What does it take to organize a professional industry event in Niagara?
Five Public Relations students are finding out firsthand, as the organizers of an upcoming networking event for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Golden Horseshoe Chapter.
The event, to be held on March 10 at Rockaway Vineyards, will feature a keynote address by PR practitioner Martin Waxman, who will discuss the topic of artificial intelligence in PR.
A group of five students – including Ashlan MacDonald, Chabely Rivas, Tori Sanderson, Brittany Barton, and Tosin Ajogbeje, are responsible for the organizing entire event – from coming up with ideas for the theme, booking the guest speaker, landing a venue, finalizing the menu, and promoting the event on social media.
The experience is part of their Special Event Management class, taught by Emily McInerney, which equipped them with skills needed to undertake the challenge. They also received support from Event Management staff member Kathleen Nitta.
The students valued the opportunity to take on the challenge and gain experience that will be helpful to them as they pursue their career goals.
“Event planning is a huge part of public relations, depending on where you go in your career. You could be the only person available at an organization to plan events,” said MacDonald, who is the team lead on the project. “Before taking this class, my group members and I would agree that we did not have any real experience planning events. After taking this class and having this assignment, I feel well equipped to enter an organization and plan an event.”
MacDonald noted that the opportunity to create this event for IABC has been rewarding.
“All of my group members and I can all agree that we have learned an immense amount of information throughout the journey,” she said. “We are all grateful for the opportunity to host an event for IABC, the organization is one that we are all fairly familiar with and we have had the chance to meet some excellent connections along the way.”
Please join us for this amazing event being organized by 5 of our NCPR students featuring keynote speaker Martin Waxman discussing AI in PR. Tickets are now available. t.co/V5AlSmNIrA
— Niagara College PR (@niagara_pr) February 12, 2020
Event details
IABC Golden Horseshoe Chapter networking event will be held on March 10 at Rockaway VineyardsVineyard from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Tickets are $10 for students, $20 for members or $30 for non-members.
For additional event details or tickets visit gh.iabc.com/event/putting-ai-pr/
