Event Management

Yesterday, October 7th, I completed my event management task with our Sports Information Director Steve R. He is a great media relations guy and also great to work with. The event I chose was women’s soccer. Our girls were playing an in conference foe, Tennessee Wesleyan. I didn’t think much about how much work and effort it takes in setting up the event.

When first arriving around 12:15, I met with Steve and we got started with pre-event process. Before heading to the field we had to complete and print off the game day media guides with the rosters on it. At the field there is a media guide box where we placed those brochures. Afterwards we had to get out all of the equipment which was stored at the baseball clubhouse, a storage box at the field and in the car, from which we transported from the office at the gym. Some of the equipment that we had to set up or have on hand included these: sound speakers (2), microphone, receiver, 4 channel mixer, stereo or boom box, electric cords, and towels. The towels were for in case there is bad weather. Then after setting everything up, we had to check and test the sound systems. Then ensure that the scoreboard is functional and that includes the board and the operation box. With all of that done we had plenty of time to rest and wait for the teams to get there. Once they got there we had to get the rosters and starting line-ups from each team so we could set up the statistical program that Steve uses and to also fill out the PA script.  

Now, its time for the event to get started up! Steve started by announcing the introduction and line ups. Then we played the National Anthem. The teams then took the field. While play was going on we had to keep the scoreboard and stats on the laptop Steve had provided. He uses binoculars sometimes when he can’t see the number of the players. The reason for having to know that is because when a player scores or commits a foul, he can identify them for stats and the spectators. Throughout the game Steve announced other Reinhardt and future events.

After the game is over, it would usually be clean up time but today there is a double header so he and other students have to go through another game with basically the same process. If, there was not another game, we would clean everything up and return it back to where we got it. Steve would save the game files so when he got back to the office he could send stats to the opposing teams and local media. We also had to shut off the scoreboard as well.

Unfortunately, our girls lost this game 0-2. I learned a lot about how to set up for a soccer game at this university. It is much harder than I ever thought it could be. You have so much equipment and tedious work. Pre-game and post-game is by far the hardest times of event management. One thing that I failed to mention about the pre-game set up is that we have to tell the opposing team the introduction procedures so they are not lost. I enjoyed this experience but did not enjoy the outcome!