And welcome to crunch week. I really wish this could have taken place next year but with the event moved up two weeks because someone at red bull cant check a hockey schedule properly, I am forced to be a bastard this week to my sponsors. The fortunate thing is that all budgets should be filed and approved by this point so its just a matter of me getting on them and getting the product/cash sent my way.
Its pretty crazy that Im doing all of this when Im not even sure that the event is going to happen. I dont have the couple thousand dollars I need and if it doesn’t come Friday night I will more then likely pull the plug on the event until after college. While it is a lot of fun and an enriching experience for me, it is also several thousand hours of work that is just that much more for me to handle. I should probably go through with it this year though since Im already hundreds of dollars in.
Im kind of bummed right now, Ive had a lot on my mind about this industry Ive been taken into through my work and was going to sit down with Eric Iberg today to vent a bit and see what his thoughts were. Hes doing almost exactly what I am, except on the national level and without school getting in his way. So of all people, him and me understand the pressures and stresses that we go through and I truly owe my success in this line of work to him. He introduced me to key people at key times and really pushed me and saw something in me that I didnt at the time. I hope we can chill tomorrow morning for a while.
The hardest part of running an event is getting sponsors on board. I just dont know what Im missing, I had the best proposal in the industry for this year and still am having a harder time then ever getting sponsors to dish out cash, even after reworking my cash/product equation. Well it will all work out in the end and this year will blow last year out of the water for sure. I just hope it goes well and that we can make even a larger mark next year in 2005 (wow its not even 04 yet and I just said 05 ). Its crazy to think that if I graduate in four years I will have done six major (hopefully a few national/international) events and one minor (had to get my feet wet somewhere).
Your prayers for my sanity are much appreciated.
Take Care and God Bless you,
~Paul Prins
Also there are 6,000 stickers showing up tomorrow, so if you want one let me know.