Event Management: Beautiful Soles by Leah Beckelman

Community / Charity Event

Leah Beckelman Winter 2015

Table of Contents Project Overview

Implementation Process

Problems Encountered

Final Analysis

Appendix Project Organizational Chart

Project Timeline

Event Day Schedule

Budget

Advertisements

Event Pictures

Project Overview When designing my senior project I was reminded to create something that utilized the skills I learned at the Art Institute, involved my interests, and would still be challenging enough to push me to succeed. Some of my greatest strengths are centered on team leadership, event planning and management, and social media management. I caught the fashion bug in my late teens and discovered my love of shoes due to the struggle I had while shopping for them. Women who wear shoes over a size 11 have a hard time finding stylish pairs in their size. Because I wear a size 12, I share this struggle. I wanted to create this event to bring together a niche group of people who all share a love of fashion in hard to find sizes. My final project, named Beautiful Soles, was community based clothing sale specializing in womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoes in sizes 10 and up. All of the proceeds from the raffle and my selling table, including physical shoe donations went towards the YWCAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dress for Success Organization. I had sellers purchase a table in the event space to sell their new or gently worn shoes and they were allowed to keep the profits from those sales. Attendees could shop for shoes and enter a raffle for various prizes. Event attendees could also donate shoes to the chosen charity.

Implementation Process Acquire Funds To host my event I calculated that I would need to raise at least $400 in order for everything to go smoothly and to avoid paying for things out of my own pocket. I researched which internet-based fundraising campaign website would suit my needs. I decided to use GoFundMe.com. Through my fundraising efforts, I was able to raise $400 and secured all of the money I needed to host my event. Choose & Contact Charity To help enhance the appeal of supporting and attending Beautiful Soles I needed to make this a charitable cause event. I decided to contact the YWCA’s Dress for Success program because I had worked with them before and I knew that they were in dire need of larger sized women’s shoes. They were thrilled to hear from me and to be the beneficiary of my event. Locate Event Space I wanted the event space to cost as little as possible and still be located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I reached out to every event rental space I could find as well as all of the churches in that area. My favorite option was to use the venue called Sole Repair Shop. It had a prime, central location on Pike Street and the venue name was perfect for the type of event I had created. However, if I had rented with them I would have had to pay around $800 for the amount of time I needed (or risk shortening the event). I decided to go with the All Pilgrim’s Christian Church on the north end of Broadway because they were the cheapest venue I could find and I had worked with them before for a community garage sale. Create Logo & Advertisements I wanted my event to stand out and look official in the minds of potential attendees, sellers, and sponsors so I decided to find a graphic designer to create a logo for me (for free). I created an ad on CraigsList.com and sifted through the responses to pick a final designer. My final choice was Preston Miller at Alleviation Graphic Studios. Preston’s logo was just what I had in mind. I made sure to include his contact information on the Sponsorship page of the Beautiful Soles website as a trade for promotion for his hard work and time spent helping me.

Social Media Channels Once I had an official event space and a logo I could begin promoting the event on my chosen social media channels of FaceBook and Twitter. I made sure to post to these pages at least twice a week. Not every post was about the event itself. It helps to gain followers and “likes” through content geared towards my demographic. I shared humorous pictures about shoes, being tall, and pop culture. Ticketing Service While it was free to attend the Beautiful Soles event, I needed an efficient way to sell tables to guests who wanted to sell their shoes. After researching the variety of online ticket selling websites I chose EventBrite.com as my selling platform. Sponsorship & Raffle Gifts I knew that I would need things like refreshments for guests and raffle prizes for my event to help entice people to attend but I wanted to keep my costs low. I contacted a variety of local businesses in an attempt to see if they could donate food, drinks, and prizes, like services or goods, to my cause. In exchange for their goodwill I added their business logo and contact information to the Sponsorship page of the Beautiful Soles website and informed readers of what great prize or goodie that business was offering. I was successful in securing the following goods / prizes from these businesses: Refreshments: 

Starbucks: Coffee carafes and drink supplies

Raffle Prizes: 

Long Tall Sally: a $50 gift card for LTS's online store



Julep: a gift card for a Mani-Pedi



Night Light Nail Salon: 5 pedicure gift cards.



Atomic Cosmetics: a makeup application consultation



The Body Refracted: a 60 minute massage gift card



Nourish Nail Parlour: "The Works" Pedicure to our raffle

Advertising Campaign When the official event space and date was chosen I began working with my graphic designer to create a flyer that I would have professionally printed and would hand out during my advertising campaign. Upon seeing the first draft of the flyer from Preston I realized that I might have made a mistake when choosing him. (Please see the Problems & Solutions section on page 6 for a more detailed account of my experience.) After my large flyers and post cards were designed I made an order with GotPrint.com for a box of 500 post cards and printed the larger size flyers myself. When they arrived I began canvassing the different neighborhoods of Seattle (Capitol Hill, Fremont, Queen Anne, the University District, etc.) and got my handouts in every shop that would allow it. I was very thankful to have a friend go with me each day of canvassing because it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an easy job for one person to do alone. I also reached out to Seattle bloggers, local newspapers, and event listing websites to help get the word out. I contacted popular Seattle drag performers to see if they could help promote my cause. I was lucky enough to get a mention by Mama Tits on her FaceBook page, the popular blogger Fresh Jess added my event to her preferred event calendar, and an acquaintance at Yelp.com tweeted my event information as well as added it to the Yelp social calendar.

Event Supplies To remain as cost effective as possible I utilized bargain price store like Costco and the Dollar Tree to acquire the supplies for the event. I was amazed to find things like cups, raffle tickets, napkins, etc. all in one Dollar Tree location and purchased 60% of my needs for under $20! Costco was an excellent source for food and drink items. Volunteers I was very lucky to have such generous friends and family members offer to help me on the day of my event. Four friends offered their time at my event and helped everything run smoothly.

Problems Encountered Timing (Seasonal Issues) One of the biggest issues I had while planning this event was yearly timing. I started planning this event in June of 2014 and originally planned to host Beautiful Soles in February of 2015 based on my graduation date and allotment of scheduled class time. However, after speaking with a mentor who has hosted similar events we realized that it would be better to have Beautiful Soles occur in October of 2014. My mentor noted that there is a very slow buying period after the holidays and New Year where people aren’t shopping for themselves because they are recovering financially from buying for others. Consumers are also shopping for gifts, traveling, and spending time with family from November to the end of December for the holidays, so those months were off limits. So giving the amount of time I would need to plan, advertise, collect funds, etc. the only acceptable month to host my event became October. It’s an eye opening experience of having 9 months to plan an event to only having 4-5 months to plan an event. Weather Living in the North West, we are subject to some of the wettest months of the year around the country. I always know that there is a chance of rain on any given day in the fall, however on the particular week leading up to and including day of my event it rained a lot. I believe many guests were scared off by the rain, not wanting to shop in gloomy conditions. Further, it rained so much so that the entrance to the basement of the All Pilgrim’s Church took on a huge puddle of water and their space manager allowed me to move the event upstairs into their Stuart Hall room. I was only given 3 days’ notice and had to update all of my social media channels, inform the sellers and my staff, and change my signage for the day of the event. Event Space Miscommunication A valuable lesson I can share to future event planners is to always keep a paper trail of the communication you have with your outside vendors. Luckily I already knew this based on previous event planning while working at Microsoft and Amazon and it saved me from either paying twice as much as I had planned or changing my venue entirely. Originally, when I contacted the All Pilgrim’s Church their space manager told me that it would cost $200 for the amount of time I needed for the event. As we discussed things further and I was about to pay the deposit on the space I was informed that the cost would be $400. I searched back through old emails and showed the manager his initial quote and he agreed to keep the lower price because he was technically at fault for miscommunicating.

Lack of Advertisement & Participants I feel that a big factor in the lack of attendees and sellers was that I did the advertising myself. I was solely responsible for handing out flyers and spreading the information by word of mouth. I was also unable to secure enough funding to advertise the event in the local free newspaper, The Stranger. I reviewed their advertising requirements and prices and ended up misunderstanding the overall cost to place an ad in a weekly publication. Graphic design As stated earlier, I quickly realized that my graphic designer, Preston, was not as skilled as he claimed. While the logo he made was great, the flyer he sent over was horrible. In the pictures below, you can the version that Preston sent over and I had to work quickly with Adobe Illustrator to change practically everything to create my version on the right. Prestonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s version

My version

Unwelcomed guests On the day of the event, we had a few attendees that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily belong. One was a homeless man who merely wanted the free food and drinks available. He quickly made his rounds to browse, then pilfered the snack table and left. The second guest was a transwoman who may or may not have been homeless, but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the hint that they needed to leave. They shopped for a very long time and tried to strike up a conversation with anyone within earshot. Because the entrance was on a main road and we did not have security it was tough to keep unfavorable guests from visiting.

Final Analysis While I have planned events professionally in the past, I have never encountered an event like the one made for Beautiful Soles. I learned a lot from this experience. The biggest lesson was, “you can’t do it alone”. To succeed, you need to have a team of people helping you. Another tip of advice I can offer is, “it never hurts to ask”. Asking for things like donated goods and money can be difficult or feel uncomfortable to do. For some people it’s tough to talk to strangers. I quickly realized that all they can say is no. Don’t take it personally and move on to the next person or company. I have taken the problems discussed earlier into consideration and here are the things I would have done if I had to host Beautiful Soles again: Timing & Weather Had I been able to plan this again I would have chosen a day in the spring or summer. Spring is usually a season where people are cleaning out their closets and would be a perfect time for those unwanted items to be sold at Beautiful Soles. Also, there is less of a chance of rain during warmer months and would have guaranteed a larger turn out. Lack of Advertisement & Participants As I said earlier, having a team of people helping me spread the word would have also guaranteed a larger number of attendees. I was only able to cover a small percentage of Seattle neighborhoods with event flyers and if I had a team of people we could have covered areas like Bellevue, Kirkland, Tacoma, etc. I also would have liked to have canvased Seattle’s nightlife areas. I felt there was a missing demographic of drag queens, transwomen, and gay men who would have liked to shop and sell. I could have gone with team members to bars, clubs, and restaurants where these people frequent and handed out flyers. Graphic Design Rather than using CraigsList as my platform to find a graphic designer, I should have reached out to the Art Institute community and worked with a student to help them gain experience in logo and advertisement design. They would also be geographically closer and more preferable in case I needed to make changes to anything.

Unwelcomed Guests I should have considered having staffed a male friend at the entrance to the event to help keep unfavorable guests from attending the event. They could welcome and attract the right kind of customer that might be walking by while ushering those away who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to come inside.

In the end I succeeded in having 2 sellers join my event, I raised $60 and was given 10 pairs of shoes to donate to the YWCAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dress for Success Organization, and had an estimated attendee count of 25 people.

Appendix

Project Organizational Chart

Leah Beckelman (Organizer)

Charity

YWCA

Event Space

Jeremy Matheis (All Pilgrim's Christian Church)

Vendors

Volunteers

Supplies