As mentioned in part 1 of this two-part post about this past week at my internship, I decided to break it up because I knew that I would hit nearly 1000 words per post.

As for promotions now, I was asked to help the promo crew on two semi-major events that were happening within days of each other. This is where the 4 hours of sleep kicks in because intertwined with these events was also CAP Board’s Spring Formal, which I was one of the 5 key planners for.

On Thursday, pop super star Ariana Grande was bringing her Honeymoon Tour to the Wells Fargo Center and we were set to make an appearance since she is one of our most commonly played artists on the Top 40 station.  While I have helped out with concerts before, I am usually holding a camera and working with the artists themselves but this time there was none of that; we were 100% fan interaction. I was set to work with 2 other regular members of the promo crew as well as my promo supervisor Angelica, the two on-air DJs and our engineer John. While we all had our own responsibilities, we would still all be in the central location representing the station.

Once we arrived at the venue, we set up our area and prepared ourselves for the masses of teenage girls that would be coming through. Our goal was to encourage listeners to sign up for a free raffle where they could win station swag and to interact with them on a more personal level. Building a conversation with a 12 year old and her mom in a matter of seconds could be difficult, but since I’m aware of Ariana Grande’s music and background, it wasn’t nearly as challenging as I expected. Not being afraid to reach out to someone was key for this event being a success and it was really cool getting to interact with the fans on a more personal level.

In addition, Casey, the afternoon drive DJ, was live broadcasting from the show so I was able to observe her process of doing things. My favorite was when she pulled random girls from the crowd to interview on-air and their reactions to being on the radio were one of a kind.

On Friday, it was all about prepping for Saturday’s event – Olly Murs performing at the zoo for Utz National Potato Chip Day. Olly Murs is a multi-platinum selling artist in the UK who is still building his footing as an artist here in the U.S. I’ve actually been a fan of his for some time and long story short, he is actually the reason why I interned with this company back in the summer of 2013 so it really was full circle that I would get the chance to work his show two years later.

Come 7 a.m on Saturday morning, I was running off of adrenaline because I had a mere 4 hours of sleep the night before due to Spring Formal. I knew though that I couldn’t let my lack of sleep get to me because a job had to be done and it was something I was immensely looking forward to.

Lucky us, Saturday had a 100% chance of rain and our venue for the day was the Philadelphia Zoo. Taking that Angelica was fully aware of this, we had to condense our show from an expected 1,500 person attendance down to 200 attendance due to moving everything inside of a pavilion.

Part of set up was preparing a space for the meet and greet which required a pipe and drape set up. Now the station has an old pipe and drape set that we barely ever use and it was our job to assemble the mess of poles into something that could hold a banner displaying the station’s and our sponsors logo. This doesn’t sound challenging but when you discover that you are missing one vital pole, things can set into panic. With only a half hour to go before the photo op with Olly started, half of the crew and I were struggling to construct a solid support that is visually appealing. It was obvious that a piece was missing so with what we had, we were forced to rig the structure. With literally 3 minutes before listeners started entering the building, we somehow got the thing to stand in addition to setting up a makeshift banner out of posters in case it didn’t come together.

Once the fun of the pipe and drape was over we hit another bump. Because the rain refused to lighten up, our expected crowd was cut back from 200 to barely 100. Only 7 out of the 50 meet and greet winners showed up and the last thing we wanted was for our sponsors and Olly’s tour management to think the show was a bust. As show time approached, I was sent out into the zoo to recruit literally any one I could to come by the performance. Thanks to my knowledge (and personal appreciation for him as a performer), I was able to sell Olly’s show to a handful of people who didn’t even belong in his demographic. The reason I only say handful is because we were lucky at this point stumble across anyone wandering the zoo on a rainy day.

Making it back just in time for the performance, late-night DJ Raph took the stage and introduced Olly to the intimate crowd. Throughout the 4 song set, I was singing along and asking people to take photos for the station’s site with a bag of chips. This forced me out of my box a bit because I was required to be more assertive and persuasive than I am so people would stop watching the show for a second to smile for the camera.

Overall, I witnessed how a backup plan sometimes has to unfold itself in situations and got to see one of my favorite performers up close and personal.