Two organizers at the “largest event of the 21st century” have written a case study, containing their experiences at World Youth Day 2016. Paulina Guzik and Cecilia O'Reilly were part of a team of seven who prepared for months, working up to 20 hours a day to make sure everything ran smoothly.
Now, they share the lessons they've learned in this book, “WYD 2016 Krakow.”
PAULINA GUZIK
Co-author, “WYD 2016 Krakow”
“We thought that this experience needs to be written about so that we can transfer the knowledge to Panama and other organizers so that they use it. They learn our successes, but they also learn our mistakes.”
CECILIA O'REILLY
Co-author, “WYD 2016 Krakow”
“These are the things I learned, let me help. You're going to make your own mistakes, but at least let me show you the mistakes I made so you don't repeat those. The reality is, every new host city for World Youth Day has never done it before and this is a huge event.”
Preparing for 2.5 million people was no easy task. They say in addition to WYD in Panama 2019, the World Meeting of Families in August 2018 and other upcoming events can benefit from their advice, especially when it comes to how to advertising the event in this age of social media.
PAULINA GUZIK
Author, “WYD 2016 Krakow”
“I'll use the words of Federico Lombardi, who wrote the preface to the book. He wrote that this book will serve any large church event communicator and organizer, broadly speaking. So this was a very generous review that he gave to our book, but this is actually true. You can use it organizing any large church event.”
The two co-authors also presented the book to the leaders planning the January WYD while they were in Rome.
CECILIA O'REILLY
Co-author, “WYD 2016 Krakow”
“We delivered the book to the Ambassador of Panama, as the heritage of WYD in Krakow, and she was immensely delighted because it was, 'Wow, this incredible resource of somebody who just went through this experience and learned so much and there's this wealth of information here for me to learn from.'”
As social media continues to change, large-scale events must continue to adapt their styles of communication. This case study, written off the experience of two millennials, is the perfect resource to guide any large event.
