UIB Launch Party

Friday was UIB's First Annual Cupcake Wars, put on by Emily Greagori, the Travel and Recreations coordinator. She did an amazing job orchestrating the whole event despite all of the hoops she had to jump through to make it happen. We ended up with 15 team applications and 8 participating teams for the competition. Round 1 took place on Friday in the lobby of the new Cuisinart Culinary Center for Excellence building. It was my very first time in the building. It's awesome. Round 1 required the teams to just decorate 12 cupcakes according to the theme of JWU Spirit. The finished cupcakes were presented to a panel of judges from Residential Life and Experiential Education and Career Services. The judges pick 2 teams to compete in round 2 where they actually bake their own original recipe cupcakes. Like the Food Network show, 2 two final teams bake 100 cupcakes as well as a structure to hold the cupcakes and the structures were presented at the UIB Launch Party the next day. The team who receives the most votes at the party wins $200 for the team and second place receives $100.

Chris Ayer

On Saturday UIB launched our new brand and announced the Wahoo performer at our launch party. The event was exactly how I had imagined it from the start. The event served 2 purposes: 1. to showcase the UIB brand and allow people to experience the brand and everything we do in one evening 2. to announce Snoop Dogg as our performer for the Wildcat Wahoo concert as well as promote Wahoo in general. Attendees arrived at Pepsi Forum at 6:45PM eagerly awaiting at the door. At 7 when doors opened, I walked into the hall and the stairwell was packed. Nathan and I welcomed everyone and encouraged them to pick up their free water bottle, go around and visit each committee's tables around the room, vote for their favorite cupcake team from Cupcake Wars, and most importantly stop by the UIB table to learn about the new features we would be adding to our advertisements. The night continued with comedian Ben Hague as the emcee and Chris Ayer as the music performer of the night. The two teams for Cupcake Wars each baked 100 cupcakes and their structure according to the theme of UIB. All night we had 2 UIB members walk around with nice cameras taking pictures of attendees and directing them to our Facebook page to see the pictures. We started a loyalty card system so for every UIB a person attends they get a whole punch in their card. When they attend 10 events they are entered into a raffle at the end of the year. Another addition we made to the UIB brand was adding QR codes to all of our posters that would direct people to our Facebook event page so they can RSVP on their smartphone. We had around 200 attendees by the end of the night. We collected all of their emails in order to send out UIB event reminders to all of the for the future.

UIB Table

Every E-board member had a role in the planning of this. Each committee had their own table promoting their events, Nathan was the main event coordinator, and I declared myself the social media director. I was live tweeting throughout the entire event. I understand why people get paid to be a social media person, it's exhausting, but really cool.

At the end of the night we played our original viral video that promoted the launch party and then we played pt 2 to announce the Snoop. I could explain the whole story to you but its better if you just watch it for yourself.

2010-2011 E-Board

It was by far my favorite event of the year. Mostly because the re-branding initiative was something Nathan and I had worked on all year and the concept of the launch party was my idea. I'm proud of how it turned out. It was the best because unlike our other events, where it is run by one committee chair and the rest of us are there for support, every committee had a piece in the one event.

We were all thrilled about how successful the event was, but I am so glad it's over. It has been a big weight lifted from my shoulders. That was only a piece of my weekend. More to come..