Working in the events industry means immersing yourself in a fast-moving, high-pressure environment. Clients say, do, and ask for all kinds of things that might seem unusual or just plain bizarre in the ‘normal’ world. Here, we talk to event agencies about how to respond to challenging requests.
Stop gibbons from howling
Agency Pico held an event at a zoo in Asia. Jed Mok, general manager, creative & strategy at Pico Singapore (below) recalls how they were doing a final run-through when the client stopped proceedings to request that gibbons stop howling, as the chairman was due to give a speech later. The agency asked the zoo to feed the gibbons just before the start of the event. Following the feed, whether by coincidence or not, the gibbons remained quiet for the entire hour-long event.
Provide food and drink in record time
At a major global conference, Pico was tasked with providing a buffet dinner and drinks for 2,000 guests – no mean feat at the best of times, but in this instance, the client wanted all 2,000 to receive either food or a drink within 60 seconds of entering a hall. The agency worked closely with the caterer, designing a menu with food that was easy to serve or pick up and organising several bar areas, with teams of staff roaming the venue with serving platters.
Transform a venue…in one hour
Pico worked on a large conference held in a hotel’s grand ballroom. After two days of discussions, the 1,500 delegates were scheduled to attend a gala dinner: the challenge being that the conference ended at 4pm and the dinner began at 5pm…on the same day. What’s more, the client wanted the dinner to have a completely different look and feel from the conference, so the room needed to be transformed in one hour. Solid planning, the use of intelligent lights and creative video projection helped achieve these objectives.
** The content above is only an extract of the original full article posted on CEI Asia’s website.
