WHY I STOPPED GOING TO BLOGGER/PRESS EVENTS

Blogger and press events have such an allure when you are first starting out. You follow bloggers on Instagram to see them swanning around drinking champagne and heading home with a goodie bag full of exciting gifts. I spent over a year to going to pretty much every one I was invited to when I first started but last August that all changed.

TIME & MONEY

Last August I started earning enough money from blogging to leave one of my regular fittings clients. If you don’t know what I am on about here, have a read of this blog post where I describe my other random job. This particular client was based in central London right by Liberty so I spent a lot of time in town and being paid to spend the morning there at least two days a week. When I left this job I was no longer being paid to be in central London so to go to launches and events I needed to justify paying for a travel card from zone 6 where I live. Even though I am on a fast line, it was still a good 1-2 hours out of my day where I wasn’t creating content at home.

FOMO

When I stopped going to the events I continued seeing all of my blogger friend going to them on their Instagram stories and I felt some serious pangs of FOMO…not always, but a lot of the time. Yet, I was spending this time (apart from when being in an Instagram vortex) working and getting so much done that I felt a whole lot more accomplished. I managed to keep up some of the relationships I had gained with the brands and PR’s through emails.

NETWORKING

The major thing I was finding was that I wasn’t as well connected as I was before and started feeling out of the loop. Before I had essentially quit event-ing I was really good friends with a lot of PRs and I was getting first pick of new products and my stories looked a whole lot more interesting back then because I wasn’t spending 24/7 typing away at my desk. After 7 months of being essentially off the grid 90% of the time I have decided to get back to the real “blogging” lifestyle and start going to more events. I have begun to be a little bit more picky with which I go to but when I do go to the events I come away feeling “involved” and inspired, so it is definitely worth getting out there.

EVENT ADVICE FOR NEWBIES

Events can be scary for newbies because you don’t know anyone. I remember my first big event that I attended which was on the rooftop of Ham Yard Hotel. I didn’t know a single soul there and had no idea what to do, so I picked up a cocktail and spent a good half an hour drinking that and taking the same picture of a product so I looked busy. Now I tend to know someone or at least know the PR so it is far less intimidating. If you are scared to go to an event, just head in and pick up a glass of something and poodle about taking snaps and soak in the atmosphere and see how the others do it. There will always be someone to talk to that’s in the same boat as you.

What do you think? Do you go to blogger and press events? Do you think they are worth your time?