Eastman & Accomplices

SUMMARY: Unprofessional. Disorganized. Unprepared. Late. Blamed CLIENT. Unable to accept responsibility.
I contacted Eastman & Accomplices via telephone and email, to request media passes for the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona this weekend.
First, I sent a request via email with information about our media outlet, and links to photos and stories that we produced from last year’s Grand National Roadster Show. After I sent the email, I called Christine Eastman’s cellphone to tell her I emailed her, and I’d appreciate if she would get back to me either way, so if we didn’t get approved for media passes, we could attend a different event that weekend.
Christine Eastman personally emailed me back later that night with a confirmation email later that evening, assuring me that our media outlet was approved; she said that she would leave 2 media passes for me at the front desk of the Sheraton hotel at Pomona Fairplex.
EASTMAN & ACCOMPLICES DIDN’T FULFILL PROMISES:
We got up early and drove all the way from El Segundo/​Santa Monica to Pomona (SUPER FAR) to pick up our passes… then paid $ 12 for parking at the Fairplex… but the nice lady at the front desk of the Sheraton said that NOBODY LEFT PASSES for us at the front desk. What!!!
EASTMAN & ACCOMPLICES LATE TO THE EVENT:
I called Christine Eastman at 10:30am to see if there was some sort of mistake, and she replied, «Oh. Yeah, I haven’t dropped your passes off yet.» (But it was 10:30am on the day of the event, and the spectators were already inside???)
I said, «No problem. Where are you? Can I meet you and pick up my passes?» but she told me she wasn’t even there yet… and was still at least 45 minutes away. (At 10:30am on the day of a big show, when the spectators are already in the door?!)
Wow. Good job getting to the show late, when you’re supposed to be handling all the media passes for the show! Needless to say, I was pretty upset by Eastman&Accomplices lack of responsibility. If your client is paying you to handle PR and media for their show, you should show up on time, at the very least. IT’S YOUR JOB.
EASTMAN & ACCOMPLICES BLAMED THE CLIENT:
I asked if there was some sort of ‘will call list’ (Normally, media passes for big events are handled w/​a simple media guestlist at the will call/​ticket counter) or someone else who could help us get into the show without waiting an additional 45 min for her to arrive.
Christine Eastman immediately passed the buck and put the blame on her client, saying, (word for word) «No. THE SHOW is really disorganized. THEY don’t have anything like that.»
Eastman & Accomplices was paid to handle pr/​media, right? If they «didn’t have anything like that,» Eastman&Accomplices should have set it up, because it was THEIR JOB. She said, «Look, I had to deal with 200 media people, and a lot of things got screwed up. We lost a whole bunch media tickets yesterday, because someone else accidentally gave them out.» 200 people? That’s a SMALL media list! Give me a break. Get your sh! t together.
COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL/​DISORGANIZED
Instead of using an industry standard «will call list» Eastman & Accomplices decided to put actual tickets into little envelopes with names on them. The envelopes didn’t even match! How unprofessional. Instead of Eastman & Accomplices being on site doing their jobs, the responsibility was put on the nice girl at the front desk of the Sheraton.
Even if Christine Eastman wasn’t there to handle it personally, she should have sent one of her «Accomplices» to represent her company. But nobody was there. What a shameful mess.
1) We brought all our photography and HD video gear, planning to cover the show from all angles + publish the photos on our own high traffic website + syndicate the photos for use on other high traffic automotive news websites all over the world. That would have been a HUGE win for the owners/​organizers of the Grand National Roadster show, as they don’t have a strong online presence, and the strength of our search engine optimization + tagged stories/​photos + linkbacks would have drastically improved the traffic of their website. We were also going to syndicate content to all the most powerful automotive websites online + promote it EVERYWHERE through all our social media networks. (I’m sure you already know how powerful Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Flickr, and all those other social media outlets can be.) We were also planning to shoot viral video content for uploading to Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Streetfire. Another big win for the Grand National Roadster show.
But they didn’t get ANY of that, because Eastman & Accomplices didn’t do their jobs. Now ask yourself, did they REALLY serve the client?