Overview
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This includes overseeing the planning, management and execution of projects, events and campaigns to their successful completion – either in its entirety or part thereof. While I do exercise a high level of project management across all my work, this remains a service offering that can be procured in siloes. My expertise in this area grew organically by being highly entrepreneurial and having to work with small budgets throughout my life, playing many roles and fulfilling the multiple positions while working on projects.
Project Management
In the field:
We currently run the Cornerstone Institute Critical Dialogue Programme, which is a series of monthly events focussed on creating robust conversation and debate around issues of societal interest, that will move the country forward. In May 2020, after the announcement of the nation-wide lockdown, we assisted Cornerstone with taking their Dialogue Programme online and now host monthly virtual panel discussions. Our duties here include programme curation, procuring speakers, sourcing the required resources, and audience development.
CONCERTS: In 2014 I worked on the Foo Fighters concert in Cape Town, recruiting people to work inside the many food kiosks which service the tens of thousands of concert attendees at the Green Point Stadium. By the end of 2015, I had taken over the operations for my client entirely. Between then and I now I’ve worked on just under a dozen concerts which include major headlining acts such as Justin Bieber, One Direction, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Michael Bublé, Carlos Santana and the biggest one yet, Ed Sheeran’s Divide show in March 2019.
My duties as Project Manager required me to take care of every single detail needed to ensure that my team and I are ready to feed thousands of concert attendees from the moment the gates open right through to the end of the show. This includes putting the menu together, placing orders, organizing staff, getting uniforms washed, paying wages, liaising with service providers, getting signage printed, setting up the kiosks, cash and payment systems, security, submitting all relevant paper work to the city of Cape Town and most importantly, making sure we have enough salt for the hot chips!
I’ve overseen and managed a team of up to 350 staff members, to ensure that we can service a crowd as a big as 80 000 people.
COCKTAIL WEEK: In 2017 I joined SA Cocktail Week, as an event partner, and with just a team of two, we managed to implement South Africa’s first-ever week-long cocktail festival. My duties included attaining sponsorship, negotiating deals, event logistics, liaising with suppliers, handling all marketing and P.R related duties, working with the venue, the city of Cape Town and acquiring necessary licensing and traffic control permits in order to host a street festival.
AD-HOC: Apart from the concerts and cocktail week, I’ve worked as the lead on a range of smaller projects including media launches, beer gardens, boxing for charity with the Cape Quarter, Bootlegger’s Birthday Bash, Woodford Stories with Woodford Reserve and I currently act as the project or events manager for many of the endeavors we take-on as THAT Network. Whether voluntary art pop-ups at Open Streets, workshops, or bigger music events.
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"Shakirah Dramat, a focussed and driven organiser. Full of ideas, structure and systems. We’ve worked with Shakirah in many instances.
Our latest event with Shakirah, the Mariah Carey concert, arranging the food and beverage for a large percentage of the 15 000 attendees, managing her own sourced staff count of about 200 + people, staying on top of her game at all times & assuming responsibility where necessary. I’d recommend Shakirah for any event, her skill set has proven to be extremely dynamic & resourceful, she’s confident and I’ve yet to see her fail."
Ricky Ruthenberg
Operations Director
Bootlegger Holdings