Convention Work

Every year, I get invited to do part-time work for local and international conferences and events. (I had previous post about this). I trained early as a member of an international convention group when I was still a student where we get to work in an exciting event, learn and get valuable training plus get paid for it! This is the reason why I always encourage young students to participate in events like this and when opportunities arise, I make it a point to include them as members of the staff pool, as long as the work is not in conflict with their school work.

I still accept invitations for this taxing work because first, it is only part-time and the experience and valuable knowledge and insights I get from each event validates some demographical studies I do. So armed with sensible shoes, a patient and positive outlook plus the willingness to learn and experience adventure makes the taxing work a lot easy.


Because I work with children and young people (even up to their twenties!) I am also tasked to provide a young, energetic staff to handle various multi-task work from manning reception and registration, as ushers and attendants, delegate/speaker's assistant, emceeing and other challenging (including boring stuff) that makes a huge convention exciting and successful.


Last year, I brought along two people to provide staff work for an IT conference in Manila. I have to handle ingress work (setting up of the venue, stage, sounds, etc.) from late night to morning, catch a few winks and up again to be part of the staff handling various work for the event.


This photograph was taken last year at the Crowne Plaza with Love and CJ before I have to head off for my ingress work. We enjoyed an overnight stay at the hotel room provided for the staff. We took pictures of ourselves with our mobile phones in front of the mirror in our hotel room!


This month I have to beg off from an event because of my heavy workload and schedule. The organizer still requested me to provide staff so I hastily gathered college students and gave instructions over the phone. And even if I was not there to supervise them personally, we were in direct communication through our mobile phone.


The cool kids in photo above: CJ, Jinja, Jardin, Suzette and DJ posing at the convention venue and working on their own! Their inputs: they enjoyed the experience so much. And I hope the organizers will consider hiring them back for more convention work.


. . . and at the end of my work, as I start another day . . .

I take a glimpse at the early morning view of Ortigas from the fourth floor of the hotel taken last year, while I was finishing up work. A feast for tired eyes after being up working all night and morning!