Hi Drambuie Den, remember me?

Ok, so it's been months, possibly a year since I've blogged. I honestly forgot I had this thing and don't really know what to do w/it. But today I'm finding it hard to focus on work tasks and am more interested in letting my mind wonder.

I worked the Drambuie Dens Monday 11/9/09 and last night, Tuesday 11/10/09. This is my second year being a server for this high-profile account. RedPeg Marketing switched things up this year by having each night at a different venue. Last year it was at the Doug Fir. LOVE THAT VENUE!! It was a wildly popular promotion last year, had lines wrapped around the street, people waiting way too long to get in to enjoy full size drinks, delicious food, great music and watch the Bartender Showcase. This year fell flat.
Monday night was at Qube Lounge (108 SW Pine St. Portland, OR). Great location - near Natio Parkway (near Waterfront Park), right off the MAX line and walking distance from all the other popular clubs; Dirty, Baracuda, McFadden’s, etc. I Googled "Qube Lounge" and came up only w/the address. Reason, Qube Lounge used to be an art gallery. The club looks like an art gallery; huge windows, tons of support beams/pillars throughout, largish open space, weird bathrooms, (toilets private but men and women share the sinks and hand-driers?), and everything is concrete. We had 500 RSVPs, around 300 showed up. Compared to last year where we average 1500 a night. I had some friends from school come so that made it fun but what rattled me was the attitude of some of the attendees.
I've turned down many promotions the past five months because my work/school schedule is very time consuming. So maybe I've been off the market and have forgotten how rude, how absolutely rude and snobby strangers can be to promo girls. My job detail is to make sure you have a great time at the event and promote the hell out of my product. How could you not? Free drinks, free food, you're out of the rain and in a night club? COME ON!! But when I receive comments that, "Oh, I don't even like this stuff" and "I'm not impressed with the girls" it puts a damper on my usual upbeat, sorta flirty, Promo-girl demeanor. I was quite disappointed in Portland Monday night.

I shook it off, convinced myself that Tuesday night was going to be the hot night b/c it was at The Agency (19th and Morrison, by PGE Park).
Again, we encountered more road blocks to what should have been a wildly, successful promotion. First, somehow the venue neglected to tell my promoters that the space they reserved was now cut in half b/c a filming crew was capturing some footage. This f*cking pissed off my event coordinator. Usually charming, mild manner Mr. Senior was rather sore over us getting "f*cked." We now had to use a smaller room upstairs and half of the basement space. And we had an additional server to our team this night. One thing that is crucial to promotions is having a qualified staff ON TIME. So many people are relying on you to orchestra an event, big or small; it's dire to be a team player and BE ON FREAKIN' TIME! I was panicked b/c I was 5 minutes late (thanks to a car accident on 84W). But when I walked through the doors (5 min late), I was only the 2nd of five servers to be there. Hmmm... I was not pleased. Over the next 15 minutes, the other three girls arrived.
We had to quickly update protocol/procedure to the new server, edit our layout since we were now dealing w/rooms on two different floors, introduce ourselves to our bartenders and venue staff and prepare our stations.
I have no idea how many people came last night, maybe in the 400-500, but I was hoping for the 1500 craziness of last year.
I had more friends come last night - that made things run smoother but it was such a disappointment.

I love promoting. It's sales w/o sales. My job is to talk up the product, mingle and leave people happy! What an amazing job!! I make you happy and it just didn't seem to happen.
Oh well. I have another, much smaller, event this Friday night (11/13/09) at Grand Central Bowl for Widmer Brother's Brewery. The extra cash before Christmas and Andrew's birthday is nice. I just want more out of the promotions I work. I want more from the attendees and more from the venues.