Untitled entry

THE ONE ABOUT 16 HOUR WORK DAYS

So in case anyone was wondering, I still haven't gotten PIGLET back. Its still at the store and they have yet to fixed the problem. Apparently it now randomly reboots and still has no sound. I'm hoping to get it back by this week. I miss my baby...

In other news, I've been working really hard this week. Been up at crack of dawn almost the entire week and been working til late in the night too. The entire week was spent doing event after event and prep for the major event this coming week. The past 2 days have been spent doing setup for Ad Asia 2005 happening for the next 3 days. For the curious, here is the process of setting up a booth at a major convention like Ad Asia.

 

I arrive at 9 am in the morning to wait for my booth items to arrive. My logistics items begin to trickle in starting from 9 am. I'm also waiting for my booth contractor to arrive so he can start building.

My posters and banners arrive first, but still no sign of the carpeting guys or my booth contractor.

Finally, by 11, the carpeting guy comes and does an amazing 10 min performance of quick laying. After that, my booth people start bringing in the panels for building and my landscaper arrives early to setout my pretty plants for me.

In the meantime, I sit around and "supervise" the activities!! Heehee!

Before long, the panels that make up the booth are joined together and the shape of the booth slowly emerges. It is tough work for my workers, but they work well together to piece together the structure.

Before long, the booth is up and it is being properly painted and stickered. The plasma TVs are put in place and my wheel of fortune is setup. The exhibition space is taking shape nicely. Problem is, we are 3 hours behind schedule and its already 5 pm, instead of all this being done at 2 pm... At this point, we realise that the front of the booth is fairly dark AND we didn't have lights for it. Someone is sent to get some lights, while I go and arrange for more electrical points to provide power for the lights. The people who are meant to provide cable TV and wireless internet arrive to setup everything nicely for us.

We start moving all the stuff into the store room in the booth, especially all the logistic items such as goodie bags and laptops. I then ask for the key from my contractor who promptly tells me he forgot to bring it. I make him send someone back to the office to get it. At this point, Ray calls me and tells me there is no audio on some clips of the DVD montage he is helping me put together... *sigh* yet another hiccup!!!

We start installing the tables and also the branding stickers. However, at this point they realise that the plasma TVs are too high, and too close together, so the stickers don't fit properly. *sigh* Another hour is spent moving and adjusting TV brackets and cables to make sure everything fits well. On top of that, the banners which were meant to be flying from the balloon doesn't fit under the height requirements, so we have to find another way to hang it. Oh and the Wheel of Fortune is taking up too much space and blocking the walkway. We shift it 5 times before finding the optimal position for it.

Fortunately, everyone tries to work faster so that we can go home earlier. By this point I've been here for 10 hours and definately getting grumpy. Luckily, all the stickering goes off without a hitch, even though we had to remove a tagline so that it wouldn't look so congested. Ray calls and tells me he finally fixed the problem of no audio on the DVD. He promises to bring the DVD in asap.

Finally, everything is setup correctly. We had to shift the landscaping around, move and reposition the tables a few times, but we managed to fit everything into our exhibition space. Ray arrives with our DVD montage which he spent an entire day putting together

We hooked up the banners on the balloon, even though it wasn't optimal. We also managed to get maximum lighting fitted in. I had to do alot of fast talking to convince the guy to bring in the electrical points for us. Luckily we managed

And finally, the finished product! All stickered up and installed. Everything ready to go for inspection tomorrow! Its a good but long day at work. 12 hours and more. Fortunately, we get everything done and I go off to watch a movie knowing that although we had some hiccups, nothing bad actually happened.

So the site inspection today went well and I'll be on site for 12 hours each day starting from tomorrow. On top of that, I'll still have to do work every night after the event. Its going to be a long long long week!