The Photo Hunt!

I have been so excited to write this post about the awesome new networking event we launched last Saturday -  The Photo Hunt! For the past month or so, Bobbi, Lulu and I have been working very hard to develop a new spin on the traditional "bloggers-networking" event. The aim of The Photo Hunt is to bring together like-minded people (read: bloggers, photographers, artists, creatives, adventure-spirits) for a morning of fun, photo-snapping and new found friendships. (I originally posted about it here).


There is surprisingly a lot of hard work that goes into creating an event such as this - including (but not limited to) building websites, setting up email accounts, social media accounts, engaging with potential sponsors, collating email addresses, inviting potential participants, creating branding, selecting appropriate venues/times/dates, building an online presence, meetings, deciding on different ideas/formats, finalising the actual running of the event, pricing, printing, numbers, head counts, assigning teams, proof-reading, returning queries, ticket sales, emails, creating task lists, sponsor vouchers, info packs, prizes, presentation, more emails, ordering, financing and post event strategy. Oh, and we also have our own businesses and blogs to run... on the side, ya know.

In spite of all the "stuff" to do and the very short time we had to do it,
I'd say that for our very first event...  we

[above: participants' team lanyards]

"Hello,

my name is _________________

I'm on the__________________ team

and we're going to win #thephotohunt/

{please excuse any outlandish behaviour in advance}"

[above: some of our prizes]

We met super early, for coffee and breakfast on the day of the event (nerves/game-plan/strategy etc). One of our tasks included finding The Photo Hunt logo other than one that appears in the info pack - so we set out plastering hidden corners of Shoreditch with Photo Hunt stickers before any contestants arrived:



We assigned teams before the actual event so that team members would have the opportunity to engage with their team mates online before they actually meet in person. Because - that's what it's all about: engaging, networking, being introduced to new blogs, having others being introduced to your blog, making friends and transferring your online connections to offline interaction. We devised a fun little game for teams to "pick" their team names from some pre-determined lists. The results were hilar and loved by all!

"Ahem - talking to YOU, Ugly Elephants!"

(soz. inside joke - guess you had to be there - 

But don't worry! You can be! 1 March, 2014!)

Seriously. Put that in your diary - you don't want to miss out.

Meet our Brave Photo Hunt Teams Below!
You will be able to read all about these guys personally and their awesome blogs/snaps on The Photo Hunt blog - (coming soon!) but for now you can just stare at their sexy faces and be jealous that you weren't one of the first ever to take part in The Photo Hunt!

   

(you can find these snaps on The Photo Hunt Instagram Feed)

After we'd handed out our task sheets and info packs to The Photo Hunters and explained some ground rules - they set through the streets of Shoreditch to capture as many of their tasks as they could. I was actually pretty bummed that we weren't doing the Photo Hunting ourselves - so, I decided to get involved anyway -



After The Hunt cut off time - we reconvened for a mini prize giving and the participants (and us) were able to have a bit of a chat and connect with other Photo Hunters over some drinks and nosh.

I am pretty sure positive that everyone had a lot of fun at The Photo Hunt - 

but by the looks of this picture - 

it seems like I'm having the most fun of all.

We had some amazing sponsors onboard for our first event! FalafeLicious (with their delicious fresh Falafels and veggie salads), Milk Tea & Pearl (yummy Bubble Tea for our contestants!), Chobani (re-fueling our Photo Hunters with their protein-powered yogurts) and Camera Couture offering discount codes to our Photo Hunters for their gorgeous camera bags!) We are so lucky to have secured such awesome sponsors for our very first event! HEY!? And we have some very awesome potential sponsors for our next event! Full steam ahead! :)

can you say YUMMEH?

  

[above: tallying up the final scores to determine our winning team]

If you must know - The Drunken Reindeers took first place.

It was such a fun day out - and we have SO many new ideas, improvements to make, more challenges, new locations, different themes and exciting new add-on activities - we are SO excited for the next The Photo Hunt - we hope to see you there!

Thank you SO much to everyone who came to join us for The Photo Hunt! You guys really made it what it was and we are so happy to welcome you to The Photo Hunt Family! We hope you had as much fun at the event as we did creating it!

We will be uploading The Photo Hunt Team Photos to our The Photo Hunt Facebook Page soon -
You can follow The Photo Hunt here:

Twitter || Instagram || Facebook || Pinterest

For updates about our next event (1 March 2014) and for the opening dates of ticket sales and our blog launch you can sign up to receive ALL OUR SPAM newsletters here.

Just kidding guys - we would never spam you.

We're cool like that.

xo

____________________________________________

You can check out Lulu's review on the day HERE
and Bobbi's review HERE!

And some participant reviews so far:
Midnight Rambler || Hmm Maybe || Helena La Petite || Food By Charlotte

 - any other participants who have blog posts about the event please tweet us @thephotohunters!