Weeks 1 & 2

Starting an internship is always terrifying. They obviously like you enough to hire you, but they haven't actually worked with you for longer then an hour.

My internship started at 11:00am (what to you expect at a Comedy Theater?) and the dress was "casual". The dreaded word casual with no standard definition besides don't show up to work in your bathing suit. For these instances, I always dress to impress, at least a little. I showed up at Riot Act at 10:45am in black jeans and pretty top.

My first day was a whirl. I met the staff, the incredibly small and hard working staff, that have basically moved into this wonderful location to get it off the ground. I got the official tour, learned the basics of the website, and became the proud owner of a Riot Act t-shirt.

I began by created gifts packages for media outlets, hotels, local businesses. This included basic information about Riot Act and Buy 1 Get 1 Free VIP Passes to any show. I then stationed myself outside of Riot Act armed with more VIP Passes trying to entice passerby's to stop for a moment to learn about the new business in the neighborhood.

What I love about the team at Riot Act is they believe that good customer service leads to customer loyalty. They are not about gimmicks, all we have to do is get them in the door and the Comedy Theater should do the rest. There is lots of face-to-face interactions, lots of personal phone calls, and of course thousands of emails, but they always make time for anyone who has a question.

I ended my first day at a Concierge Welcome Back Party at a hotel, where we passed out more VIP Passes and told all the local residents to come check us out.

My second day they put me behind a computer to address all the charity donation requests we were getting. Riot Act gave me complete freedom to write a response letter, draft a gift certificate request, or organize what/where we were donating for tax purposes. Awesome? Oh yes.

My second week was full of rain and rainy day questions. Between marketing for the upcoming show, I was filled with hot coco and coffee. One of the greatest perks of interning at Riot Act is getting to see the shows on the weekends. On of their goals is to become more social media based, and part of that vision is to have live Tweets during a show. Something I am completely qualified to do and happy to do so. Watch comedy and Tweet? The world of marketing is truly amazing.

First two weeks have been a success, I'm sure the rest of the semester won't disappoint.