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It’s been over 2 months since I was sitting on a wet plastic stadium seat about to watch the Opening Ceremony of the 21st Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia and it’s just been over a month since I finished working for the same organisation for the past 2 years. Along with many others I had a small part in working towards that point, the Opening of the Games and a week of major sporting events that followed.
Having been my 3rd Commonwealth Games and a few other Games under the belt I can tell you all the same things happened; in the lead up the locals were not happy, there were road works for months before, everyone was warned about how bad the traffic would be but of course once the Games arrived everyone had a great time, the road works have now improved the city and daily life for the locals and the traffic was not that bad, actually there was hardly any traffic as everyone either left or discovered that the public transport system is actually ok on the Gold Coast.
The time that happens after an event is always slightly surreal in that 2 months before the Games we were in a mad rush hurtling towards an un-movable date.
Sometimes I feel like we are on a raft on a river rushing down and at that point you can’t get off the raft you just need to hold on and wait to get to the bottom.
At that time, 2 months out, some of us had started some operations already and were well on our way to starting our major projects, two months didn’t seem like enough time. Now 2 months after, it seems like so far away, especially when I have travelled to the other side of the world to start a different job. Again, funnily enough, the event is in 2 months and I am currently hurtling towards that un-movable date and there doesn’t seem to be enough time.
The time after working an event can be surreal because your life, before the event, is so focused on getting to that point you’re working towards and you are surrounded by people who are also on that same path (or river) with you and once the event is finished you can feel like you don’t have a purpose anymore.
The people who were standing next to you every day for the past few months are gone somewhere else, some you will see again but others you may never see again, your phone stops ringing, you possibly hand one back, you don’t have hundreds of emails streaming into multiple accounts and the urgency of what you have been hurtling towards is now gone.
You can experience ‘post event blues’ and it can be quite a shock if you have never experienced it before. Your very active busy life all of a sudden stops and there is no one there and you don’t have a purpose anymore.
Having experienced this before, the more times you go through an event it does become easier to come out the other side. There is a fine balance between running straight into another gig and making sure you have had a decent break. Many people go on holidays and relax and then look for the next gig, some have one lined up that might be a little less stressful and straining and is more like a working holiday but whatever you do just remember you are always 2 months away from something, it’s just sometimes you don’t know what that is but at the end of the day, everything is going to be ok, there is a big lake at the end and it’s nice to float around in the pretty calm waters and you will be more prepared for when you do go down that next river.
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After completing her BA (Design for Theatre and TV) at Charles Sturt University in 1999, Alycia Stanley was given a fantastic introduction to the rigours of setting up outdoor events in all weather conditions when she landed her first role at the Croc Festival, staged in remote Australian outback locations. Continuing her work on large-scale events, Alycia worked on the Australia Day events in Hyde Park in Sydney specializing in event operations and logistics coordinating many different components from signage to radios. In early 2009, Alycia decided she wanted to work on the Vancouver Winter Olympics, so she set off for Vancouver a few months ahead of the Games and scored a job working as part of the Logistics team in the Ceremonies venue. This was Alycia’s first ‘Games’ experience and the start of her life of “tables and chairs”. This led to working on more ‘Games’ such as the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India and Glasgow and the Olympic Games in London and European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. Alycia has also worked on large-scale arts events such as the Edinburgh Fringe and Sydney Festival. Alycia currently works in Logistics for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
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