Kylie Egbert

Major: Event Management
Company/Organization: Cedar Rapids Freedom Festival
Company/Organization website: https://www.freedomfestival.com/
Destination: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Timeframe: Summer 2023
Advisor/Coordinator Email: jbeyer@iastate.edu

Responsibilities

Throughout my internship, I was mainly responsible for coordinating events and marketing efforts for the three-week festival. My tasks including creating detailed maps for each event, contacting volunteers for each event and providing assignments, connecting with board members and providing assignments, assisting with creating event timelines, organizing and loading up supplies needed for each event, setting up tents, tables, chairs, and other supplies for each event, serving as a point of contact for board members and volunteers at events, creating social media posts on Instagram and Facebook, coordinating and leading our silent auction event, answering phones at the office, and overall helping to ensure all of our events were successful.

Accomplishments

My greatest accomplishment during my internship experience was leading an event with the other intern. We were given the opportunity to be the event leads for our Movie at the Ballpark event. This meant that all of the responsibility for the event fell on our shoulders. We got to coordinate all of the volunteers and board members, create an event map based on our own knowledge, set up the event ourselves, and serve as the main contacts during the event. This experience was a huge accomplishment to me, as I was able to feel what is was like to be a leader and truly be in charge of an event.

Learning experience

One of the greatest lessons I learned from my experience is that everyone has different communication styles. It's extremely important to learn how people communicate and be able to work well with everyone in your organization. You should be able to know yourself as well, and know when you may need to take a step back from a situation or push yourself to be better. Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions, and it's often better to work together than to try and do everything on your own. Know that it's okay to ask for help when needed, but you should push yourself to be independent in your internship.

What advice would you give?

My best advice to future students in Event Management would be to learn how to become extremely detailed and over-prepared. There are so many small, moving parts of events that we often forget about or don't pay attention to that could either make or break your event. Take the time to really think through and plan everything out so you can be prepared for any situation before it happens. It's much better to be able to enjoy your event rather than having to put out fires during your event.

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