#PlanningForPleasure: PlannerCon Manila 2017

Those of you who have been following me here on the blog and on my social media accounts would know that I’m a certified planner girl. I can’t live without a planner. I’m a planner girl and proud of it. Haha!

Anyway, since I discovered two years ago that an actual planning community exists both locally and abroad, I’ve been actively sharing my planner photos on Instagram and stalking other planner girls online. I’ve also attended one planner event, the Planner Community of the Philippines (PCPH) Planner Party back in 2015. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep joining more. However, I got pregnant last year and priorities shifted. So I had to forego joining any.

But then it was announced some time last year that a group of planner girls were going to organize Manila’s first ever planner convention and set the date for April 2017. Of course, I badly wanted to go but the registration fee of P 2,800 wasn’t cheap. Our priority was, of course, our new baby and our other kids’ expenses. But luckily, on my birthday this past February, my hubby surprised me with the best birthday gift ever. He paid for my PlannerCon Manila 2017 registration fee. Yay! Yup, I’m blessed to have a hubby who understands my need to indulge in my passions and to have me-time once in a while. #Blessed

So off I went to Eastwood Richmonde Hotel on April 22. (We checked in with our boys in a nearby condo that weekend, by the way. More on this in an upcoming blog post.) I arrived 15 minutes before 8 a.m. thinking I was still a bit early for registration. To my surprise, there was a line already waiting for the registration to start! Thankfully, I was still considered an Early Bird and got a sticker sheet freebie. Yay!

We also got this passport showing that we were supposed to get three meals, plus a PlannerCon Manila swag bag, pillow, T-shirt and mug. More yay!

I was seated at Table #16. What the organizers did was to assign seats to all participants so that the friends who came together will be spread out and get a chance to meet new people and make new planner friends.

I think this arrangement was great! I was the first one at our table, then came new planner friends,Tin (@tinniemd) and Andrea (@smittenwithfrills).

For the longest time it was just the three of us at our table. Around lunch time though, our table became full already when some other planner girls came. To my delight, they were the planner girls who organized the PCPH Planner Party I attended in 2015. Seen here with Andrea, Tin and I are Jujet (@iamjujet, who owns this photo below), Dandee (@crafteedandee), Celine (@celenewrites), with Cynthia (@lovecynthia) standing behind. Cynthia is part of the team that brought us PlannerCon Manila. At some point, Chinky (@lionachinky) and Summer (@plannersandjournals) were also at our table.

I was also happy to see another planner friend I met in 2015. Say hi to Noelle(@msxnoelle)!

The day was full of exciting demos, games and giveaways. There were about 200 planner addicts who attended and we all learned about creative planning and bullet journaling, among other things. I participated in the 15-minute creative planning challenge wherein we had to decorate our weekly spread for the following week and share it on IG. I was one of those who won a Scribble Planner from Filed. Yay!

Andrea, Tin and I participated in the bullet journaling challenge too although we don’t really do bujo. We did our best although we couldn’t say we were very proud of what we were able to come up with. Haha! That’s okay though. It was still fun working with these two. Best seatmates ever!

In most planner meets, there’s usually a portion in the programme for a planner stack photo opp wherein we pile up all our planners. During the event though, the organizers made it into a game wherein each table will have to pile up their planners within a few minutes. The tallest stack that doesn’t fall wins. Here’s our planner stack. It was nowhere near the tallest though. Haha!

There was even a special guest introduced during the event, no less than Senator Pia Cayetano, who is actually also a planner girl. It was really surprising to find out that a busy senator like her also enjoys prettifying her planners. She even did a Facebook Live session wherein she went around the entire room showing us and our planners. So cool!

Some time in the afternoon we were also given time to check out the “crafting room” wherein there was a stamps and punchers buffet. Tin and I tried them a bit after checking out the different booths that sold planner stuff. However, the tables were already full and so we were only able to try out a couple of punchers.

Of course, we had to have our photo taken at the photo booth. Here’s one of myself, Tin and Andrea.

Here’s another with a few more planner girls I met that day through Andrea.

It was a really super fun afternoon spent with like-minded people. There was lots of food too. Plus, we went home with a lot of stuff in our swag bag! Our swag bag was really cute and big.

Now, just look at all the goodies in the swag bag! I was super happy with everything in it. There were a couple of planners and a journal. Some washi tapes, clips, die cuts, a planner kit, stamps, a pen, pouches, a tote bag, glue,  and lots of stickers, among other things. We also got a PlannerCon Manila mug and a planner girl/planner addict necklace.

Check out our PlannerCon Manila pillow. This was available in pink and green. I chose pink, of course. It’s now sitting pretty here on my work chair.

The suppliers in the planner community were so generous to provide us planner girls with a lot of stuff. Thanks to all of you. I’m sure I speak on behalf of all the participants when I say that we are all super grateful and happy for their generosity. Special thanks also go to the organizers. Being a former event organizer myself, I can imagine the time and hard work that it took to plan and manage an event of this magnitude. Kudos to you guys!

There were some people who asked me if it was worth it attending the event given the registration fee. I say “YES!”. First of all, it was a whole day event in a hotel. Naturally, the price would be kinda high. But it was more than worth it because it was fun and great me-time experience. There was lots of fun and came out of it really full that I didn’t really need to have dinner.

Plus, the swag bag itself is so full of stuff that I don’t really mind not winning anything in the giveaways. Haha! There were LOTS of giveaway prizes, by the way. The biggest prize being the Brother ScanNCut machine that I really wanted to win. No such luck though but that’s okay. I had the best time! We all did.

I’m still on a PlannerCon Manila high actually. Haha! Hoping there will be another one next year!