Tourism Winter Ball -the brightest event of the beginning of 2023

As organizers of the first Tourism Winter Ball 2023, we would like to tell you more about our journey and reveal all the secrets of creating such a large event. First of all, we would like to note that thanks to this amazing opportunity we gained invaluable experience in the field of event management and were able to apply all the knowledge from the lessons in practice. We had a great team with a well-established internal review and responsible members who are always ready to respond at any time of day or night. That’s why it was interesting to work, and we were fully involved in the process, because the creation of the first Winter Ball was not just another assignment, but a serious and responsible project.

Marketing the event

Marketing the event started already on December as we launched the early bird ticket sale. Before that we had of course worked hard to visualize the theme of marketing materials and made a proper marketing plan. We are so thankful that Heini Kaisto, responsible for Jamk Instagram pages and Sanna Lemmetyinen, responsible of Matkarata, let us use their channels to market the event to our target group.

Also, using email marketing with help of Christina Borén sending the emails to the right people was a good way to reach the right people in a more personal way. When the event got closer, we wanted to boost the ticket sale a bit more and decided to try a more traditional way of reaching people physically at Jamk with flyers and a screen ad. Here we want to thank Anastasiia Mikhlina for helping to print the flyers and make the ticket sale links and Katri Siivonen for adding the advertisement to the screens at Rajakatu campus.

The event

The Ceremony will be long remembered by all participants, as the first urban Hotel Verso in the heart of Jyväskylä welcomed guests in a luxurious hall and provided delicious food and drinks. During the event all the guests enjoyed participating to a nostalgic Kahoot quiz of Facts of Finland, saw a beautiful dance performance and had a possibility to even try Latin dances with the guidance of a professional! Moreover, they enjoyed the night chatting with old and new friends and even had a chance to network with company representatives.

Team work

When doing this project, we learned so much about planning and creating a successful event. The main thing is to have a group where everyone is motivated and willing to help each other with different tasks. However, inside the group it is wise to delegate the responsibilities according to themes. In our team everyone had an important role to play. We had managers responsible of partnerships and project management, financials, communications, and a marketing team.

TWB23 organizing team: Susanna Niittylä, Kseniia Agrikolianskaia, Ida Poukka, Maria Giachetti and Melisa Rashidova

Individual learnings

On top of learning about overall Event Management, this project shed light on our personal development areas as well as individual strengths and competence. But most of all we learned about ourselves, who are and want to be and are capable of. Time management and ability to tolerate stress is extremely important as there are so many small details that have to be taken into account. But in the end when all the hard work is done and it is time to enjoy the results in the event, it is so rewarding to see the happy faces and hear the laughter of the guests having a good time.

Writers:

Second year degree student Melisa Rashidova and third year degree student Susanna Niittylä from Tourism Management degree programme. Writers were involved in the Tourism Winter Ball 2023 organizing team by taking care of marketing the event which was such a great opportunity to dive into practical side of what has been studied before.