Action Plan

After my internship my action plan is to hold off on applying for a job. Currently I am very happy with my job at the W hotel in Scottsdale. The people I work with are great and the money is also very good right now. I am interested in the hospitality industry so I am trying to make stronger connections at the W hotel and build up my resume and experience working with in the hotel. My plan is to introduce myself to Katie Bradshear, the head of the marketing department for the W hotel. When meet with Katie I am planning on asking to job shadow her for a few days and then possibly sending her my resume. I am interested in going into the marketing department because they are still involved in the special events at the hotel but are not in charge of them. From being involved in events I have figured out that I do not want to be in charge or head of an event planning company. I think for me it would be too stressful of a job for me to be really happy.

Over the summer I know I will work on revising my resume again and applying to places around the valley. I am planning on looking more avidly for another job outside the W hotel in the fall. At the moment I am planning a few vacations over the summer so I do not want to find anything too seriously till I am ready for settle into a job.

Charity Event!

Wednesday March 11th there was a charity event held at Moody Blues.  The fashion show launched Eric Byrnes new clothing line that will be sold in the fall. A portion of all that was purchased that night was donated to the Pat Tillman Foundation. At this event I was helping out one of the sponsors who is one of J Groups clients.  This client is a jewelry store who was one of the sponsors and I helped them set up their booth at the event and then promoted for them.  I wore one of their Haimov watches which was $20,000 all night long while at the function.  Displaying this diamond watch I would talk about it if anyone asked me about it and I went around getting people to sign up for a raffle that was a $1000 certificate to this jewelry store.  When people would sign up I would ask them what type of watch they prefer and wrote it on the back of the ticket. This way the jewelry store has somewhat of an idea about what that customer liked.  The event went very well and the fashion show was very well put together a long with the music done by DJ Fashen.  I was able to network at this event and I enjoyed wearing an expensive diamond watch!   

San Diego Research!

Joe has a goal to go live and work in San Diego this summer.  Since he has this goal he asked me to do a lot of research on the San Diego area.  I looked up hotels in the surrounding area that would be good hotels to hold special events at or to represent and advertise their bar/restaurant within the hotels.  I put together a list of hotels for Joe that I thought fit his demographic.  

Along with hotels I also researched a lot of restaurants in the different areas of San Diego such as the gas lamp district downtown and La Jolla for example.  I also looked up bars and boutique shops within those areas as well.  Joe is looking for companies that are looking for help in media buying, pr, marketing, and special events so boutiques, bars, restaurants and jewelry stores is what we are looking for.  After a few days of research I had a large list of places that could become potential clients for J Group.  I also looked into the major magazines that deal with style and nightlife out in San Diego, for example the 944 magazine for San Diego.  All in all from this activity I learned how hard it can be to find the type of clients you want and how hard it can be to branch out into a new area.  

Arizona Ranking!

Hi everyone! Please help support the J Group and vote for us in the Ranking Arizona Magazine! This magazine comes out yearly and has the best businesses in the magazine! It would mean a lot for the J Group to make the 2010 issue! It is really easy and takes no time at all! Just go to  www.RankingAzMagazine.com then do as follows; select by name, type in J Group, enter email, and cast your vote!  Thanks for supporting us! 

Fashion show planning!

Like my previous post Joe and I are still working on planning of the fashion show event. Since Joe was really interested in possibly having godaddy as a sponsor Joe had me do a lot of research on the company.  So I researched the company and found Joe a couple different phone number and emails to contact the company to try and get in touch with someone about sponsoring our event.  

I am constantly thinking of ideas to make the show different and unique.  I think that having a small dog either in a large purse or have a model hold the dog while on the runway would be something different and unique.  Also if we use dogs as an extra prop we could bedazzle the dog with clothes and or diamond collars.  Most people like dogs and bedazzling dogs with diamond collars and clothes is a very popular trend right now. Also if we do this we could get a dog company to be a sponsor of the event!

Joe came up with an unique idea for something unique for the event.  He asked me to research a synchronized swim team! He thought it would be really cool to have the swim team in the pool performing before the show to give the guests something to look at. I did my research and gave the contact info to Joe as he asked.  Lots of ideas are going around between Joe and I but to me this is one of the fun parts of event planning!  

More meetings and planning!

My supervisor Joe and I have been working on planning for our big show in May. It is the 3rd annual Spring into Summer fashion show event. It is a fashion show held at Valley ho and it is the only fashion show in Scottsdale that is over a plexiglas runway over water.  It truly is a great and fun event to go to and its a great way to see the new trends and fashion for the upcoming summer season! I met Joe in the afternoon at the pool to discuss the layout of the event.  We threw around different ideas as far as where the DJ booth should be located, where extra bars can be located and how many, a way to make the entrance memorable and unique, and so on and so forth. 

 We also were trying to think of a way to change the shape of the runway to make it different from last years event.  I came up with a shape of a triangle and we are going to see if we can make it work. The pool is in a circular shape so a triangle shaped runway would get the models to a wider area so more people can see the clothes and accessories.  Also I was thinking of putting the DJ on top of the bar roof, or on top of this deck so he gets more of a focus and so he can see the models on the runway for timing of the music. We also have to think of an idea for this extra room where they keep towels. Last year it just got closed and stayed empty.  This year Joe wants to do something with it. I think since it is a fashion show having some sort of a store or a venue would be a great idea.  I think either purses. jewelry or sunglasses would be a great idea. Joe really liked the sunglasses idea and he happens to know someone who manages a designer sunglass shop so that would work out great! 

We also talked a lot about sponsors since it is a crucial part of the event and we talked about the budget and what the estimated cost of the event will cost. Since the economy is bad right now a lot if business are not sponsoring events or are out of business. I thought of some sort of internet company and once I said that Joe thought that godaddy would be a great company for a sponsor! I also thought that redbull or some kind of energy drink or alcohol would be a great sponsor since we will be serving drinks! All in all we spent a lot of time bouncing off ideas and walking around the property designing a layout for the event.  I cant wait for the event to come but we have lots of work to do!! 

Meeting!

Monday February 23rd Joe and I went to a meeting at a resort in North Scottsdale. We met with the general manager and assistant general manager of the resorts lounge.  We were discussing a plan for an upcoming event.  J group is planning a fashion show to bring people into the lounge and to promote the lounge for the summer months.  The date we decided on is April 25th.  The lounge has a very difficult layout as far as deciding where to set up a runway.  We discussed many different ideas and talked about the pros and cons of each.  We decided to put it against the side of a building facing the bar.  We are also planning to put a back drop to hide the building that will be behind the runway.  Also during this meeting we talked about keeping the entrances open, keeping the main traffic flow areas open, where to place the DJ, a changing area for the models, the fashion designer and types of clothes the fashion show will be showing, a trunk show the night before the event, lighting design and cost, promoting and marketing the event, sponsors, and the overall budget costs. I found this meeting very interesting and helpful. It really reminded me of the special events class I took about a year ago.  In this meeting we went through and discussed a lot of things that need to be prepared and set up to host a special event.  This just shows a little preview of what we need to do at the J group.  Joe has me constantly thinking of new ideas for these fashion shows.  Not only do you need to be creative to host a special event but you need to be organized and detail oriented.  All in all I learned a lot from this meeting and met some more people who could help me in my future!