MINI ROADSHOW 2017
Date: 6 & 7 February 2017
Time: 10:30am – 3:30pm
Venue: Block A, Outside Koufu
Background
A team of
enthusiastic students from Event Management & Roadshow (EMRS) Team 3 came
together to organize our first event which is a Mini Roadshow at Block A,
outside Koufu. Our given theme for this event was “Green” being environmentally
friendly. Since the event date was close to Valentine’s Day, we as a team
decided to add in Valentine’s theme as well. Having both Green and Valentine’s
theme, we worked towards the path to put an event together. Since it was our
first event, we wanted to make it extraordinary.
Objectives
The objective
of this event is to promote green and create awareness about being
environmentally friendly by using products that are recycled or organic.
Roles & Responsibilities
Overall
In-Charge: Rong Jun & Rishi
Finance: Hariz
& Qi Fang
Logistics:
Erika & Shee Li
Advertising
& Promotion: Panat & Shu Zhen
Pre-Event
Once we had potential
on the theme, we started to source for vendors and we managed to come up with
close to 15 vendors. The vendors we chose had to be registered under ACRA. We
then emailed the vendors and only 4 of them responded. Out of the 4, 2 of the
vendors responded on time but we had to choose one as the other vendor did not
confirm their participation and the other 2 vendors showed interests after we
had selected and confirmed our 2 vendors for the event. The second vendor who
is our perfume vendor, volunteered to participate in this event as they had
positive working experience with us in the past.
Our next
thought was how we were going to store the stocks. For the perfume, we kept it
in our teacher’s room away from direct sunlight but the real problem arises
with chocolates as we do not want them to melt over the weekends. Since for our
CEO Networking event, we collaborated with L’café in the library, we asked them
if we could store the chocolates in their chiller over the weekend and they
agreed.
We then
discussed with Team 2 about the location to setup of the booths. Both teams had
2 choices to choose from, one would be outside of Koufu near the entrance and
the other location would be in front of the escalator that leads to the
engineering block. We then agreed on choosing the location to place our booth
at the front of the escalator that leads to the engineering block.
After that, we
split the team into groups to focus on A&P, booth design, banner design and
layout. We planned how we were going to display their products and made a menu
board. We also did price tags to display on our booth for chocolates.
We had to also
plan out the banner which carries our tagline that matches to our theme. We
came up with multiple taglines and voted for the best one which says; “Sustain the
Earth with Your Love’’. Since our banner was tied to 2 bamboo poles, it was not
stable enough so we attached the bamboo poles to 2 standees and made the banner
higher and more stable.
Once we had
confirmed the design for the posters and flyers, we put up the signages around
the school to create awareness. Not only that, we also contacted The Write
Stuff to help us post on Nanyang Polytechnic’s Instagram and gave out flyers
around the school to create awareness of our event.
Signage
Flyer
Our menu board
Instagram post
Event Day 1
On the first
day of the event at 9am, some of us went down to take the equipment from the
fixtures room and we completed our set up around 10.20am. After having our
lunch at 12pm, some of us went to do mobile selling for chocolates as we had a
quota to hit. According to the manpower allocation table we did, there should
be at least 4-5 people at the booth. The sales did not meet our expectations
but we were motivated to keep on selling our products.
The event ended
at 3.30pm and we split up by some of us bringing the stocks to EMRS room to do
stock take, while the rest dismantled the booth and return the equipment to the
fixtures room. Once we were done with housekeeping, we then discussed about the
mistakes we made on the first day. All of us observed that the 14 of us were at
the booth towards the end of the event, coming to a conclusion that changes were
needed to the current manpower allocation table in order to maximise the time
given. At the end of the day, some of us planned a new manpower allocation
table for Day 2.
Event Day 2
On the second
day, we gathered and did a briefing in the morning about the new and updated
manpower planning. We managed to set up the booth in an hour. Throughout the
day, we placed not more than 5 people at the booth and the rest took turns to
go on shifts for mobile selling. The sales did increase for the second day by
close to a double, as we managed to sell more than 60% of our stocks. At
3.30pm, we started to tear down the booth and did stock take and by 4.30pm we
returned to our EMRS room to calculate our total sales for both days.
Post-Event
After the
event, we did housekeeping and made sure the equipment we took from both EMRS
and Fixtures room were returned correctly. We did stock take to see if the
quantities sold and the amount we earned, tallies for both chocolates and
perfumes.
After the stock
take, we found out that there was one missing sea salt flavoured chocolate and
had one extra peanut flavoured chocolate. There were also discrepancies for
perfumes too. At the end of the day, we came up with a conclusion that since we
were unable to find the missing stocks, we would pay up the amount that costs
for the missing stocks. In the end, we managed to return the stocks to their
respective vendors in good condition.
Conclusion & Learning points
In conclusion, we
managed to show great teamwork and communication skills. All of us took
initiative to help each other at different tasks. Despite our products being
expensive to the students with them being our main target audience, we managed
to sell more than half thanks to the hard work, motivation and determination of
the team.
Though there
were discrepancies, we managed to come up with a conclusion that everyone
agreed. It showed the support that everyone has for each other in the team.
Everyone managed not to be too stressed about this matter as discrepancies
often happen when events take place. It showed teamwork among us as we were
ready to pay the amount we had to pay for the missing stocks. From this, we
learnt that there should be another person taking note of every sales as a
backup if there were any mistakes made resulting in extra or little stocks.
We did not hit
our sales target, however we did well as the sales exceeded our expectations
after seeing the sales for the first day. All of us took this experience as a
stepping stone as we came from different specialisations and will try to
improve in the next upcoming events.
Lastly, this event has exposed us to opportunities and challenges
on how to organise an event from scratch. For instance, the importance of
prioritising and time management to better manage the effect of time pressure.
This made us stronger as a team by understanding each individual’s strengths
and weaknesses.
