On Friday, 14th September 2018, a Soft Skill Training was held for students of the Faculty of Economics and Business Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM). The event was held at the Audio Visual room, on East Wing of 1st Floor FEB UGM with a theme “Creative Thinking in Event Management”. The speakers of this event were filled by the Head of Customer Service & Events Division of PT. Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur, Prambanan and Ratu Boko (Persero), Roswita and Director of Prambanan Jazz Festival 2018 & Rajawali Indonesia Communication, Bakkar Wibowo. The event started at 9:30 WIB, guided by one of the lecturers of FEB UGM, Yulia Arisnani Widyaningsih, as the master of ceremony (MC). The participants of this event reached approximately 150 attendants.

Roswita conveyed about her career journey before she actually entered the field of organizing events, she mentioned several different work fields that she had before. She said that these working experiences underlied her provision in the field of organizing events, which became her passion now.

Through the event, Roswita also explained several things that were considered as important matters in event organizing, which are finance, events and audience. According to her, these three things will be the keys of success of an event. Financial aspect is important because it will relate in planning funds for the event. An event as an aspect is related to how the event organizer (EO) arranges the event, so it creates an attractive event. Rundown planning, event planning, guest stars and event packaging are several things that need to be considered carefully. Audience aspect plays an important role and needs to be considered because the success of an event is strongly influenced by the audiences who attend the event. Thus, it is necessary to determine a target market for the events and how to attract the audiences and of course, its promotion.

On the other hand, Roswita also said that an event organizer has to build their creative thinking. The result of creative thinking will give a distinctive feels to the event and increase its attractiveness for the audiences. In addition, the creative thinking can help an event organizer for anticipating various inconsistencies between event realization and its actual planning.

According to Roswita, there are several things that should be done to build creative thinking, such as learning to listen to a lot of discussions and, hanging out, going out on trips, multiplying our experiences, and always trying to position yourself as a client. She also added, that the critical thinking helps event organizer to think critically about the current events and evaluates it, so that they can manage better event in the future.

Unlike Roswita, Bakkar focused more on his experience as a promoter of events, especially music concerts. He explained that the difficulty of being a promoter is creating a new event, not just fulfilling an event order such as an event organizer. Thus, it is important for a promoter to have creative ideas in creating unique events, especially events at Yogyakarta.

“At Jogja, it must be unique, because if it is unique, it has value,” Bakkar said. He added, that a unique mindset sometimes does not always come up from complicated things. Something that simple can also brings up a unique mindset.
Also, Bakkar conveyed the importance of work ethics as a promoter. Honesty and completeness in presenting information to the audiences are very important things. As a promoter it is also necessary to have a strong mentality to deal with pressures, nonconformities, and various problems that may be faced by a promoter.

Bakkar, who is also the Director of the Jogja Rockets Festival, had gained a lot of experiences in organizing music concerts because he often watched music concerts when he was at Melbourne, Australia. However, there are still several differences in the situations and conditions that must be considered between concerts in Australia and Indonesia.

Source: Gerardo Gani Perkasa

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