On November 15th 2014 our communication class got to organize a fair in a small town called Pargas (Finnish: Parainen). The town is about 20 kilometers from Turku and the only town in Finland that is completely surrounded by water on all sides. The population of Pargas is about 15.517 (Jan. 2014 – Wikipedia), which totally shows that it’s a rather small and cozy town.
Our class was charged with organizing this event to help promote local companies as well as to enliven the little town of Pargas. The fair was focused around health and family related topics! The planning process started way back in September when we formed groups who would be responsible for certain fields.
This Saturday we had to show the results of our hard work. Due to the fact that it was a Swedish/Finnish-speaking project, us - as exchange students didn’t have the chance to participate a lot regarding the communication of the fair. But still our Finnish fellow students tried to keep us informed and allocate possible tasks so we were pretty integrated and excited how it would turn out!
The different project groups had organized exhibitors regarding their topic, for instance some of the topics were beauty and fitness, travelling, family, music, associations etc. All the exhibitors were local, rather small companies who had the opportunity to sell their products but also to advertise their companies to the local people.
The fair started at 10am with an opening ceremony. After this people had the chance to take a walk through the hall and check out the exhibitors. Meanwhile there were some speakers who talked about health stuffs. At 12pm one of our project groups had organized a band called Satin Circus. You can check them out here! They played a couple of songs and all of a sudden, the hall was filled! :)
While the main fair was happening in the gym of a school, one project group had organized an ice skating training in a nearby ice skating location. There was also a bowling cup happening in a local bowling center. The basic aim of the fair was to revive the town and show the local people (especially families) opportunities to spend their spare-time!
After lunch break several music and dance groups from the local music school performed and after that there were again some speakers talking about their travelling experiences and health related stuff! Unfortunately all of this was either in Swedish or Finnish so I couldn’t really understand anything. :/
Some students had organized a café where they sold sandwiches, coffee and cake. There was also an activity room for kids. They could do bonding activities with their parents like walk blindfolded through an obstacle path.
The last act of the day was the band performing! It was a pretty small concert and the main audience was teenaged girls ;)
I have to say their music is quite OneDirection-like and definitely directed to young teenagers, but I liked their choice of instruments, they included a saxophone and a contrabass :)
After that it took us 1 hour to tidy up. Eventually it was a fun day! My feet hurt and I was quite tired!!
This was the first time for me to organize an event like this. I got some interesting insights into the planning process and the interpersonal struggles that occur when organizing a project like this. I would have expected more visitors there but it seemed like the organizers were happy with the number of people who showed up. In the end I think that all of us took a lot out of this project!
See you soon again!
Raisa
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