(Event) Planning is...

Becoming a hobby.

A few years ago, I thought that event planning was a "fun" and interesting sort of thing to be doing. I actually considered it as a living (since I was getting bored at work--surprise!) and considered looking into the diploma/certification. I mean let's face it, it really is often just a big party that you're putting together.

I'm an antisocial person, you say... and organizing parties is for social people. Sure, I don't throw parties in general, but I like the logistics of a "party". The coordination and the sourcing of vendors, and the schmoozing of key guests. Socializng isn't my thing but I figured that I'd be so busy running around that I wouldn't have to socialize. In my mind's eye, event planners are these super anal retentive type A personality women (rarely men) who have everything planned down to a T and the execution; a flawless flow of events with every contingency considered and planned for.

I've been around event planning since high school. My first stint to get a very indirect taste for this was through a (now) colleague who happens to head a successful marketing company. He started in his late 20s and hit an untapped market and now, over a decade later, he's got one of the biggest "nerd events" in the country. I never left with a bad impression and so, I always thought that it seemed like a fun thing to consider.

Even my dragon boat seasons are also an extensive amount of planning and coordination of people, resources, finances and strategic direction. For the four month season, we start in December of the previous year and pretty much go on until the end of the summer. I mentioned in a previous post about the amount of sleep I was lacking. Often times, the time spent planning and coordinating was all for a few days, hours or even minutes of a specific regatta or event.

Tonight, our large corporate machine hosted an employee affinity network event in the spirit of the Lunar New Year. This is something that many (if not all) Asian countries celebrate around January or February and this is usually the most significant and longest holiday.

The planning and time that went into this from a minor contributing member (i.e. me) was a substantial amount of work and time! I started to realize the amount of time that I've been spending on planning this event... I think that a lot of my spare time goes into my planning of events or "seasons".

As a result, I have come to appreciate the events I attend (be it a few hours or several months) and recognize the amount of work that people can put into such an endeavour. It isn't something that should be taken for granted since it takes more energy to put something together than just to passively experience something.

I did get a break tonight though. I spent the evening snapping photos of the participants, performers and guests. Because I was enlisted as one of the "official" photogs, I'm not permitted to post people photos... which is fine. I managed to learn how to use one of the features on my camera for exposure stops.

Ta-da:

In case you don't know what this is, this is a chinese caligraphy brush and the stand it perches on.