Behind the scenes
Some of you probably have seen the stickers, the notebook, the mouse mat and the calendar circulating around my snaps or even X.
This time, I will be sharing some of the behind the scenes of that and some resources to help you kick off your Hive event and make it cooler and meaningful !
There are some things that I’ll be covering from the budget, the steps, some resources that you can use and a curated list of hive designers that have awesome and professional designs Also, a special acknowledgement at the end of this post.
Without further adieu, let’s sneak peek behind the scenes!
First of all, this is the first Hive event in the country.
Any merchandise and things received in this event is definitely limited edition.
Below is attached our online event as a part of this offline event.
@macchiata/project-diary-3-more-updates-on-bridging-hive-and-creativity-in-indonesia
I am sure some of you who followed this journey know that it takes quite a bit of planning. We’ve planned this since last year and we can’t believe it’s going to be 5 days before the day. I won’t go too deep into other things but let’s stick to merchandising and see behind the journey of this.
I have to say our budget is pretty tight and we try to make it work. I was ready to also cover some of the expenses if it wasn’t enough. But thankfully, everything was pretty much covered. There are some that I cover such as canva subscription, transportation, shipping fees and the test orders.
The budget
The event is for 50 attendees assuming they all showed up at our venue.
Since our target audience is journalists, writers and anyone within a similar industry, we also consider this for the merchandising choices. It’s why we don’t do hats, t-shirts or wearables, we want something that these people can relate to and use for their daily profession. That includes a notebook, pen,and tote bag they can bring around.
Our budget for merchandising is $96.6 from our local currency converted to $ with today's rate.
Basically each person's budget for merchandise is $1.93 for 50 pax
You might wonder, where in the damn world can these people get a tote bag, a notebook, a poster calendar, assorted hive stickers, a pen, a keychain with that budget.
Well, you have me, who's willing to make things work and finding ways to make it work.
Finding the vendors
After we finalize the budget, It was my job to make sure that we get proper vendors. It has to look proper, professionally made, not cheap but still within our range.
First, I was scourging through the internet to find the right vendors. We have a platform called Shoppee which connects local vendors directly to the customers. So, I spent about a week researching the vendors, reading their reviews until I chose a few where I will do test order.
Second, I am doing test order ensuring the quality meets my standard. For stickers, it has to have that good glossy look, good materials, and affordable. It has to be delivered on time and within 2-3 business days,not more or less.
This is also to test which hive logo is best suited to be distributed and make sure that people understand the messaging of the platform.
For these test order all expenses are paid on my own pocket and it won’t be billed on those $96.6
If they meet my criteria,I will proceed with the bulk order and finalize that for the event.
These are some of the merchandise except the calendar is a poster calendar without the steel frame. The graphic has Hive.io QR that people can scan.
The graphic and where to find them
One of the things about HIVE is that we have a massive pool of talented people. Some of those like @doze made their work free to use for the community. Recently, I also found another great hiver @thepeakstudio for this awesome contribution back in 2020-2022. Some of his graphics are still relevant and timeless.
This is the link to some of their designs, not necessarily appearing in this event but some of their works are something I used.
@doze/new-hive-wallpapers-to-you
@thepeakstudio/15-awesome-hive-wallpapers-for-your-desktop-phone-and-blogs
I also use the available resource from HIVE main website where it has everything needed for the basics such as logo and the logo with the word Hive in high quality.
During this, I also subscribe to Canva Pro for $2.23/weekly (at my own expense) because this will help when sending it from my end to the vendors since they always want either PNG/PDF print to ensure the graphic quality.
Public Brochure
This is a public share brochure that I did a while ago and can be extremely customized to your needs. So in any case you need this link
A few weeks ago I was calling for any community whose stickers want to be included. I got C/digitallifestyle by @olujay, @DIYhub through @stevenson7 and C/moviesonhive by @namiks.
The hive ones are @ocd stickers, hive itself @threespeak and @peakd. I want to showcase places where the audience is likely to use and come back to during this event and after the event.
Extra acknowledgement
Since the event will have a hive booth, thank you to the @hivecreators team for helping with the design of the booth.
I was honestly going to design it myself but this is such a tremendous help since the messaging and the look will be better and more professional. I am adding them as a beneficiary of this post as they’ve spent their time doing the booth for us and I truly feel grateful for it.
Surprisingly, unlike the merchandise that are 100% online, the booth stickers was ordered offline as I found a new vendor. It came out nicely and passed my inspection.
Always a special thanks to @acidyo and everyone for helping us with this and making this event happen 😊. This is why I am making this progress because everyone else is helping us reaching this awesome goal and we'd want to be 100% transparent on how we best use the resources we've been entrusted to.
Thank you and see you around for more updates!