8515 Presents Pensgiving: An Event Recap

Dear Pennies & Pens,

It’s ya girl LoudPen here to offer you some good news and some bad news. The good news is my agency, 8515, just produced our most successful event. The bad news is we didn’t have the budget for a photographer and forgot to take photos so we only have photos of the food from the event *monkey facepalm*. But either way, we wanted to give you a recap of the event cause it was really dope and we’re proud of our work.

As you read in the last post, Pensgiving is an exclusive dinner party for multicultural millennials. Pensgiving was inspired by Friendsgiving/Thanksgiving Dinner. Pensgiving is about bringing multicultural millennials together to nibble on some tasty eats, sip on good dranks, and meet cool peeps. The 2017 event was the inaugural Pensgiving and it proved to be a major success!

I had actually tried to launch this event in 2016 but it didn’t go well. The original event date was Thanksgiving Day which proved to be bad timing as most people travel and are with family on that day. Nonetheless, I decided to revamp the event in 2017 and I am so glad I did. This is why it’s so important to be consistent and not give up. Just because a project doesn’t go well when you first launch it doesn’t mean it won’t be successful in the future.

Plus there are a ton of things that I did for the 2017 event that I didn’t do in 2016. The first was I wrote an event plan. Last year in mid 2017, I took an event planning course via Trendimi and upon completion of the course, I received an event planning certification. This was course was so amazing and I truly learned a lot! This course taught me the details that I needed to plan a successful event. Event planning is not difficult but it does require attention to detail and being organized. These are things that I wasn’t doing with previous events. Hence why previous events didn’t go the way that I wanted them to go. But I take it as a lesson learned not a loss.

Moving right along, the event plan that I wrote is based on things I learned while taking the Trendimi course as well as my own knowledge. Basically, I created an event plan template that asks about 26 questions to help you plan an event. In essence, it’s a simple way to brainstorm ideas and iron out the kinks so you can focus on execution. I am so glad that I created this template and I cannot wait to launch ISLP’s online shop so I can sell the template. I truly believe it will help other event planners and entrepreneurs by taking the guesswork out of planning an event.

So back to Pensgiving, I started planning the event by writing the event plan. Next, I started filling in details (note all of these items were in my event plan) such as the date of the event, time, location, the menu, and entertainment. Since I had a shoestring budget, I decided to host Pensgiving at my house because it would be cheaper as well as more intimate. There’s nothing like a good house party, ya dig? As far as the date and time, I decided to do the event on a Saturday because weekends are more chill and most people are off work.

In regards to the menu, I decided to make the menu Vegan friendly. Not only would this make the event more unique but it would give my Carnivore friends a chance to sample Vegan food and learn something new. Not to mention I’m Vegan and I want to spread this lifestyle because it has truly changed my life. I feel healthier, happier, and more productive. So why not spread the V-Love?! Plus not to toot my own horn but ya girl can throw down! I love to cook and have been known to make some Chef approved concoctions.

As far as the entertainment, I decided to make the event theme the 90s. I did this because that theme works best since the logo was inspired by Friends and most millennials were kids/young adults in the 90s. In essence, the 90s was a happy time for us. We didn’t have bills and responsibilities and let’s be real music was lit AF in the 90s. Ain’t nothing like 90s hip-hop and r&b!!!

That said, during the event, I played all 90s music and we played a 90s trivia game. I created the playlist so it was completely customized just for the event. I also created the trivia game which made me realize what a 90s aficionado I am. It’s crazy how you can have a talent and not even realize it! It wasn’t until we played the game and people said the questions were hard that I realized that I am like a 90s dictionary. Too bad I never got tested on that shit in school…I may have been an A student. Maybe.

But let me pause for a second and give y’all the inside ink. Planning an event is no mf joke! It all started when I had to create a logo for the event. I knew I wanted the logo to be a play on the Friends logo so first I had to Google what type of font they used. I found out that the Graphic Designer Gabriel Weiss actually created the Friends font from scratch. So once I found the font online, I had to download it and then upload it to my computer. After that, I had to Google “middle dot” aka the periods in between each letter cause I had no clue what that shit was. I mean whoever knew there was a middle dot? Oh and PS middle dots are not easy to insert into a document. You have to go into MS Word and chose the special character and you have to do this each time you want to insert a middle dot. *kanye shrug*

So once the logo was done, I created the event invite…this also took forever because any design work is like pulling teeth for me. I can’t wait until I can afford a Graphic Designer so they can stress about this shit and I can focus on other things. Once the event invite was done, I sent it out to my guest list. After that I started managing rsvps which is always a hassle because while I love being a millennial we are truly shitty communicators.

I mean for fuck’s sake there were people who didn’t let me know if they were coming or not until the day before/day of. No shade but sometimes I just want to scream “Get your shit together!” I mean you can either come or you can’t. And honestly as an event planner, I’m unconcerned about the people who can’t come. I know that sounds harsh but it’s true. Even if you have a good reason, I can’t stress the people who can’t make it. What makes an event are the people who actually show up. The rest are just names on the guest list. And another thing, sponsors don’t care about how many people you invited, they care about who was there. Why? Because they can’t reach people who didn’t show up. It is just that simple.

We millennials make shit that is actually really simple extremely complicated. And it’s because of our phones. #yeaisaidit! Why? Because it’s true! Technology has made it too easy for us to become bad planners and we have. Back in the day, if you told someone you’d meet them at noon you got there on time because otherwise you risked not seeing the person you were meeting because there were no cell phones to send a text. Now mf will seriously text you at 12:15 talmabout “I’m gonna be late”. *tears tears tears*. Like the shit is bananas in pajamas!!!

Okay enough ranting let’s talk about who came to Pensgiving. Somehow, I did end up having 13 attendees which pretty daggon awesome! Pennies & Pens who attended the event included my BFF, Sarah Ranola who’s a Chef and Entrepreneur (PS Sarah’s now Director of Operations at FreshFin Poke), Kris Vitaeaux, a Teacher and Filmmaker, Sophie, a Buyer at Nordstorm’s, Prayes, a Hotel Developer and Operator, Taylor, a Lifestyle Blogger, Michelle, a Copywriter and Blogger, Caris, an Entrepreneur & Founder of Dfashionpreneurs, Ana, an Attorney and Lifestyle Blogger, Christina, a Healthcare Professional, and Stacia, an Advertising Account Executive and Food Blogger. Simply put, the guest list was extremely diverse as far as ethnicity and professional background. I did this on purpose because Dallas can be so damn cliquish so it can be hard to meet different people. Also, I believe that meeting people different from you is a good thing not just for networking but it helps you learn something new.

As far as what happened during the event….it was pretty simple. We ate, drank, played games, and talked a lil shit. I think what made the event so dope was the people and I cannot take credit for that. So I want to take the time to say THANK YOU to everyone who attended! Your support means the world to me and I am so glad that you came to the event! Even though I swore I would never do this event again (keep in mind I woke up at 5am on event day to start cooking and the event didn’t officially end till the last guest left at 7am), I am in fact going to make this an annual event.

So mark your calendars for Saturday, November 17, 2018 because it’s going down!

And there it is. de la Pen…All Pen Everything. With us, keeping it real never goes wrong.