This was my day in planning a conference…
Posted by
Mop🧹 (aka rburriel)
Feb 28 '24, 20:34
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Got a registration from a company, but they registered as an attendee. I don’t allow companies to just show up at the conference. It’s cheating the system. If you want to be there to “sell your wares,” you need to register as a company. Had to call them and sort it out.
Also got confirmation from a rather Big Company that you know and probably use every day that they wanted to come. I told them I could get them a bargain table in the hallway, but all the tables in the ballroom were sold (sold more than a month ago, in fact.)
Got an email from another of the companies. Apparently they paid double for the conference last year. I didn’t organize it, but I’m responsible. I found the transactions and I want to refund them their money, but I’m going to have to figure out how to do an ACH bank payment.
Went down to the conference center to check out the space. Asked them about power and network to all the exhibitor tables (as they said they would do). Power? Sure. Network? Turns out they don’t know how to do that. Maybe they shouldn’t have promised something they can’t deliver. I’ve promised every exhibitor power and network at their table. I whip out my iPad and call up our network team and ask them what they know about the network at the conference center. They confirm it can be done. But we’ll probably have to run all the cabling ourselves.
While I’m there, I tell the event space coordinator that I’m going to need two more tables. I don’t know where. It seems an impossibility at this point.
Get back to my desk, and I’ve got a floorplan in my inbox with two more tables. Fucking miracle workers.
I drop $600 on Cat 6 cable. Tell my crew that we’ll need them the afternoon before the conference to run cable.
Big Company has gotten back to me. They want the primo table in the ballroom. I move things around, move one company up one tier, and make space for Big Company.
I call the graphic design company that I spoke to last week. They were my fallback plan after my previous graphic design shop dropped the ball and - like so many people so far - told me they could do something that, it turns out, they couldn’t do. I’m calling because on Friday they said they could get me a quote for the graphics work by Monday. It’s Wednesday and they didn’t answer my email on Monday. Left them a voice mail.
Get an email from the promo company that made some swag for us. It’s a bunch of plush beavers with a bandana that has the logo of the university. They’ve included a picture of a bunch of plush sheep wearing my bandana. Apparently, another buyer got some plush dolls with my bandana. Does that mean…? I go to our storage room and start counting plush beavers. We have 55 with my bandana. 91 with the WRONG BANDANA. Also, math is hard! That’s 146 beavers. I bought 150!!! I confirm to the promo company that they done fuck up. Haven’t heard back since.
I get an email from the graphics design company. Turns out - surprise, surprise! - they’re not going to be able to do the work that, on Friday, they said they could do. I need to find a THIRD graphic design company.
On the plus side, I’ve been in touch with the woman who did our program in 2022. She’s a pro and she said she could do the program again this year. That’s a big lift.
I want the program to include a floor plan of the venue and a map of the campus, but everything I have is very schematic-like. There’s a Fiverr creator I’ve found that’ll do exactly that. I send them an inquiry, including the new floorplan. They get back within an hour and say they’ll look into it.
I get another conference registration. I’m surprised I’m still getting them since we ended the “early bird” pricing. People are still paying the full fare. They must like what I’m selling. We’re already at a record number of registrations.
Big Company submits their payment. I’ve still got two other companies that I’ve been promoting (including one you may be using right now) that haven’t paid.
I call another graphics shop in town and ask them if they can do the graphics work. They quote me some absurd price. I don’t care. If they can do it, they’ll get my money. They have until Friday to give me a written quote or I’m going to yet another graphics shop.
Add to this the fact that I went to “establish care” with a new primary care physician *AND* none of this is my day job! Through it all, I’m handling more tickets than a normal day:
- User with a Mac issue (surprise!)
- Prof thinks he wants to be his own IT department if we’ll just give him admin access on the PCs in his classroom (LOL!)
- Signage players can’t access the internet and won’t update.
- PA system in the library is on the fritz (wait, this is my problem now?)
Usually, that alone would keep me busy all day.
*AND* boss finally broke through with HR. Turns out I should have gotten a raise in August and it didn’t happen. When HR was pinged about it 3 weeks ago, they said to check the performance evaluation system and make sure we’d checked all the boxes. So boss and boss’s boss got together and reviewed things then when nuclear with HR and told them that everything checked out. HR said today “Oopsie!” and declared I was getting my raise (3%), with retroactive pay. But also I had now capped out so no more raises for me! Spent an hour reviewing my salary and the salary cap. My raise checks out. And they’re right, I’m capped out.
And the day ended with some super secret news. Can’t say what it is, but probability of me becoming a conference commissioner is back on the table (I’m only half joking).
I have fewer unread emails in my inbox this evening than I did at this point last night. I consider that quite a victory. And there’s more money in my bank account (both the conference account, and my personal account) than this morning. I’m bringing in money (for the conference) faster than I can spend it. Not a bad day, all things considered.
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