Assignment Reflection

(This post is part of an assignment for the class I am taking, Writing for Digital Media at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This week, I liveblogged an event, and here are my thoughts afterwards.) 

By Marcie Barnes

I think I took this assignment a little too lightly at first. I did try to get it done relatively early, which is a good thing, because I had some major difficulties getting the first events I tried to cover to pan out. First, I tried to cover the Oktoberfest Celebration at Sugar Mountain on October 11. Trying to liveblog anything while on vacation with an impatient husband and three year old…is a bad idea.

Despite my best efforts, we arrived there just as the children’s activities were wrapping up and the band had already stopped playing. Not much to talk about at that point, and I could detect no wireless signal.

So, I decided to choose something at the upcoming NC State Fair. Smithfield the Painting Pig was performing every day at 1pm, which would make it easy for me to shoot over on my lunch hour, since the fairgrounds are literally only a couple miles from where I work. Even though I arrived with time to spare, I had a very hard time finding Smithfield. I had read somewhere that he would be outside the Exposition Center, where I had seen him perform last year. Turns out he was inside, and I didn’t find that out until after his performance had begun and the crowd was so thick there was no way to get a good view.

I also had no luck finding a good signal, although I read that some of my other classmates had no trouble at the fairgrounds. Maybe it depends on where you are, exactly? So, on to find another event, and now I am getting uncomfortably close to a time crunch.

So, third time’s a charm right? Yup, worked for me, as long as I found an event, cleared my schedule on a Saturday, and arrived with plenty of time. I still was unable to connect for a true liveblog, but the experience from my perspective was very similar, I think, minus the hitting the ‘publish’ button after every thought. I actually didn’t mind having my laptop with me; I didn’t feel particularly stared at, either. Perhaps more so at Sugar Mountain than anywhere else.

I actually felt a little weirder taking pictures at the brewery, I guess, because it was so crowded. I thought someone might say “hey is that going to end up on your MySpace page!” or something at any minute. I tried to get shots when people’s faces or backs were turned, for the most part. The only person at the brewery who asked me what I was doing was one of the partners. When I told him I was writing an article for a class, he just said “make it good.”

I also had to resort to quite a bit of handwriting, which I compiled that night along with my pictures and links. For the most part, it’s very hard to type on a laptop in a very crowded room with virtually no table space and hold a beer at the same time. Product sampling was paramount to the experience of this event, after all.

Overall, I had a good experience. Although I consider myself to be someone who always allows for plenty of time, this really taught me a lesson about allowing way more time than needed in a situation like this. Also, scouting out a venue in advance, when possible, would be recommended.