Gosh what a last month, the culmination of all our hard work, executing a very successful DEB with tons of spectacular moments and an emotional ending to my time in Vancouver. I love that town more than I could’ve ever imagined. The people, the environment, the air, let me tell you the air there is so fresh it’s like breathing in joy and happiness 24/7. My last month was a full whirlwind. I closed out Playland after dedicating July to most of its success. I am very pleased with how it went and am forever grateful for Jordan and Tyson trusting me with it. On the 8 we held Diner. The push to the finish was rushed and exciting. I worked two full days on site with the production team managing the execution. Days lasting from 7am-10pm and beyond but so worth it.
DEB was held at *drumroll*, the beautiful George Wainborn Park in downtown Yaletown. With over 3500 attendees we packed the park. Had installations from Fleurs des Villes who created mannequins draped in real flower dresses. There was a hammock installation, a Boursin tasting booth, 3 musical acts, and dancers laced throughout. I’ve never in my life seen anything more magical. Watching thousands of people pour in, wearing all white and set up rows upon rows of tables in my favorite park in Vancouver. I think I cried 3 times just walking up to the bathrooms. The sparkler moment at the end, the ultimate climax of the night just put it over the edge. Imagine thousands of people all lighting up sparklers while listening to the band play Por Ti Volare. It’s enough to make you sob like a baby. Two days after Diner Anna and I had to move out of our beloved 2318 MacDonald. The Irish boys living above moved out the week before signaling the end of all our dream summers. I still had a week left in Vancouver, so I moved to a new Airbnb in East Van close to my office. Since DEB was over I was pretty much finished with my responsibilities at the office, but I did have one final project to execute. Jordan was finally getting married, and before their spiritual ceremony at Burning Man, they wanted to have a celebration for their family. This was to take place in Portland, OR, on 8/18, aka the last day possible I could fly back to Cincinnati. So, I started planning a wedding. Working with another local event planner to handle the trade-off once I had to leave, we planned a simple Portland wedding at Cathedral Park. On Friday the 16th, I hopped in a car with Dawn’s boss, Michael Green, and drove down to Portland. I’ve never experienced so much traffic in my life, making us over 3 hours late. We made it to Portland early enough and I started getting everything coordinated for the weekend. They had a welcome reception, followed by the Bachelor and Bachelorette days and rehearsal dinner, culminating in the wedding on Sunday. I was so thrilled to celebrate such amazing people, and to meeting their friends and family was very special for me. I had to leave probably 10 minutes before Dawn walked down the aisle and I cried the whole drive to the airport. What a summer it was, the best of my life. I took a red eye back to Cincinnati that night because I needed to be back on campus by 8am on the 19th for Recruitment prep week. I landed at 5am and started to adjust back to the Clifton lifestyle. The air- terrible, and so humid! It was good to be back though and see my friends. I can’t wait to share with them all of the stories from this memorable summer. Vancouver did everything I needed it to. It gave me a new, overwhelming passion for events and helped me find something that I can potentially do for the rest of my life. My major doesn’t seem as pointless for the relevancy it had with this job and my creativity has been spiked again. I needed this break desperately and to explore a new city again. My heart misses Vancouver already, but I’ll be back soon. Cheers, CB
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July has been a busy month for me, I’ve been lead producer on 5 events and ran a photography studio for another. Just last week I worked 16 hours on Thursday for an event, 12 for Playland Nights on Friday and then 8 more for Deighton Cup on Saturday and let me tell you I slept for two straight days. Because I’ve been so busy, I haven’t done a lot of extra excursions recently, but I can catch you up on some from earlier this summer.
Anna and I are 2 of 5 UC students here this summer so we planned a quick day trip to Seattle the second weekend of July. I rented a Car2go since they just recently allowed trips across the border for the summer. It’s about a 3-hour drive so we started the morning off early and headed towards the border. Once we crossed into Washington, we started our journey down the pacific northwest. Our first stop in Seattle was the classic Pike Place Market. One of my friends lives there now so she gave us some recommendations to hit. We checked out the market and got a couple souvenirs, then went to a Ginger Beer Café recommended by my friend, Sara, for lunch. They made unique Moscow Mules and we picked up various food items from around the market to pair. Before we left to meet up with Sara for dinner, we explored this little map store on the outskirts of the market. Lydia dragged us in there but I’m glad she did, it was an awesome store with really unique and graphically appealing maps and prints. We all ended up buying something. We then met Sara for dinner at a Mexican restaurant by her house. We hung out with her and some of her work friends before they headed out to a concert for the night. She was a graphic design major at UC and is now working for Gensler Seattle. It was great catching up with her for a while before we headed back home. It was a fun day trip and great to explore a new city even if just for a day. Another excursion we got to go on was with AIC and Toyoshi to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. In North Vancouver, this was about an hour bus ride with a couple of switches on the journey. We went with our entire AIC group so the 5 students from UC and then one student from Australia, Loise. She’s living with Anna and I for the 6 weeks of her program over their winter break. The Capilano Bridge is a network of rope bridges and overlooks but to access them you must cross over this massive suspended bridge. I’m not afraid of heights but this thing scared me, there’s so many people on it at once and as you journey to the center you can feel it shaking. If you are scared of heights, I would not recommend, but the other overlooks were amazing if you can get through it. This month I produced the Ruben’s Open which was a charity golf outing in Surrey, BC. Surrey is a town south of Vancouver, about an hour drive which I did pretty frequently in the weeks leading up. The drive, while long, is beautiful, green and lush. The views from Morgan Creek golf course did not disappoint and the golf outing ended up being my favorite event so far this summer. Looking forward to more travel and events, my brother and cousins are coming in this week and I can’t wait to show them around! Update: feeling more confident and comfortable than ever in my new home, missing Cincinnati a little but not ready to go home yet! Cheers, CB Now that it’s been almost two months, I have started to adjust to life here in Vancouver. I’m obsessed with this town, the people, the scenery. You can sit at the beach and look at a beautiful skyline, next to snowcapped mountains, all while enjoying the boats cruising by. I am on a car-sharing program called Car2go for work, so I’ve started to get very comfortable with the city and getting around has become very easy for me. I’ve fallen in love with Yaletown, an area in Downtown Vancouver which is about a 15-minute drive from my house across the bridge. There’s a lot of great shops, a really cool thrift store, and some delicious coffee. I love going to sit at George Wainborn Park and stopping at Matchstick coffee for the best Americano. Something cool about Vancouver is their attention to sustainability and the environment. Most coffee shops, including Matchstick, charge an extra $0.50 for to go cups. Every restaurant and business will have some type of recycling and compost in addition to their trash cans. It’s oddly very difficult to find trash cans in this city.
Since Anna and I don’t have cars, and renting them all the time can become expensive, we usually walk to places nearby to grocery shop and eat out. We recently discovered this cute market called Athena. It’s only about a 15 minute walk from our house and cheaper than the local Safeway (Kroger equivalent), so we go there for some specialty goodies and their Mediterranean deli options which has been satisfying my Greek food cravings ever since my trip at the beginning of the summer. On our way back we stop at a Chinese produce market that has cheap groceries and their produce lasts long enough for it to be worth it. Since July has started, I usually eat out and about at work or only when I have time to come home so we make our shopping trips rare and purposeful. I’ve been trying to experiment a lot here; the food scene is incredible and very diverse so I’m not big on repeating restaurants. My office loves a place called Railtown Café, it’s a 15-minute walk from the office and they have the best salads, so we order that for a lot of working lunches. The McDonald’s here though… SO GOOD. The have BLT versions of anything, I love getting the breakfast bagel BLT. They also have fish and chips and great smoothies. There’s poutine at all restaurants in some capacity, including all fast-food restaurants. Poutine is French fries with a brown gravy and cheese curds, but every restaurant does it different. There’s an A&W everywhere you turn and funnily enough, their poutine is one of my favorites. There’s a lot of beaches in Vancouver so Anna and I are trying to get to them as often as possible. We frequent Kits beach which is a quick walk or bus 5 down the road. We also visited Wreck Beach which is a clothing optional beach near UBC. Fair warning with this one, there’s a massive tower of stairs leading down to it through what looks like a thick forest. The hike back up takes a lot of mental preparation but it’s worth it to see the views. Because of the forest surrounding it on all ends it’s very quiet and feels remote, there’s usually a couple of clothing “shops” set up and some food vendors with occasional live music. On Canada Day (7/1), we celebrated by going to Jericho Beach, which is a 15-minute bus to the west of Kits beach. Much more secluded, it was a relaxing way to spend celebrating our new home. Still exploring and finding inexpensive things to do… check-in soon! Cheers, CB MY JOB MY JOB MY JOB. Wow ok so remember how I said I was over architecture and ready to find a new passion, well I found her! This job is making me feel like all the random skills I’ve been picking up are finally worth it. It’s such a fast-paced job with lots of moving parts and I love managing that lifestyle. They’ve been giving me a lot more responsibility at work and I love how much they trust me. It’s scary thinking about it because it comes with the potential of failure, but I think I can handle the challenge and I’m excited to prove myself.
Background: I work for The Social Concierge (TSC), located in East Vancouver by Olympic Village. They produce large scale personal and contracted events that range from The Lululemon holiday party to Diner en Blanc (DEB), a pop-up dinner party that brings over 3000 people to a secret location for a family style meal riddled with art and entertainment. There are 4 core employees for the company, Tyson and Jordan, co-owners and creators, Connor who handles most of the digital communication and coordinates the table and group leader programs for DEB, and Kassandra who oversees the financial side of the company. There’s also another intern, Gabbie. She went to school in Victoria, an island about a 25 min seaplane from Vancouver. She works directly under Connor on more of the digital marketing side of TSC. I work directly under Jordan meaning I’m doing all sorts of things but focusing more on the planning and production of events. Planning v Producing: planning is more of the logistical aspects of events, it’s getting the event space, the help needed, the activations and installations and all of the outside details while producing is buying all of the décor, setting up the location, coordinating employees, executing the activations and installations, managing run of show, and completing tear down or strike at the end. So, my projects. Right now, I’m working on 3 projects: DEB, Deighton Cup, and Playland Nights. I don’t do much for Deighton Cup right now other than our weekly meeting but it’s basically like Vancouver’s version of the Derby but without the passion for horse-racing. There are still a few big races of the day but the focus for the day is fashion and art with a twist of horses. It’s very interesting listening to the planning for this since The Derby and Kenneland have been present in my life since I was little. For DEB I’ve been tasked with completing the transportation plan. A big part of DEB is that the location is a complete surprise up until the guests arrive day of. Because of this we must coordinate a very thorough transportation plan detailing out how 3500 people will all arrive by Skytrain, bus, or on foot to the same location in the span of an hour. It’s a lot- I’m working directly with the city of Vancouver on iterations that are most practical but since I have no knowledge of the area I’ve been living in google maps trying to figure out the best paths. Finally, I just got a slight promotion to be the lead producer for the Playland Nights VIP Program. Playland Nights is held at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) at the amusement park on site. Think about closing King’s Island every Friday in July and opening it back up from 7pm-12am for those 21 and up. We are creating two main spaces for the VIP Experience at each of those nights in July. The theme of these spaces is the movie Big so there will be a “Homebase” area with themed programming unique to each week and then we are creating a hidden bar called “Zoltar’s Speakeasy”. As lead producer I am tasked with helping come up with programming, sourcing all décor, setting up both spaces each Friday, and hiring/managing employees and people activating in the spaces. Everything is starting to get busy around here and I can’t wait to keep learning from all the people I work with. Jordan has taught me so much about coordination and has given me so much freedom to learn and grow, he’s been an amazing mentor so far. I’m very excited to see what these next 2 months have in store for me! July is about to get very busy for me so more updates to come! Cheers, CB Hello, hello!
I’ve been in Vancouver for about a month now and wow a lot has happened in these past couple of weeks. My parents just left a couple of days ago and it was so nice to see them and show them my new home. My parents haven’t flown in over 25 years so needless to say I was concerned for them. They took a train starting in Chicago all the way in and then flew back home to Lexington. If you’re curious how the train ride went don’t ask my dad, it wasn’t an ideal experience for him. My mom on the other hand doesn’t complain at all and would tell you she had a wonderful time. I recommend just taking the flight. I started my job 3 weeks ago and in that short time I’ve started working on 3 projects, gotten promoted to be lead producer of one of them and been to countless events. My job is amazing and has opened my eyes to something that could very well become my passion. I’m doing an employer profile for my next post so look to that for a full description on my work life and all the cool things I’m doing! Since moving in and starting my job I’ve gotten to travel a lot more around town and learn what Vancouver has to offer. Funnily enough, after my last post I vowed to stop getting on the wrong buses and then I was 15 minutes late to meeting my boss on my first day because I took two wrong buses in a row… but I’m so much better now I hardly event fall when the bus starts before I find a seat. My job lets me work from home most days so I have a very flexible schedule which has let me explore a little more. Did you know Vancouver is the most ‘Asian’ city outside of Asia? A lot of the Asian population is focused in Richmond which is in Southwest Vancouver and in East Vancouver off Hastings. This culminates in a massive Chinatown of amazing food and a rich culture. In the summers they host the Largest Night Market in North America called the Richmond Night Market. Our AIC advisor, Toyoshi, took us there a couple weeks ago. In true fashion, Anna and I decided to sample as much as possible, so we went around in laps to find the best options. We tried many varieties of meat on a stick, a hot pot soup that had clams and noodles and was made in a tin foil bag on a grill. We also got the ultimate corn dog, shaped like a fish with the best sauce on it. 10/10 for the night market. A lot of my excursions have been thanks to my boss who just likes to walk in the office and give me plans after work. I think he appreciates me because I never have any plans, so I always say yes. The other day I went to the symphony, the 100th anniversary of the symphony at that. He walked into the office and gave me that and a cocktail lounge opening to go to. This sounds amazing, and it was, but you think the man could give me a little warning so I don’t have to wear a knit skirt and sneakers to the SYMPHONY. I looked like an idiot. The cocktail lounge opening though, let me tell you, I’ve never had so much good food in my entire life. The most massive charcuterie board, an oyster bar, a raw bar, a gelato cart, hors d’oevres being walked around, an open bar for all their new cocktails one of which had actual glitter in it. My sincerest apologies for the lack of pictures I think I was just in awe the whole time. Vancouver does feel like a big surfer West Coast town. People are always hiking or exercising, doing water sports or going camping for the weekend it’s an active town. I’m told it’s due to the 6 months of rain they get in the fall/winter, they take full advantage of their summer and I can’t blame them. It’s 60-70 degrees every day, usually sunny and there’s always a nice breeze. You can wear sweaters or shorts, and almost every day has the potential to be a great beach day. That means the beach will always be packed but everyone still gives each other plenty of space and there’s a lot of common courtesy at the beaches. Unlike the US, people don’t really care about what other people are doing. A lot of the time Anna and I will look around and realize that no one was looking at us, people don’t care what you’re doing or how you look everyone just minds their own business most of the time. Progress update: doing great, loving work and this amazing town. Sleeping a lot and trying to spend as little money as possible. Stay tuned… Cheers, CB Hi, my name is Carly Biega, I guess I’m a senior now (yikes). I’m a fourth-year architecture major about to go on my third and final co-op in Vancouver, BC. And no, you can not drive to visit I’m above Washington, people! After co-oping with two architecture firms and experiencing 3 years of school, I’m not completely confident I want a future in architecture. I’ve put that concern as the goal of my final co-op so I will be temporarily ditching architecture and testing out a career in Event Planning/Production. I will be working for The Social Concierge, an event branding and marketing agency specializing in unique experiences. I will keep you updated on that goal throughout the next 12 weeks but for now, let’s talk about getting here.
My journey to Vancouver was interesting to say the least. I left Cincinnati at the end of the semester to travel to Greece with 43 other UC Greek Life students. We left for 12 days and traveled from Athens, to Crete, to Santorini, and Ios, ending our trip back in Athens for departure. Since I was not returning to Cincinnati like the rest of my group, I had to book separate round – trip flights, meaning that my 12 + hours of traveling both ways were done alone. The time change was also an interesting addition, with Athens being 10 hours ahead of Vancouver. When I finally landed in Vancouver and made it to my new house, I was so exhausted. My friends woke me up when they got back and I remember asking them if it was still Sunday, the longest 30-hour Sunday of my life for sure. Lucky for me, my company was finishing a job in another part of Canada, so they pushed my start date back a week. This let me relax and explore a little with my friends who were visiting my roommate Anna already when I arrived. Anna is also a fourth year; she’s majoring in Real Estate with a minor in International Business and a green roofs certificate. Anna is co-oping at a company called LifeSpace Gardens. They make specialty raised garden beds in North Vancouver, about an hour commute away from our house in Kitsilano. Kitsilano is a great location for us! Since we don’t have cars here, Anna and I rely on the buses to get everywhere in Vancouver. The street we live on is less than a 5-minute walk from any bus line with one just a block away that only goes up and down the street we live on. I can’t wait to be able to explore a little more once I get comfortable with the buses, Anna and I use an app called MoovIt that helps us know which lines to take and when the buses come. There hasn’t been a lot of culture shock since there’s no main language barrier and the culture is pretty similar to that of the US. Vancouver is like the California of Canada, the lingo, the relaxed atmosphere, and oh ya the beach is down the street too. Overall, I think I’m going to like it here and I think this could be a great summer. I can’t wait to start working and making this place my home. Hopefully by the next time I check in I’ll be over my jet lag and I’ll have stopped accidentally getting on the wrong buses. Cheers, CB |