Last Friday was the big day! All of our time, dedication, and hard work finally paid off in the sixth annual Visions Film Festival & Conference! I couldn't have been prouder of the staff, volunteers, and guests that helped make Visions6 a reality. Like everyone on staff, I had responsibilities throughout the day, including duties at the registration table, moderating the conference block, and running the after party.
The registration table went really smoothly. Hayley's way of organization helped with time efficiency and overall appearance of the table when looking to hand out badges. There wasn't a moment of total chaos. If there wasn't a prepared badge, we quickly and easily made a badge for the guest in an appropriate manner. Overall, working the registration table was easy thanks to Hayley being so prepared.
Grace and I met together as well as with our assigned mentor-professor, Kase, to prepare for moderating the conference block. Kase made many great points, including having questions prepared that all could answer as well as individual scholars who weren't asked as many questions from the audience. This advice came in handy when moderating. The scholars had amazing presentations and were asked great questions during the Q&A, but one scholar wasn't asked any questions. Grace was able to ask her a question and include her into the discussion. It helped make the Q&A inclusive to all of our scholars.
In preparation for the after party, I was expecting to have a bigger number of people help me set up. Unfortunately, I didn't have the number of people I expected to have but in the end we made it work! Samantha, a member of the Development and Fundraising Department, left around 7:30 pm to pick up the dessert, cupcakes and fresh fruit, as well as helium-filled balloons. At 9pm, Michelle brought Tyler, Hayley, and I downtown to Hell's Kitchen. The bar was still open until 10:30ish to the public, so we did a lot of the set up in the back. It was a little hard to try to set up some of the things in the back, but we had to set up all glow stick items since they only last so many hours. But if something can be set up before getting to the after party location, make sure you do it, because you're probably not going to have a lot of time. People arrived to the party early; at 10:35ish, we already had about 10 guests. This added to my stress, but once I was able to stop setting things up in the back, organize decorations in the front the way I wanted them, and dim the lights, the venue looked great!
The drink menu was a hit and really helped with sales, which was a concern of mine since the venue was free and they wanted to make sure that they made money that night. I also went around with glow sticks and passed them out to all of the guests to create the "galaxy"-like atmosphere. The DJ, Free Waterfall, was a hit! A lot of people told me that they liked what he played and that they wanted to use him. It was a little hard to herd the crowd out of the bar at the end, but I realized that I should have given them an earlier warning of when the party would be down. I only let them know about 5 minutes until the end of the party. There are a few things that I would have improved on, such as making sure we had a camera for the step and repeat solely, and not used for interviews, but no one seemed to mind and took plenty of photos on their own. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, which is what really matters in the end.
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