press
The future consumer: Aware, confused,
information-bloated
Facebook not just a kids, college thing
The “tribe of self” will rule in travel, says Bangs
Could TelePresence reduce travel?
You be the Judge
Announcing the world’s first book of the best travel marketing blogs
Asia to set fire to new social dialogue, says trend guru
Dream of the Red Chamber meets Star Trek at
WIT Travel Asia
WIT teams up with PhoCusWright Inc.
Canada-e-Connect sets
the stage for Canada
to lead global online
tourism industry
Dream of the Red Chamber meets Star Trek at WIT Travel Asia
Yeoh Siew Hoon shares what went behind the scenes to create the “A Conference With Attitude”.
How many conferences have we attended where every hotel venue does basically the same thing? The standard staging and the standard breaks where there’s often too much food and you just want to go to sleep after all those pastries and sweets …
With WIT Travel Asia, we were keen to do something different. After all, it had to live up to its “Conference With Attitude” promise.
We saw it as an event that would have different staging themes and the breaks should embrace the conference theme, ““Innovation, Inspiration, Imagination”.
Thankfully, general manager of Grand Copthorne Waterfront Dinky Puri was fully behind our vision. He got it. And he made sure his team got it.
During a briefing, I told the banqueting team which comprised f&b and an artist, “Surprise me.”
Their mouths fell open. “You mean we can do anything we want?” they asked. I nodded.
And they did not disappoint.
The set-up was done the night before. The stage for our opening session was based on a futuristic theme – they draped metallic silver fabric over the chairs. We had red lanterns at the back. It was like “Dream of the Red Chamber meets Star Trek”.
The stage was changed with each session. In the airline session, the speakers sat in what looked like an airline lounge with a screen showing flight departures and arrivals. There was a bar set-up which unfortunately was not used by any of the airline speakers. Obviously, they don’t drink on the job.
During the hotel distribution panel, a bed was placed on the stage and bathrobes given out to the speakers.
But the hotel team saved their best for the “Building Online Community” session. They constructed what looked like a campfire setting. Speakers sat on boxes, round a “log fire”. A basket of coconuts added a dash of rustic colour to the stage and, at the back, T-shirts were hung out to dry, just like in a village. I felt like I was on
a Survivor set.
The breaks got delegates talking. The hotel created an Inspiration corner where you went into a darkened room and food came alive, using coloured lights.
They created picture frames behind which were made-up girls serving food on platters. Two girls dressed in silver and red outfits walked around with “mobile” stations of food.
The creativity of the breaks impressed one delegate, Jenny Lau of Hitwise, so much that she enthused about it on stage, urging all delegates to the inspiration corner.
To wrap up the event, the Great WIT Debate featured a plush lounge set-up complete with champagne on ice, all ready to be popped to declare the closing of WIT Travel Asia 2006.
• This article is dedicated to the team at Grand Copthorne Waterfront who showed that hotels can be a proactive partner in creating events with a difference.