IACP Conference: Host Chief's Night

I already wrote about the IACP Conference but I felt that the Host Chief's Night was an event worth mentioning of its own accord. This event was a part of the conference and took place after the day's hard work (read: meeting sessions and trade show). I don't know who the coordinator was for Host Chief's Night but he/she did an amazing job!


Host Chief's Night was held in Petco Park. This was the first time during all my years in San Diego that I've actually gone to Petco Park and it wasn't even for a baseball game! Anyway, they set up inflatable games, food tables, and a stage with live entertainment down on the field. Around the field were more food stations, beverage stations, a drum troop, surfing simulation, and a few other things.




The theme for the event was essentially "California" and they did a wonderful, wonderful job with it. These san scupltures were outside the entrance to the field.

A few things I didn't get pictures of that I still thought were awesome:
-The food stations. There were about 4-5 of them scattered around but there were all the same foods. They served avocado eggsrolls, California rolls, and... my memory eludes me. At any rate, they fit the California theme really well.
-The live drum troop was really energetic and really got the crowd going.
-The stage entertainment was a live band that did a lot of covers of popular music. They are one of the best live cover bands I've ever seen and I wish I knew who they were.


The view of Petco Park during set up from Altitude, the club atop the Marriott.


The celebrity of the night -- the San Diego Chief of Police, William Lansdowne!

In my entertainment event management class, we learned about how an event like this really brings together the attendees of it. Now only the people who attended this conference share this amazing memory of Host Chief's Night, which was flavorful in Californian culture and I hope that all the out of state attendees really enjoyed their stay!

IACP Conference

In November, I was hired by the International Chiefs of Police Conference (IACP) as an "On Site Project Coordinator." Well, actually, I didn't get a title from it but I decided that it was the most accurate description of what I did as far as a title on a resume goes. Along with two other students from my USD program, I monitored the upstairs rooms of the San Diego Convention Center where meeting sessions and educational classes were being held. Mostly, I was a liaison to the Meeting Planner for the IACP to the speakers for the sessions. I was responsible for relaying questions or requests/needs I could not provide about the rooms, A/V, etc. This basically saved the main coordinator a lot of trouble by weeding through repeat questions such as where the bathroom was.

The San Diego Convention Center is really rather gigantic. I did one side of the meeting rooms in the morning and switched off with the other liaisons for the afternoon. I was told one of the sides is a half mile if you make a full circle. Talk about a work out! One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this conference was getting to know the San Diego Convention Center really well. This proved to be really helpful during The Special Event Trade Show and Conference.

I also got to spend some time on the trade show floor. You know how little boys want to be policemen when they grow up? Well, I finally got to learn why. There was so much cool tech stuff! There were RV's with satellites, helicopters, police cars, bullet-proof armor, and lots more. I took home a huge bag of loot which included 2gb flash drives, a flashlight that doubled as a laser pointer, and a carabiner that doubled as a flashlight. On the last day of the show, we even got to see the helicopters take off from behind the conference center.

Law enforcement isn't really my field but I did get to meet a lot of interesting people. Danette, Hannah, and I networked at the Qualcomm booth and got ourselves invited to a party they were hosting at Altitude, which is a club at the top of the Mariott in downtown San Diego. At that party, I networked my way to two wonderful people who were in police psychology that we tagged along with to two other parties that night.

Since the IACP conference will be back around in 4 years, hopefully I will be around to help out again!

ISES December Event: 7 Guilty Pleasures

I've recently become a student member of ISES, the International Special Events Society. Along with the networking and professional development opportunities, being a part of ISES also grants the privilege of seeing first hand how top tier professionals in the special events industry make magic happen.

ISES puts on a monthly event that combines elements of industry education, professional networking, and just for fun socialization aspects. I volunteered to help out with the December event, which was held at the Liberty Station NTC Promenade. The original theme of the event was going to be the 7 Deadly Sins but they wound up going in another direction and named it "7 Guilty Pleasures" instead.


The space we used


The other end of it


Plush lounge area, used early in the evening as a space to watch a movie and later in the evening for karaoke!


Up lights and tea lights


I loved these table linens. We had them in black and white, scattered throughout the event over the red cloths. We only used the ribbon on these round standing tables though.


We also had to put all the linen covers over the chairs.


Floating candle in the center, with tea light surrounding, made for very nice mood lighting.


Buffet provided by Solare in NTC


Palm reader and psychic, always a popular staple at ISES events. We provided the light and table linens; the rest of the decor on their table was theirs.


Carolers!


Winter themed stilt walkers

This event was a big hands-on lesson for me in lighting and decor. I helped out with setting the linens and did almost all the chair covers. Also, I set up the up lights. I think the tea lights were my favorite part. I just really love candles. We wanted to have all mood lighting with the tea lights and the up lights but somehow the florescent lights got left on. Oh well. I'm starting to find that a lot of event coordination is just applying your own instincts and creative views with learned techniques.

Granted, the holiday season is tough since everyone always has so many things to do, so we didn't have a very large turn out. There wasn't an ISES event in January on account of The Special Event, the big conference held at the San Diego Convention Center, but the ISES student committee of which I am a member is in charge of the February event. I'll be posting a lot about that coming up.

Updating

With a little prodding from a friend, I realized that this blog had gone stale. So I made the decision to revitalize it by changing the URL and name. I'm also going to go back and post about some events I have recently worked on. Hopefully, this will keep me on track to post about the events I have coming up.

I know that professional bloggers say not to write these type of posts, promising updates and apologizing for a lack of updating, but I'm excited about the new direction of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

Moving

Romantic Reflections has moved! I have changed the URL to http://ShannaChoungEvents.blogspot.com/. I also want to change the title of the blog but I haven't come up with anything I really liked yet. I have also changed the name of the blog to "All Events Are Special Events." The reason for these changes is that I want to do all types of events and, while I still really love weddings, I am also very interested in special events, conferences, etc. I want my blog to reflect that and be a medium for showcasing what I have worked on.