PR is not just the “glamour” of the event

When I got introduced to this working integrated learning industry, that was a month ago (18 April 2013), the first thing I expected to do as my first task in the industry was to plan an event. In my mind a successful event was that of a glamour feature. Eventually I got to attend events like the UJ Alumni workshop and there was nothing fancy, just simple, elegant and very informative, because otherwise what is the use if we have such a glamorous event with perfect catering, guest speakers well dressed, music on point, but no objective was met after the event, meaning the message we were trying to communicate was not communicated or somehow the audiences had too much dancing than listening to the main speaker?

Picture:an example of a PR event,without the glomour
accessed from [https://www.google.co.za/search?q=glamorous+events]

Public Relations is not just about the glamour of the event, like most of the people who perceive it as the glamorous of the event but rather I call it a “fruit basket”. To me it is a basket that has different fruits in it; it happened that events are one of the fruit inside the basket. It is to be highly noted down to every PR student, lecturer, manager, director or practioner, that when they are going to PR Shopping they should have every necessary PR fruit in their PR fruit basket. Media coverage/monitoring ,writing skills, presentation skills outspoken, strategic meetings, research skills, photography, integrated communication, you name them .These are some of the fruits you must have in your basket when you leave your shopping centre. It does not matter which supermarket did you get each single fruit, the question is; is that supermarket credible enough to you?

by Pebetse