So, since I really would love to do communications/PR in the arts, I figured it would be a good idea to sign up to be a PR volunteer for a big festival here. During the screening session, they explained that we’d be working in the media tent signing people in, and so on. Cool, I thought: I don’t really need that kind of experience, but I will get to meet people who are working in the arts.
So, we start to sign up for shifts, and it turns out what we are actually doing is working with photographers. I have done this before. I don’t need to experience doing it again, since I know it entails schlepping. I was once asked to carry a bag into a photo op with Barack Obama. Yes. The President of the United States. I gave that guy a variation on the “bitch, please” look and went in sans bag. So why would I want to do it at a Rufus Wainwright concert?
Needless to say, what I actually learned from this experience is that 1. volunteering is not always all it’s cracked up to be and 2. people lie.