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Australia Blog | pixelapostel Down Under |
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 Thanks to our new cooperation partners in Australia we are glad to present real-life reports from our students and graduates from Down Under.
During his business trip to Brisbane in December 2008 our director Oliver Stollorcz successfully closed long-term agreements between Australian companies and pixelapostel. We wish you lots of fun reading this blog.
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Australia Blog | May 2009 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
Double Header
How time flies by… Now there were just another three weeks left and everything was done. Therefore I felt I have to achieve a little more and finally learn something theoretically rather than just experience the game-days itself. That is why I’ve asked the Suncorp-Team if I could spend a whole week with them to tune in from scratch, especially with the upcoming double-header.
We had an Australia v. New Zealand National Rugby Union Match coming for Friday night and a local Rugby League Derby on Sunday, the Broncos v. the Gold Coast Titans. That sounded like a lot of fun, but the week started with a marathon of pre-event-briefings, which were quite long because of the high potential danger games, or maybe just because we are in Queensland. I go for the last reason… Followed by a whole Tuesday of causal labor I was close to regret my decision in the middle of the week but it turned out quite well.
Finally I did not regret it at all because I had to do a lot of map-creating and sponsoring & merchandise coordination on Wednesday and Thursday which was quite interesting and finally sort of a learning experience. On the Event-Friday itself I got to work at the Stadium-Control-Room, which even topped the other days off. You wouldn’t believe how interesting the work in a room with all the Senior Event-Supervisors, the Security-Chiefs and twelve Plasma-Screens displaying more than 200 CCTV-Cams, could be… It was an awesome chaos of information and at least I know now, that really everything you will do at a stadium will be caught by camera, and I mean everything. My Sunday Broncos Game confined itself on the final coordination of the previously planned Sponsoring & Merchandising Activities in and around the stadium, which made me talk to many, many people and let me walk at least half a marathon, I guess…
Bodybuilding
My final and last Event was supposed to be something really specially, something I would really appreciate, or not at all!? I got to supervise the 2009 INBA Bodybuilding Championships as a final gimmick, isn’t that really nice. But you’ll have to cope with it, it’s an Event and it’s sport, so there was not much I could do about it… Even worse, the day itself started harder than most of the Rugby-Matches I’d worked at, because of the lack of organization and communication of the promoter. Some of my tasks at this Event were to guarantee a smooth Event-flow and to look after the “VIPs”. At least I was warned prior not to go backstage, not in any scenario because that is supposed to be something you really don’t want to see…
Finally some of the competing classes were not as bad as you might think and some were even entertaining. But what rounds the whole impression up is, the 1st price of the ticket-raffle was a.) an 1m high signed poster of the word Champion Trevor Huni which is quite a good price but also b.) all together 18kg of protein and muscle drinking powder. Isn’t that a real statement of a fair sport? At least even though I’m quite cynically about the whole sport, I have to admit that the whole event was not too bad and some parts even entertaining… So I have to confess, that it was not the bad event I’d expected and at least another different impression of events, something different to the meanwhile used to rugby routine.
The Awesome Whitsundays
Finally we left our beloved Brisbane after more than six month and were heading north to our final Australia-journey… Our first stop was Airlie Beach which is the Gateway to some 74 beautiful Islands called the Whitsundays. Even though I cannot recommend staying in any of the budget-hotels in Airlie Beach, the Whitsunday experience is worth every trouble.
Our first trip was an Island & Resort getaway to Daydream Island, which hosts the world’s largest  mankind built outdoor-aquarium and a Hotel-Resort stretching the whole Island. At least we got some payback for the Airlie-Hotels and saw Reef-Sharks and many different Stingrays. The second trip was supposed to be even better because it aimed the famous Whiteheaven Beach (world's cleanest and whitest beach), the Island Lookout Hill Inlet and an amazing snorkeling-trip. We even had some Reef-Sharks strolling around at Whiteheaven Beach and saw various Nemo's and corals from yellow to purple from red to turquoise.
We have to admit that all our expectations in diving and snorkeling were related to the Great Barrier Reef up north in Cairns, so we were totally surprised of the underwater beauty and are even more looking forward to go diving in Cairns. Although we have seen quite a few nice and unbelievable wonders in Australia, I would say this is the prettiest place so far. Not even post-cards can exaggerate its beauty – A definite must-do…
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Australia Blog | April 2009 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
V-Festival
Actually I haven’t been working for the promoter, “just” for the ticketing company but still it was a bunch of fun.
The Line-up was not extraordinary rich but a festival at the Gold Coast featuring international artists like “The Killers”, “Kaiser Chiefs”, “Duffy” and “Snow Patrol looked like a lot of fun. Working for Ticketmaster Australia at this Event gave me the perfect opportunity to get sort of a look behind the scenes, get to know the organization of a very different event than sports-events but still having enough spare time to explore and enjoy the festival myself. Since our job, the ticketing is most often finished at the very beginning of each event, most of us will always have the chance to enjoy the event you’re working at rather than just organizing it. That’s what it is mostly like with both of the other companies. That’s the advantage of working with Ticketmaster and that is one reason why I appreciate this part of the internship, this employer most.
Howsoever, this day started at 7am in the morning and ended for us just at 12midnight, which means it was actually quite exhausting, but how often will you have the chance to see all the above listed artists all at once. My special task for the V-Fest was to ensure all Gate-activities were smooth and to clear all possible ticket-issues with the customers. This way I got to know many different people and experienced the whole range of possible behavior, even behavior which needed Police-support. But that’s not an issue, Police is never far away in Australia, which can be good but can also be annoying. Finally the sales-predictions were inexplicably low and there was no change of that at the event itself, which made our job quite easy… They’ve expected 30.000 spectators and reached 11.000, which is a bit of a shame for a line-up like this, but made the festival-experience for all of them who were there much more enjoyable. Even though I still want to focus on sports-events, to me, this was a great additional experience within my internship.
Kickboxing Part II
My first day of the internship started with this big and crazy Kickboxing-Tournament and I was just ushering and supporting the Supervisors… This Tournament is held on a semi-annual basis, which means it was just exactly six month later now, wow I’ve been doing this for more than six month now but this time, I was the Supervisor for the whole set-up. That brought about 6am starting shifts over three days, because the Set-up was massive. The only good thing about this starting time was that there is no bus-connection. This is why they had to pay me a taxi each day, which was very comfortable.
Finally we were a team of 14guys working on a 12h basis to set this Event up and get it running. I would never have thought that we need so much time just to arrange everything for this Event, but we finished just in time. Finally I was too tired (like all of us) after 36h of working to participate the whole event, which is a bit of a shame but starting at 6am left no choice. Otherwise I’ve already seen the whole procedure just six month ago… Even though it was tough, it was still a good experience to see and follow an Event from scratch to the Event-evening itself, very interesting. It’s nearly unbelievable how an ordinary oversized sports-gym can change over the appearance from pathetic to decent and fancy within a few hours. A before-after comparison of this is just crazy.
North Stradbroke Island
Finally the weather-god was gracious and stopped the unexpected two-week monsoon-period and donated one of the best days ever. It was our third attempt of trying to escape Brisbane city life to the nearby North Stradbroke Island (the third largest sand-island in the world) but ultimately we’ve managed to get there. Even though it was a bit of a hassle (15min Bus – 1hTrain – 10min Bus – 30min Ferry – 20min Bus), it was definitely worth the trouble and the money.
This petite island is the extreme opposite of an ordinary touristy destination, which means you’ll hardly get see other tourists, if lucky you’ll meet Koalas and Wallabies, you can chat to locals and natives and even of greater value, you can find a beach for your own – and not just a small bay, I say a whole beach. Our beach, which we found more or less unintentionally, was as white as sand can possibly be and emptier than the Outback can be, which is an awesome experience. At the very end of this beauty of nature was a 1.5km long Cliff-walk with a gorgeous and uninterrupted view of the island and the Pacific Ocean.
Back at home we would have signage and fences at least 10m of the cliff-line, whereas over here everything you’ll find is a post which says it could be dangerous to proceed further. I assume it definitely could be but we had to take lovely pictures and to explore the slopes. Actually nearly nobody would stop at the sign. Like said before, this country is just tremendously beautiful and just this day would have been worth the whole journey. This Island makes you feel, you live in the wrong country.
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Australia Blog | March 2009 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
Melbourne Escape
Finally we’ve managed to get our first real escape from the working-routine and from Brisbane. Not that it’s not nice enough but there are still plenty other awesome things to explore rather than being stuck in Brisbane…
It was exactly half-time of our little Australia-journey and we were heading 2500km south to the vibrant City of Melbourne, to Phillip Island and the gorgeous Great Ocean Road.
Due to the fact that you’ll never know what weather conditions you have to expect, we expected nothing but were still heavily surprise by a welcome-temperature of 12° and stormy rainfalls. That’s definitely not to bad back at home, but as a sun-spoilt Queenslander it is just as freezing as the coldest winter can possibly be. Our first prospecting was limited to an elaborately cruise with Melbourne’s unique but reasonably quaint circle-tram and an endless shopping-trip by force of these uncomfortably outside-circumstances.
But the next day promised much more, a six-hour picturesque drive along the fantastic Great Ocean Road was scheduled at our itinerary. “Astonishingly” the 12 Apostel were our definite highlight. Even though you’ve seen them a hundred times on photos and brochures they are just freaking awesome and I would say I prefer them to the still great but just not as impressive Ayers Rock. Followed by the also nice London Bridge and the Arch along the Coast, the Great Ocean Road might be one of the greatest spectacles on earth.
Last scheduled point before returning to Melbourne was the mandatory visit of the famous penguin-parade on Phillip Island. It’s a shame, that there’s no way to take a photo but following all the little gawky penguins out of the water to their caves was very funny and exceeding. They seem to be too gawky for everything, which makes it such a nice experience.
Our last day was totally dedicated to Melbourne’s CBD, old Trams and Arts-variety. Visiting sights like the 300m tall Eureka-Skydeck, the old Flinders Street Station, the new Docklands-District and a sunny day of 30° toped the whole trip perfectly off.
Australian Athletics Championships
It was the biggest national athletics, track and field event, which is comparable to our annual ISTAF in Berlin. There is just a small difference over here, nobody seems to care! We’ve organized a pretty tight schedule of interesting events and athletes and it was an official qualifier for the 12th Track and Field World-Championships in Berlin 2009 but we couldn’t get a real crowd. Unfortunately there’s just no sympathy at all for athletic sports. We had a stadium that easily seats 50.000 people but had a crowd of 1500 spectators. Let’s say it was an interesting atmosphere.
Still for me there was enough to do and learn quite a bit. I worked with the organization team for more than a week and got to know nearly everything from scratch what made this nearly one of my favorite events so far. Even though we had pretty long 11h days it was very interesting to see how everything you’ve planned yourself worked-out at the end. My personal highlight was the expected triumph of Peking-medalist Sally McLellan at the 110m-hurdles.
Rugby is a passion – Queensland Reds & Brisbane Broncos
As mentioned before, there is not really an interest for Soccer, there is still “wonderful” Cricket and above everything else, there is Rugby, League and Union. To me it’s the same sport, but you wouldn’t want to say this to a local Australian or even more Queenslander. It would nearly end up the same as if you would order an Uzo in a Turkish restaurant. Wisely the start of the new Rugby League and the new Rugby Union season was scheduled for the same weekend, which means there was nothing left of the weekend for us.
We had to prepare and swap over the whole venue within eleven hours, what made these two days unforgotten for everybody working at Suncorp-Stadium. I was told they always start at the same weekend but most often one team starts with an away game. But not this time, not when I was working.. At least everything worked out in the end and we got 26.000 spectators for the Queensland Reds and were just a little short of 50.000 for the Brisbane Broncos. The most interesting thing for me was to see, that one sport (which it is to me) but two different Clubs can attract two completely various social classes and it seems to be always like this. There is no real cause but the Brisbane Broncos attract the working class, whereas the whole Reds crowd wears Shirt and tie…
To me there is no difference, I enjoy both!!!
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Australia Blog | February 2009 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
Australian Football (AFL) at the Gold Coast
Actually it was a hell of a shift but it was great fun and a more than reasonable experience. Even though we’ve been working 16h on a Saturday with just 17° and a massive rain-storm, it was one of my best working days so far.
Regardless of the weather conditions we were still at Gold Coast Stadium close to the picturesque Pacific Ocean and were just about to see and organize one of the biggest Australian-Football pre-season matches this year. Today I’ve been working with my lovely colleagues from Ticketmaster to organize the whole Ticketing at the venue.
I think I don’t have to say much more, than that my boss and all the others are not older than 25years to describe the team-atmosphere and to prove that even under circumstances like this it’s still fun to work.
Even if it’s raining or hailing you are still working in Australia one of the prettiest countries of the world. To round off the day, the Brisbane Lions smashed St.Kilda and it was a thrilling game of my favorite sport behind soccer.
Queensland State Police Induction aka. Meeting the Premier
The first Queensland State-Police Inductions in January have been quite interesting and very different to the normal work-ethics in Queensland. It’s been the most German-like event so far.
But this time was supposed to be “slightly” different and even more accurate than last time, because the Premier had announced herself to participate. Luckily for her, it was just two days after the start of the new-election campaign, and how to gain better public relations than congratulating every single new Police-Graduate individually at their ceremony live on TV. In the end it wasn’t just the attendance of  Ms. Anna Bligh (Premier) it was also the Minister of Law&Sport and all together a well planned Publicity stunt followed by every single Australian TV-Network.
My employer trusted me after the first police inductions and put me in charge as their lone Supervisor. Finally I had to manage 190 graduates, the Premier of Queensland plus baggage and the TV-Teams of five major Networks. That was my day and that is how I, the German intern managed to cater, suit and meet the Queensland Premier.
Actually the hardest task was to make sure that the media behaved well. But with the help of many nearly graduated police-recruits it was easier than I had expected it. Even though it was a pretty exhausting day it was a great experience in event-supervising.
Surfing Surfers + Lamington National Park
The title explains pretty much everything, what needs to be told… Due to the fact that it was our first completely off-work weekend this year, we’ve decided to complete one of the must-do activities being in Australia, going surfing. Where else than Surfers Paradise???
No one of my housemates, neither had I ever been taught and introduced how to catch a wave and feel like the king of the ocean. So we decided to go for an instructed surfing-lesson, which was definitely worth it. We’ve tasted the blood and could catch our first waves after 90min of training. Everybody of us wanted to do it again, as soon as possible. Even though we’ve been living in Australia more than three month, just now we are able to feel the real Australian lifestyle. You have to try surfing over here.
On our way back we took a side-trip to the Lamington National Park to see the various flora & fauna and climb up a 30m high Fig-Tree. It is in the middle of nowhere but at the heart of a lush rainforest. Once reached the famous O’Reilleys ranch we could explore the rainforest from above of a 30m high tree-top walk… Anyway it’s just impossible to describe the incredible view from a 30m high Fig-Tree located at the step to a nearly 1000m deep and endless green valley full of various plants, colorful parrots and cockatoos.
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Australia Blog | January 2009 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
New Employers - more variety!
After three weeks, working for Stadiums Queensland they realized that it would be a much better internship and experience for me if I would have the chance to work at some other projects, with other companies too, fair enough… This is why they contacted a few of their friends and former colleagues, whether there would be a chance for me working there or not. Finally I had three employers henceforth. From now on I’ve worked most of the time still with Stadiums Queensland but also with Ticketmaster Australia and The Anschuetz-Entertainment Group at the Suncorp-Stadium Brisbane.
That ensured a much bigger variety for the whole period of the internship. Following I had the chance to work with Ticketmaster at Cricket and Australian Football Matches, with AEG at Soccer and Rugby Games same as working as an Event-Supervisor with Stadiums Queensland. Until now everything is still the same and I get to see so much different events every week. Thanking my colleagues at Stadiums Queensland I really appreciated that new internship-model very much.
Go for the finals (Queensland Roar FC)
As Germans we are quite cosseted with good Soccer, but moving to Australia, as nice as it is, you wouldn’t really expect high level Soccer-skills at the homeland of Cricket and Australian Football. More or less looking forward to my first live-match over here, I was actually quite astonished what I got to see on my first working day with AEG at Suncorp-Stadium. It was high above to what I had awaited. Even though you really can’t compare the live-atmosphere with European Stadiums, the soccer itself would have been worth paying for.
My first project will be to create a strategy to relaunch the whole event-day merchandise at Suncorp-Stadium. Therefore I actually spent the first shifts at the Merchandise-Store to find out about the sale-behavior of the spectators (fans)… Luckily we (the QLD Roar FC) came along the preliminary finals through to the finals at this day, what made the sales going crazy. The whole stock I had ordered just before was sold out 90% just after half-time. Contradictorily to their unemotional behavior whilst watching the game, everybody has to have a genuine jersey and a scarf of their team. You could ask why anybody would need a thick wool scarf in Queensland, but just don’t do it and accept it, actually I still haven’t found out! But this is just one of these little crazy things you’ll love in Australia.
Australia Day
It’s actually not just an ordinary working-holiday, it’s a hell of a public patriotic carnival all over the city. Saying a hell of it simply means it‘s so positive fascinating, you can’t believe what is going on here, without having participated it.
The normal Australia-Day itinerary includes a morning match of backyard-cricket with friends, followed by a massive street parade of masqueraded crowds, either colored yellow-green or blue-white-red, the Australian colors… They spread up over the whole city to have BBQ’s that finally end with an enormous public firework in the evening. The crazy thing about the whole day is, that you’ll hardly find any not colored people and everybody is drinking and dancing at the streets. At this stage you yourself feel more like a tourist than ever before. It definitely separates you from all locals, because even if you would try to, you could not be as passionate patriotic as they are.
Obviously that was a complete new experience and impression of Australia but it describes pretty much their wonderful down-to-earth and easy-going lifestyle… I don’t want to miss it anymore.
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Australia Blog | December 2008 |
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Internship report by pixelapostel student Lorenz from Queensland
Warm-up in Sydney
Finally we’ve reached our destination after an exhausting journey of 35h from door to door. But we had quite good foresights, because it was mild and sunny and still just 8am in the morning. Considering that there was a whole day to explore the breathtaking variety of Sydney, made us winning the fight against the upcoming jet-lag…
Even though the internship will be in Brisbane, we’ve decided to start acclimatizing with the Australian Lifestyle in Sydney, rather than  a cold-start in Brisbane! Saying that, means there was two weeks time just to explore the loveliness of the biggest Australian City and to find out which drop into bricks should be avoided at the start of the internship. Being shuttled by our own private airport-shuttle (friends) we drove directly to the Central-Business-District of Sydney to benefit every single second we have in this gorgeous town. I can say that because I’ve lived here years ago, but was still excited to see all variances since then, meet old friends and show the highlights to my girlfriend.
After a much shorter than expected first sightseeing-tour we needed to drive home to our guest-family, to recover from the jet-lag, who finally won the fight… The most obviously and interesting differences to Germany we noticed at this stage were the straightforward, uncomplicated and easy-going attitude of all people we met. It just felt as if we would have been with everybody forever. Already now we’ve been an integral part of their life, which made our start down-under very cosy and gracious.
Before heading up to Brisbane, we spent every single day at the spectacular CBD or at some lonely beaches and other nature-spots of Sydney. There wasn’t any time where there was nothing to do and we still enjoyed being part of our guest-families life every afternoon/evening. It was just the best start you can imagine and made hunger for more of this beautiful country.
Get to know Brisbane
Just two weeks on that continent and we had to move. It was just a few days ahead and the work would start, but that was what I was looking forward to for more than a year now, so let’s do it!!!
But there was just one little issue, how to find a place to be/stay? Even though we spent three long days wondering around to find a flat it was still fun. Everything was new and I can’t imagine a better way to get to know a city rather than walking around to find a flat. You’ll get to know more districts sights than you would go and check out in half a year living there… Finally we docked in at the hip West-End, the self named Coffee-Society… and we’ll definitely wanted to be a part of it…
Once we’ve evaded the life of the Backpacker-Hostels, the real life in Brisbane could start. The good thing about our place is that it consists out of five student-houses, what ensures that we’ll meet so many different people every month because there’ll be a constant fluctuation. Additionally we have a great pool, the most important thing you need in Queensland – There is a reason, it’s called “The Sunshine State”. That is what makes so fantastic over here. Once settled in, the work could start…
Australasian Kickboxing Championships
Actually my first working day was quite impressive and I’ve directly learned a lot. Before knowing anybody I had a cold-start at the biggest Kickboxing Event in Australasia – The Australasian Kickboxing Championships.
I can’t tell if I would rather have preferred to start at a normal office-day or like this. But this way I got to know the whole team in motion. Having the best of the best in Kickboxing secured us a sold out venue which makes it much more complicated to usher everybody, as I soon found out. Because they haven’t had a chance to involve me beforehand I was just shadowing around everybody and another helping hand.
Anyway it was very interesting to be part of a spectacle like this, something I wouldn’t join normally. The highlight this evening was the invasion of each fighter with their special anthems. But my personal highlight was to experience a crowd of 5000people singing out loud Rammsteins “Du Hast” simultaneously… At this stage I didn’t quite know whether I felt home or further away from home than ever. At least an event like this at the first day was very interesting and made me looking forward for everything else coming soon.
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