America's Most Wanted Concert

Saturday was another day that I had to work an event. I was really excited about this event because I was going to work the America's Most Wanted Concert: featuring Lil Wayne, Drake, Young Jeezy, Souljah Boy and Jeremih at the Nikon Theater on Jones Beach. The concert didn't start until 6:30pm but I had to meet at the station at 1pm to pack our equipment and event bags. Also, we had to be at the event for the pre-show by 4pm.

The drive to the event was supposed to be a fifty minutes but due to heavy traffic it took two hours long. Leaving the station at 2pm we arrived at the event at 4pm (which was supposed to be our start time). We (Erick and I) had to rush to being our equipment to our spot at the location. While Erick went to park the Interactive (our transportation), I went to set up our booth. I unpacked our Hot 97 table cloth, laid out the posters, two tear drop and two pull up banners, t-shirts, CD's and Lifestyle t-shirts and condoms. After that, I set up the fender to play the music and to also speak on the microphone.

When he came back, we hooked up our ipods to play music and our booth was finally open and ready for business. It was like we were the pied pipers because as soon as we started playing the music, people plagued the table. Due to the vast number of people coming to our booth trying to obtain promotional items, we had to play games with them as a way of limiting the number of items we distribute. Everyone could take the flyers and condoms, but if you wanted to get a t-shirt, poster or CD, we would ask them trivia questions on Hot 97. For example, a guy wanted one of the CD's we had laid out on the table. Instead of just giving it to him we asked him a question about Hot 97. We asked him to name five radio station DJ's. He could only name two. We couldn't give him the CD because he didn't know the answer. Five people later, someone finally got the answer and they won the prize. After the girl won her CD, the crowd cheered and we took the picture of her with the prize she won with the Hot 97 banner in the background. While this was going on, the other street team member was on the microphone MC'in our interactions with the crowd and also telling people to come to our booth and check out our promotional items.

By the time the show started (at 6:30pm), all of our promotional items were done. This was the first event that I have ever done that everything we brought was given away. Also, I was happy that we only had to work until the concert started because I wanted to see it. When the concert started, Erick went to get the Interactive while I packed up all our posters, banners, table cloth and fender. When he came back everything was packed and we brought it back to the Interactive to load.

Afterwards, I went to watch a little of the concert. I didn't want to stay too long because I didn't know anyone there and really couldn't have enjoyed myself like I normally would if my friends were there. Besides the only artist I wanted to see were Souljah Boy and Young Jeezy. After I watched their performances, we left. We didn't want to get stuck in the after concert traffic.

We left the concert venue at 8pm. Even though we left before the concert was finished, we arrived back at the station at 10pm. We were stuck in another two hour traffic jam. Most people were leaving Jones Beach because it was the only day out of the week that we were not expecting rain and it was also up to 90 degrees. When we got back to the station, we unpacked all of our equipment, uploaded the pictures of the event and filled out our Event Re-Cap Sheet. This sheet entails of naming the event, the demographic, age group and other info regarding our appearance.

After completing all of that, I finally left the station to take the train home. I reached home 11:30pm. Overall, the event was good and tiring. It was a long day and all I wanted to do afterwards was sleep. The event was good because of the turnout and especially because the crowd had a high positive energy. I also enjoyed this event because of the weather and that we (Hot 97) had the one booth that was providing music and that had the biggest turnout of people.