Wooh, it's been a long month but the expo is done and I've finished my animation. Before showing the final result I just want to go back a bit on the opening night of the exhibition.
(sorry for the poor quality, it was taken with my phone :P)
So,
Expo 09: a 3 days exhibition starting with an opening night for industry people only, with prizes and potential job intereviews. We've been working on it since the beginning of this year and I must admit the organisation was pretty well done. We had around 20 people from the industry, we were told it was great. Personally I thought it was alright, I would have expected a bit more people but hey, can't have everything.
The night went smoothly, people had foods and drinks, they talked and had a good time even though the afternoon was pretty full-on as all the students had to prepare their booth, making sure everything was working and ready to go. Most of us didn't get lot of sleep the last couple of days before the expo and you could tell that 1 hour before the opening just by looking at people' faces.
My impressions: As I said, I would've liked a bit more people. Other than that, I was exhausted after a all day of running around and standing next to my booth, my feet were killing me. The night was kind of akward sometimes, the thing is you stand next to your booth, waiting for people to come and have a look at your work but when they do, where are you supposed to stand and what are you supposed to do/say? Looking over someone shoulders isn't a good idea and standing right next to your booth starring at people isn't good either. Also the Animation section wasn't as successful as I hoped. Anyway, over all it was a pretty good experience.
What I've learned:After a quick talk with the Guest Speaker we had from Quebec(speaking French helped a lot :D) the main thing I learned is :
Originality is the key to success in the kind of event. 50 students showing the exact same things make the audience getting bored. So if you want to show some of your works, display only the originals one, things that others won't have. Even if in the end there's not much to show, you will stand out by your creativity.
Let people breathe, usually people didn't like me around the booth looking at what they were looking. So don't stand too close to your booth, if they are interested in what you've done, they will be looking for you.
Make sure you're business cards are somewhere people won't miss them. Below the screen is too dark and way too far for people to reach out(yeah everybody had really really small arms lol). Put them next to the mouse or even put a message on the screen pointing at your business cards: Take me =>. Anything really, so people don't forget to get one of yours.
Put something that moves on the screen, it will be more likely to attract people than something static. Showreels are a good ideas, playing them in loops on the front get people a pretty good ideas of what your work is made off.
Leftovers:
Great showbags! I love the stress ball and the mouse pad, I haven't tasted the loli yet but I will soon hehehe.
Congratulations to all the winners of the night! There were 8 prizes giving out, within which 3 work experiences. All the winners really deserved their prizes but I'd liked to aknowledge my good friend Handi Tan for his prize as best use of Flash as he worked really hard for it and Flash isn't really one of his assets. To conclude:
Yeah, that's right! xD
