Organising and running a youth event

I was recently involved in organising and helping implement a youth event as a part of National Youth Week 2006. My youth advisory council, in conjunction with sponsors like Smarter than Smoking and Healthway, ran a small youth event featuring local Perth bands, indoor soccer competitions, prizes and giveaways.

The day went by quite well with little hitches. The only thing was that most of the young people were more like 13-14 years old and younger which perhaps wasn’t our target audience.

Promoting events are really hard, we relied on YAC members promoting in the schools however there are always going to be obstacles in getting young people to attend – public transport, other activities on etc Maybe it could have been better promoted through more youth oriented mediums, websites and things like that.

Also being in a YAC sometimes you don’t get as much input into the event as you would like but this is always dependent on funding and the amount of organising that goes into an event.