I’ve got to be honest here. Every time I participate in organization of such an event as festival or trade fair, it reminds me why I always wanted to do this job. I was feeling so much alive, feeling that I am actually creating something, that I am creating great experience to everyone who came to our event. Let me guide you through my regular event day. This one was really long, because we didn’t have possibility to prepare everything before the event. Please, bring yourself a nice cup of tea and be patient with me.
I woke up at 4 a.m., shave my face, suit it up, got my morning coffee and light breakfast. At 5:30 a.m. I came to our office, in order to get all my documents, which I already prepared the day before. At 6 a.m. I was already at the National House of Vinohrady, where our festival was held, and met technicians and manager of the venue. Battle with the time began – everything had to be prepared before 10 a.m. when first visitors arrived. I’ve been coordinating preparations in 4 saloons and 2 main halls. Main source of my worries was fact, that we had to assembly everything together and also test it. If there would be any problem, we would not have enough time to repair it and test again. Luckily my worries had been needless, because everything went according to the plan. All the technicians did their best and even though they had been facing few problems, we had been ready for action 10 minutes before 10 a.m.
That was just a beginning. My real work started at 10 a.m. and finished at 9 p.m. During this time I had been responsible for smooth progress in all presentation spots. I had to be at the start of each workshop and presentation in order to assure, that presentation will start accordingly to the plan and accordingly to the demands of a photographer. I also had to assure that photographers would end their presentation on time. Some of them were so excited from an audience that they would love to keep talking and talking … and talking.
There was one situation with famous Czech photographer Sara Saudkova, when she overruns her presentation by 5 minutes (we had 10 minutes break in between each presentation) and after she finished with presenting, she asked audience to come to get her signature. At that moment 50 people just made huge crowd in front of the stage and it was clear that we would not start next presentation on time. My reaction was fast because there was no time left. I’ve prepared two tables in foyer of the hall and made my appearance at the stage next to Mrs. Soudkova: “Please excuse me ladies and gentleman, but autograph session continues in foyer of this presentation hall.” After this statement I took Mrs. Soudkova to the foyer and left her with her fans. Even 15 minutes later, foyer was still crowded and Mrs. Soudkova had been signing one picture after another. And this is just one story from many. We had 47 workshops and presentations, so you can imagine how exhausting my day was.
When all the presentations and workshops had been finished, we still had to disassemble everything and move it to our offices. This last period of time between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. was also about sharing of victorious feelings. It was real pleasure to shake my hand with all related technicians and acknowledge their professional work by saying: “Good job man, it was pleasure to work with you.” And even better feeling was to see happiness in their eyes and their proud looks they gave to me, because we shared this moment of really well done job.
At the end, when I scuffed my legs home, I suddenly realized that everything went for 100% right. I had to open myself a nice bottle of eight years old red wine and celebrate it quietly. Why quietly you ask? I was so exhausted, that I couldn’t do anything else.
Thanks for reading lads.
Regards, Frank
Life Is Great Project 