The staff of the McConnell Arts Center has been running on all cylinders this week as we head into our annual Arts Festival. We have over 100 artists coming in from all over the country (as far as Colorado, Florida, and one from California!), and hundreds of patrons coming to our sit over the next two days to view the booths. It’s our job at the MAC to make sure that everyone involved has a fantastic weekend. It’s been quite the learning opportunity for me in the world of arts administration. I thought that I understood the importance of planning ahead before this week, but I had no idea the level of preparation that was required for hosting an event like the one we’ve put together.  

On Wednesday, every staff member we have went out into the field with this insane PVC pipe contraption and painted each of the spots for the artist, sponsor, and community partner tents. I’m not sure I can even count the number of cans of spray paint we went through. On Thursday, I spent a good portion of my day cutting and hole punching laminated signs, putting together twenty-something cardboard trashcans, and putting little numbered flags in the field to match the spray-painted numbers, not to mention helping to finish the leftover tasks from cleaning up last week’s camp! We started the hard work today, though. After arriving early enough for the summer air to still be chilly, I helped to set up our information tent and put together even more signs to be spread out across the field to direct people toward the restrooms. Then I manned our information booth for a considerable amount of time to check in our artists, direct them to the proper loading and parking spots, and take care of any other concerns they might have, on top of managing a handful of other tasks throughout the day, like ensuring that each artists had their booth sign in the top left corner of their booth. (Fun fact: many artists have their own specific vision of where they would like the sign to go. Shocking, right?) One of the highlights of my day was getting to drive the golf cart around to check on the artists.  

My supervisor and me at the information booth, getting ready to check all the artists in!

As well as getting each of the artists checked in and set up, we also had to set up the Preview Picnic for this evening! The Preview Picnic is a ticketed fundraising event where patrons can come have food and drinks with the artists and the MAC staff, and get a first look at several of the booths before they are opened to the public tomorrow morning. We had to handle seating and caterers and musicians (oh my!), and we had to ensure that the artists staying for the picnic were ready in time. The event in the evening was a success, though, thanks to the hard work and preparation of the people who have been working with the MAC for much longer than I have. I was just glad I got to enjoy it with them! 

The mountain of tasks that I’ve had over the last few days is almost nothing compared to the to-do list of the other staff members and the Event Coordinator (my supervisor). I learned a lot about the kinds of details that go into event planning, especially the aspect of coordinating people to get the jobs done– delegation and patience are the two most important parts of working with groups of people.  Another thing that I learned was that no matter how much you prepare and how well you know your schedule, there will always be something that goes wrong. For example, the printer in our offices jammed this morning before we could get complete copies of our check-in lists printed. We ended up using a spare program to check in artists as a quick solve until we could get the official list.  

I head in again tomorrow bright and early for the first public day of the festival (9am-6pm, in case anyone’s interested), and I look forward to checking out the artwork, the food, and all of the problem-solving that goes with it. I hope I get to drive the golf cart again!