An Event by the Numbers

I just pulled off one of the most chaotic events of my life. Mostly because it required coordination between 4 separate organizations, none of which seemed to want to help me out by cooperating. Fuckers.

And this was for a charity, of all things! Remind me to never do that again.

This is how it went:

6 weeks from notice to execution
16,000 dollar food and beverage minimum
600 estimated attendees
9 top level sponsors
70 mid-level sponsors
27 hours personally dedicated to this in the last 3 days
46.5 man hours of staff time in the last 2 days
5 feds on site
1 super happy GPG
75 minutes spent in heels
1 back-up pair of flats
27,000 dollars spent on food alone
400 dollar bar minimums
6 cash bars
2400 dollars in alcohol apparently consumed
756 confirmed attendees
2 hours of cocktails
175,000 dollars raised for charity
1 very weary GPG

All this and I supposedly was also thanked in the speeches. Of course, I wasn't in the room to hear this, but I was told about it after the fact. Which is almost as good. Except not at all. Because if I'm going to work my ass off this hard for something that wasn't even supposed to be my responsibility, I want to bask in my 2 seconds of glory, dammit! Especially in a room filled with 700 drunken people.

But at least I got the feds. And that alone is worth its weight in yummy.

I never said my job didn't have an upside.