Premiere Orlando

Premiere Orlando was my first hairshow to work as an Artist for Pureology. I had been talking about how excited I was to go for months with everyone I knew. The first day flying out didn't go without it's excitement. My plane was 45 mins late taking off in KC,at that point I was a little freaked out because I knew I only had an hour between flights once I arrived in Atlanta. When we landed in Atlanta I turned on my phone to see that is was 12:46 and my next flight took off at 1. No way in hell I was going to make it. I came out of the plane to realize I was in terminal D (in the worlds largest airport) and my flight was taking off in terminal A! So I sprinted to the tram then sprinted to my gate. The hands on the clock showed exactly 1 O'clock but the sign said DEPARTED. Seriously???? I have never missed a flight before so I had no clue what to do, I also didn't book my flight so I didn't know if I needed to call someone or what! So I just stand there awhile in disbelief and wait for someone that looks like they might know what I should do. Finally, a nice cleaning lady tells me to go to the service desk. They inform me there that I have been put on stand-by (once again I have no idea what this means because I've never missed a flight) on the 2 O' clock flight. So I go to that gate where the lady ever so politely (not really) tells me to watch the TV screen and if I see my name, I'm flying, if not try the next flight at 3. Eesh I'm exhausted! I wait and watch them let a family of 4 fly stand-by and I think to myself I AM JUST ONE PERSON! JUST LET ME ON! I'm then informed there is no room on the 3 O' clock flight and I won't be flying out til 4. Never mind, that I was suppose to be in Orlando by 3. I had already texted my supervisor and she said it was no problem, just to get there in one piece. While in line for my 4 O'clock flight I met one of Sam Villa's(my idol) artists. She was super nice and she told me how to make my life easier once I got to Orlando. Thank God someone was an experienced flyer! Our flight then sat on the runway for 35 mins. I was really irritated at this point because I was missing all of the set up and meeting everyone. My flight landed at 6:35 and I still had to get my bags and get to the hotel and freshen up all before I meet all of my fellow PureArtists for a meeting at 7. I show up at 7:10 (awkward) and thankfully everyone is still standing around talking. I appologized a million times for being late (although not my fault) and quickly found a seat to be briefed on the weekend. After the meeting, I decided to go have dinner with 6 other Artists that all looked about my age. We ate at an Italian restaurant that served family style. We had more food than I could have ever imagined. We had a great time but we ended up being at the restaurant for close to 3 hours.

The next day was still part of setting up for the show. In our email it said to wear T-shirt and shorts because it would be hot in the convention center. When I met up with everybody, they were all in jeans and cute but casual T's. I felt a little out of place but I tried to not let it bother me. However, it nagged in the back of my head all day! I got to help in the model room a little bit with Shampooing and blowdrying. That was very exciting for me! I loved being able to watch the other Artists at work! That night we decided to keep things pretty low key for dinner and just go down to the pool bar and grill. Since we had $45 a day for for and had yet to spend any of it, we drank the majority of our allowance. It was so much fun!

Sunday we were up bright and early for the show. I worked the sales booth with JoAnna, Gregory and Lindsey. I had been hanging out with them for the last 2 nights and loved all of them so I knew it would be a great time! The show was absolutely crazy. There were 50,000 hairstylists expected to attend. Our booth was surrounded by stages and the people watching whatever performances were going on at the time. CRAZY!!!! Plus, I got to spend much of my day chasing off divertors. A divertor is someone who is not a licensed cosmetologist who is purchasing professional product to sell it to the black market, from there it ends up on the shelves at CVS, Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreens and so on. This product doesn't even have to contain the right ingredients and is often tampered with. And not to stereo type but most of the divertors were Middle Eastern men and women with Iphones. They didn't know anything about the products, just had lists on their phone that they had to purchase. Many of them changed their clothes 3-5 times that day to try to come back to our booth and purchase. This was extremely discouraging to me. I felt so helpless that we had to sell to these people at least once and all our product was getting out to the black market. I don't think I sat for more than 10 minutes the whole day and I was wore out. However, that night we had a benefit at BB King's for Redken and Pureology and it was free food and Open Bar! (Who would miss that?) So we went and got pretty tipsy and had a really good time! We also went to a Greek restaurant after we left and had more to eat and drink!
The final day was very bittersweet! I was having a great time but I was also very exhausted! We weren't nearly as busy the 2nd day and I pretty much promoted myself to the diversion police. I repeatedly took products out of the hands of divertors. Once the show came to an end, I had to immediately get my bags and get in a cab and to the airport. I didn't realize how tired I really was until I sat down on the plane and my whole body hurt.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and met some wonderful people. I will get to see all of them soon when I am in LA in July for our yearly training! I can not wait! I also can't wait to work another hairshow, whenever that will be!