Casino Night at a Historical LA Venue--supporting LA's Best Friends

Recently I had the opportunity to work on a short project for a nonprofit organization called LA's Best Friends. LA's Best raises money to provide after-school enrichment programs in low-income schools in LA. 

Anyways--my boss Melanie sits on the board for Best Friends, and asked me if I could help out with day-of setup logistics.  The event was held at the old historical cathedral; the Vibiana in downtown LA.  This actually was the original cathedral of LA until they built the new one.  It is a gorgeous building with a lot of old spanish inspired architecture. The pics here in the beginning are from our site visit earlier in the week--(aka the before pics.) You can see both the inside and the outdoor patio area (which I think would be a great space for an event in itself).  

And then this is what the space transformed into for Casino Night...the greatest thing about this event, is that almost everything was donated...even the LIGHTING.  This event is a perfect example of what lighting can do for an event.  

It was a blast filling up this space with all of these things and working on the spatial layouts of the event.  It was so nice to be able to just go work the event with no worries or responsibilities--just there to simply help out and have fun while doing it.  The event turned into a great success! 

Corporate/Nonprofit vs. Entertainment/Social?

Recently I was able to meet with a long time veteran of the event industry who works for a high profile celebrity client. It was so exciting to hear about all of the different events he was doing for her, all throughout the year.

But as I was sitting there meeting with him, it created a sense of reality about working in the entertainment industry--it takes a LOT of time. Don't get me wrong, doing any type of special event takes a lot of time. But when you start working with celebrities, it becomes very demanding and 'cut-throat.' And what do you have in the end? You may have a fabulous looking party, you get to say you plan parties for this person, and maybe if your lucky the client will say it looks nice (after they probably came in the room before the event started and said to change out all of the florals or something).

All of this began to set in with me as I was meeting with this individual, because a lof of my current work in events is in the corporate and nonprofit world. A world that that is full of tight budgets, (or no budgets), but also one that is very affirmative and appreciative. At BDI, I've had the pleasure of doing 2 major conferences (1 for 800 people, and 1 for 600), and while those might not have been the most 'exciting' events...I can't tell you the number of people that came up to me to personally thank me, or say that the event changed their life. This is the bonus of working in this sector of events...

So now I come to the big 'Y" in the road where I question and wonder which way I'm going to go in my career. I've worked a lot of celebrity driven events, and I've also worked a lot of nonprofit events. I think I've come to realize that its finding a balance between both. What I love about the social scene of the entertainment events, is that they are usually full of creativity and design. And--its exciting...people would die to be talking to Johnny Depp or Tom Hanks. But also what I love about the nonprofit/corporate world, is simply the people...well sometimes. haha. :) I'm excited to look back at this post and see where I am in let's say 5 years...