Nicole Marie Burgess

I've been in event planning for the past 3 years, but I've worked in the event space through different roles for the past 8 years. I originally attended school to be a film accountant, but I really did not enjoy it because I really liked to be outdoors. Then I got hired as an event planner, and I kept getting compliments from a lot of different companies, so I just decided to switch because I found something else I was good at, and I really hated film. I served as an event planner for Cal State Northridge for their sustainability department and their art and design department for a year and a half. As of the past 6 months, I've worked in hospitality for Cal State Northridge's concert venue, the Soraya. In my current role, I do safety checks and check in artists into their backstage when they come into the venue, and make sure any of their additional guests are also supposed to be backstage so we keep good security. I maintain the security cameras and provide hospitality to the artists, whether that be toiletries, preparing them meals, or ordering them other supplies that they might not have brought while touring. I won Employee of the Year in 2025 for being an event planner at the Cal State Northridge Sustainability Department because I would often do tasks without being asked. I completely reorganized our garage and our craft areas, and I made the first connections with our school to the company Lush and the company Trader Joe's. My department also received the Jolene Kessler Award, which is given to a department on campus that had the most amount of collaboration. We put on a Steve Aoki concert on our campus that had over 4,000 attendees.