After "winning" a competition to be a part of the Coca Cola Moshpit at the 2000 ARIA awards, I couldn't help but smirk a little as I read the terms and conditions of my "prize".

I had slightly objected to entering the competition in the first place after a recent bad experience at another Coca Cola organised event, namely, "Redfest". Unfortunately though, with no public tickets available for sale, my only hope was to win tickets which I did.

My "prize" gave me (and approximately 200 other people who didn't know any better) the priveledge of becoming one of the Coca Cola walking billboards placed strategically in the section directly in front of the ARIAs stage, which was dubbed "The Coca Cola Mosh Pit".

We had to be at the venue by 3pm to begin the tiresome registration process which involved getting Coca Cola shirts distributed to us with the instruction that "they must be worn at all times due to security reasons". More like for ambush marketing purposes I would think.

All of this happened in the rain, with very little undercover areas at most times. It also involved a small number of highly disorganised Coca Cola staff who appeared to have difficulty understanding that when you are in charge of a large number of people it might be a good idea to have a microphone set up correctly so that everyone can in fact hear the instructions you are giving them.

Next part of the "prize" was to wait at the red carpet for all the guests to arrive. We waited for quite some time before any of the guests actually begain to arrive, this was also in the rain with no undercover areas whatsoever.

Surely this part could have been left out of the "prize" considering that the ARIAs weren't set to finish until after 10pm that night. But of course had it been left out, Coca Cola would have missed out on the perfect marketing opportunity that was the whitewash of people wearing their shirts, advertising their product to a huge audience as the press snapped away at the arriving music acts.

When we finally got into the Sydney Entertainment Centre we were treated to a live performance by Killing Heidi. At this point I was thinking that maybe all the waiting around had been worth it. Unfortunately my train of thought changed when the actual ARIA presentations began and due to an extremely dodgy sound setup I, or anyone else in the moshpit couldn't hear anything clearly that was being said on stage.

Host Rove Mc Manus looked like he was doing a good job and he and the music acts who graced the stage seemed unaware that no one in the moshpit could actually hear what they were saying.

Watching the coverage at home later there was a point where Rove said something along the lines of "the kids in the moshpit don't know what's going on". Hmm. wonder why. I actually do remember that particular point in the show as most of the people in the pit had taken to reading the autocue instead of trying to make out what was being said on stage. We had seen Ella Hoopers name and had cheered wildly before actually reading the rest of the sentence which was actually in reference to something quite unrelated to Ms Hooper.

After a couple of hours of the ARIAs, my friend and I, (who like all the others in the moshpit had been on our feet since 3pm) decided to try to go to the back of the pit to sit down. Mr security guard said that we had to move back into the pit or leave. I chose to leave whilst noting that I could hear everything that was happing onstage very clearly from the back of the moshpit.

I won't deny that elements of the night weren't awesome - live performaces from Killing Heidi, 28 days, Christine Anu, Vanessa Amorossi, Shihad and Madison Avenue were brilliant and I couldn't argue with the fact that from where I was located I had an excellent viewpoint of everything. It's just that it could have been a much less painful experience had a little more thought gone into the organisation of the night by Scape and Coca Cola.

Oh, and on the way home instead of getting my usual bottle of Coca Cola i bought chocky milk instead which made me feel a little better.

The moral of the story ? Be very, very wary if you participate in something that Coca Cola or other large corporation plays a huge part in the organisation of.