Event Wrap Up

Two days ago I held a charity book signing. My event partner and I worked for months to find a venue, gather raffle prizes and pick out items for a concession stand. We contacted authors to fill our tables and created a room layout so everyone had a space to call their own. We wrote and distributed press releases, partnered with other events, put up flyers, and contacted every person we could think of in order to market our charity and our authors.

Then came the big day. The venue had kept a few rules to themselves until the last minute, such as no entering the room for set up until the event was supposed to begin, no putting up flyers or any form of advertisement outside the room, and keeping everything for our function confined within the room making it nearly impossible to let people know where we were. She and I are both authors as well as being the event coordinators so when there was a lack of foot traffic we were just as disappointed as our authors.

Most seemed to understand how much we put into planning and empathized with us on the unfortunate turnout. There was one who instead decided to berate me and do their best to turn others to her own negative way of thinking. She accused me of keeping the money, insisting we were not going to donate the proceeds to our charity (something we did this morning shortly after they opened). She made her way around to other authors doing her best to bad mouth us before sitting at her table with arms folded and glares of disapproval coming my way.

At the very end I announced the winners of the raffle prizes. The microphone was not wireless so I was forced to stand by her table as I made the announcements where I was once again harassed as she and her assistant made constant comments under their breath. She was eager to leave, insulting us and our event right up to the minute she walked out the door. I am honored to say everyone else has offered us nothing but positivity and encouragement.

I struggled a bit yesterday. I will admit the lack of turn out combined with the personal attack got to me. Today though, we had the opportunity to hand over the financial donation and the collected books to our charity and see them light up with gratitude. Seeing the kind words from our participants gave us both a much needed boost. Being able to share what we did so that more children can enjoy the adventures a book can provide is a priceless gift. We are thankful and already looking forward to creating an even bigger event next year. Hopefully this time we can bring even more joy and crush the negativity.