An Intern’s Perspective on Event Planning

 

Hello! My name is Emma Scott and I am going to be a senior at Pinckney Community High School. I am looking at going into Event Planning at Northwood University. I am enrolled in New Tech High classes at my high school, which is a project-based learning system. Within this school, we focus on opportunities to help students perfect their skills for business settings that all people have throughout their life after college. New Tech High partners with Lowry Solutions for a project during Junior Year where all students are given the opportunity of an internship. When this project was presented to our class, I was not interested in the internship because I had already completed one. Throughout the project, I realized that I did want this chance to work with Lowry Solutions because it could be a great opportunity to get some more ideas on future career choices, network, and steer me into a certain direction career wise. A few days after we presented, I got an email and I was one of the lucky students who received an internship.  I decided that I would like to work with the Marketing Department. On my first day, I had no idea what I was going to be doing but, to my surprise, I was event planning! They gave me the task of working with a partner company, Paragon Labeling, to create a booth for Pack Expo 2015 in Las Vegas. I had to contact booth rental companies and design a booth with the parameters that Lowry and Paragon had given me. I had to figure out electrical for all the labeling units that they would be taking and the TV monitors. Using the size of the space, I had to find a price and square footage of padding and carpeting. Then a daily cleaning service for the booth and carpet. These tasks were just a few of the many things that went into this project. I learned a lot about event planning in my short week at Lowry.  I learned that there are a lot of people involved with one event and it is imperative to make sure you understand what the client is looking for and what the supplier can do for your company.  Another crucial part in my internship was to remember that event planning is a stop and go game. Many times I found myself waiting for an email or a phone call from people throughout the industry.  My internship at Lowry has also reassured me that event planning is the route I want to go in the near future.  Working with the people in the Marketing Department has been absolutely delightful.  They all had such great constructive criticism during this project, which was incredibly helpful because it steered me toward the final product. I am very appreciative for the opportunity Lowry Solutions has given me and I am very excited to see the final product in September!