap most of the time. Thus, Mother Nature (and Nancy) taught me an important lesson about the balance between work ethic, dedication, and taking the time to take care of yourself.
Since I spent the majority of the week drinking tea and downing soup, trying to get better, I will use this week’s blog to highlight some of the lessons I have learned so far during my internship here at BRAVO!.
Event planning is a form of marketing, which is a form of brand management. When working with a client on an event, you are showcasing them as a brand and the event is a direct representation of who they are as a brand. Therefore, it is critical to deliver their brand personality and message appropriately through the event and to use the event as a marketing strategy to help better “sell” the organization.
In not only the “events-life,” but in any service-based profession, it is important to not only meet client needs but to exceed them. You want to bring everything to the table when meeting with clients, so it is important to do your research and come well prepared to ensure your client is happy and satisfied with what you have to offer—even if that means preparing two or three different table and place setting options so that they can choose one.
Things don’t always go as planned. Especially in the “events-life,” even when you plan and plan and plan, something always seems to arise at the last minute. For instance, with The Mautner Project last week, while we had prepared credit card stations on a selection of iPads through a reliable payment app, we had technical problems simply trying to figure out what the login information was and found ourselves scrambling at the last minute to figure out a solution.
To finish out the week, this weekend I took the time to relax, stay indoors, and enjoy the hurricane weather for the most part. During the non-rainy fragments of the weekend, though, I was able to get outside and explore new parts of the city with some friends (most importantly, I found Target!). Anyways, that’s all for now—I promised to keep it short so hopefully that wasn’t too bad. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we gear up for the NYSCF Gala and WWH’s Walk to End HIV!