Saturday, October 1, 2016

Monday - so it begins!

Monday was the first day we had other people than ourselves and organizers on site. This meant registration was open.

Team Sarah was on the case:



Team Maria countered:


But I think it was a clear win!!

To me Monday was the best day. It was the Hackathon. This event was organized mostly by our business stakeholders but I thought it was by far the best part of the week. It was awesome to walk into that room and see all these young people so engaged in what they were doing, having a great time and loving the attention they were getting.




This is also the first day the big guy arrived. I, with no voice, took the Secretary General on a tour of the venue. I had also done one the day before for colleagues which you can bore yourself with here.


I think for the first time since this Ministerial was decided on, the SG finally realized how much work was involved. It was nice to have it realized! We were even able to get him additional security which is a whole other tale I won't go into the details, but the person they sent is worth sharing:

 I think I could beat this guy up!

Getting ready for the "Big Show"

The weekend was spent running around crisis managing erm, I mean "getting ready" for the big event. I could write pages and pages of what happened over the course of 2 days but for everyone's sanity I will stick to the highlights.

Set up

When we arrived at the venue there were people everywhere busily setting up stages, booths, registration etc. Things looked like they were well in hand until you got a little closer. 


















Note the two dudes working on this sign: 


They are doing this because the sign which was supposed to look like this:


It literally had smoke coming out of it!! Me, trying to keep it together, asked politely if it was supposed to be doing that - I don't know, maybe it was a special effect? Dude responds, no but continues to stand there. I then respond "well, maybe we should turn it off because it might be on fire!". My lovely colleague who spent her days hanging out at the registration desk kept me posted on its status - mostly, not on fire.

Because now all the service providers were on site Mexico had lots of folks for me to "talk to". All these super keen folks would show up at the office wanting to know this and that - I would start responding and then *blank stare*. I would pause, and ask "habla Inglés" to which the response was inevitably - no. Great!

In good news, half of "the team" spoke Spanish but she couldn't be everywhere all the time so I was constantly borrowing other colleagues. Case in point, my one colleague (who later would be known as the knight in shining armour) ended up being the tech go to guy. He became besties with all the sounds guys and was awesomely cheered on during his panel.
In all his glory:



Documentation

At any event, even digital ones, there are always documents to be printed e.g. agendas, backgrounders etc. This had been an ongoing debate/issue for me but in the end Mexico agreed to print the docs. As we are touring around I see that they have arrived - perfect. I go over, open the box and a dark cloud emerges. They looked like garbage, logos were wrong "The Internet Openess" anyone? Well, thankfully this problem was solved quite quickly! Apparently the dark cloud had rained on them so they were also wet and destroyed so ended up in the garbage. 

Exhibit A



Exhibit B



Of course this caused a whole other issue - what do we do now?!?!? In 48hrs we had new documents produced and printed thanks to an awesome colleague in Paris! But alas, Mexico did not want us to benefit too much from these new versions. On the last day when we were looking for the extra copies, I was informed they had been thrown out. My superstar "team" member was once again on the case - she had her new hotel besties going through the garbage to find them. A few were recovered but the rest sadly, made up more of the tree carnage we had caused earlier that week.

This gives you a flavour of what our week shaped up to be. . .up at 5am and out of the conference at around midnight or so. . .and problems, problems and more problems!

Next up . . .Monday!


And then there was Mexico . . .

Many of you have already heard about my time in Mexico nauseam, so deal with it, you get to re-live it with me again :)

Starting at the beginning. . . in super fun news I woke up the day before I left sick with a fever so I already knew I was going to have a great week. The fever broke before I had to get on a 12hr flight to Mexico City but because of the schedule I was keeping, I never got better and was sick all week. I had no voice for the first few days which made the adventure even more fun!

My colleague (and onsite lifesaver!) and I (aka "the team") were the first to depart on Friday, 17 June. We arrived with of course no one to pick us up at the airport but at least with our luggage and box!



This is what others arrived to, well the lucky ones, because transport was hit and miss all week:


Oh and this is the "the team":



The hotel was the nightmare I remembered it to be and our rooms were on the other side of the earth. Task number one, get the rooms moved closer to the venue. Little did we know that task number one would become one of the ongoing tasks of the week - getting hotel rooms changed #nightmare.

Saturday morning, thanks to jetlag, we were up early and ready to take on the world. With breakfast done we went to tackle dinner reservations - start off easy we thought. This is far more detail than you want I am sure but this illustrates what we dealt with for the whole week.

Guest Services: How can I help you?

Us: We would like to book 2 sets of dinner reservations for X date and X people

Guest Services: You can't make dinner reservations, it's all inclusive.

Us: We are here with the Ministerial (points to totem beside person with event logo) so could there be an exception?

Guest Services: *blank stare*

Us: Ok, then how do we book the private rooms in the restaurants?

Guest Services: There are no private rooms.

Us: What about the one in the restaurant to the left that has glass walls and surrounded by wine bottles?

Guest Services: Oh, that is for Ambassador Club Members.

Us: Ok, what about the one in the restaurant behind you - the room at the back behind the buffet, with the curtain, seats about 12?

Guest Services: There is no private room in that restaurant, I have never seen it.

Us: *speechless.*

We then get referred to Public Relations which results in a similar conversation and then move on to the events manager who I had met in February - problem gets solved.
Next up the rooms, yep - no problem - shows us where our new rooms will be and that we come back around 5pm to get them. 

Fast forward to 8pm - they don't have any record of this request but manage to find us rooms that are only mildly closer. We give up, take new rooms. They can't find luggage - including the box!!! Phew, they finally locate said luggage. 



In even worse news - they have moved the Secretary General's room. This launches a 2 (or was it 3) hour long effort to get it changed back before he and his security arrive the next day. Following the SG room switch and locating our new rooms, we headed off the conference centre - the place where we would spend the next week of our lives. . . 



And the insanity begins. . .

For the few of you that follow my blog regularly, you are aware that nothing new has been posted in months. . .sorry about that but I've been a little busy!

As you saw over a year ago, the reason I moved to Paris was to organize an event. And like all events, the closer you get to it, the more crazy it becomes . . .but first things first - Euro Cup!!!

The Euro Cup began one week before I was leaving for Mexico and a friend of mine dropped in to catch a couple of the matches with me. Since we had been to the World Cup in Brazil together - it seemed apropos! In good news, no flights were missed this time :)

While I was working like crazy, we did manage to squeeze a couple of touristy things including Jardin des Plantes. It's an interesting mix of a garden, greenhouses and a zoo! I would include pictures but my SD card crapped out on me and I lost a few - including these.

And then, the main event! We attended two matches that week - Croatia vs Turkey at Parc des Princes on 12 June and Sweden vs Ireland at Stade de France on 13 June. Thanks to my friend there are some photos of these!

Turkey vs Croatia

The opening weekend games in Marseille sparked a few riots so security was increased at each venue. To get to Parc des Princes from the metro you had to walk about 15min. The entire street was lined with riot police on both sides. My friend noted it was making her a little uncomfortable and I was like, what? It didn't even register with me that it would - not sure what that says about how often I see police, guns etc. these days but I was thinking more along the lines of  - it's better they are here than not!







The weather was not great but in good news we had the cheap seats so we were well protected from the downpour that was happening around us. In sad news, they only had two kinds of beer non-alcoholic and 0.5% so really one kind - non-alcoholic. Was it really worth wasting the calories?!!


Warm up!



All the games started with an "opening ceremony" where a bunch of kids would run and dance with huge team jerseys and flags in tow. It was funny to see the difference in abilities stadium to stadium but unfortunately, the routines and music were pretty much the same across the board!




















Overall the game was pretty good to watch. The stadium is a bit smaller than some of the others I have been to so it made the vibe in the place feel more intimate. Thanks to my friend, there are some pictures to share of the game!





Sweden vs Ireland

Getting to this match was an adventure and a half! We literally stood in a metro tunnel surrounded by drunk Irish fans for 40mins not moving. There was body surfing involved in which I got kicked in the head. This was followed by a metro ride where the crowd was jumping but there was literally no space to even breath - needless to say we left this game a bit early to not have to repeat the experience (as did most non-Irish/Swedish fans in the place!). We also spent part of the game wondering if the Irish realized that the beer they were buying was 0.5%. . .






Warm up!




A little deja vu...























This game was all about Ibrahimović and man buns.  Ibrahimović is huge and looks more like a hockey player than a soccer player . . .I mean football. . .but somehow he does it. And this game further reinforced my opinion that the man bun has to go!

Kick Off!




There was a little entertainment at half time, saw them at a few matches actually!



More on the Euro later in my posts. . .