Caitlin King – Event Management: Laying a Foundation

Strategic Organization

Hi everyone! My name is Caitlin King and my emphasis is Strategic Organization. From a young age I enjoyed creating fun activities for my friends and family. Then while in college, I learned that I could turn my passion into a career. I would love to go into the events industry and this project helped me to build a foundation on how to do so.

Project Summary:

In order to build a foundation for event planning, I split my project into three parts: Interview, Volunteer, and Creation.

Interview

My goal was to interview atleast 5 event professionals and learn how they got into the industry along with any advice/tips they had for me. I found the first planner through BYUI connect. Mary D. is an alumni of BYU-Idaho and is now the owner of EP Events. Through Mary I was able to connect with 10-15 event professionals. I was able to interview 6 of them.

Key advice I received:

  • Network, network, network!
  • Volunteer at multiple events.
  • Learn more about yourself and what you are interested in.
  • Do your research about types of events and companies.

Volunteer

I wanted to get more of a hands-on experience in event planning and created a goal for myself to volunteer at atleast 2 events. I ended up doing a lot of research and volunteering for 4 events.

  • Joanne Harpel: Coping After Suicide workshop
  • A college Halloween party
  • Jen Marr: Community conversations
  • Jen Marr: Student circle conversations

I was able to get research and experience in venue selection, vendor selection, marketing creating and distributing marketing material, outreach, refreshments, activities, and more!

Creation

To prepare for my future business, I decided that I would create my own event planning website, Instagram, and templates. I was able to purchase the domain creativekingevents.com and started building a website! The website is still a work in progress, but it goes along nicely with my Instagram. I also created 3 templates, including: a client contract, an event overview, and a task/delegation checklist.

I am very proud of this project and all that I learned and achieved! I may have even gotten a potential job out of it! 

Collateral and Time Log