The article he wrote titled “Creating Great Events in Asia” was published in the June 2010 issue as part of the International Special Events Society experts column and is reprinted here.

Many of your organisation’s best and brightest may soon be flying out to a destination of choice within Asia for a series of incentive and recognition events.

Business events carry a huge degree of strategic importance to the hosting organisation and in turn can attract a considerable amount of stakeholder input and competing budget demands.

You will need to call upon a broad array of specialist disciplines as you tackle concurrent challenges including travel, venues, catering, pre and post-tours, team-building, gifts, program collateral, and entertainment, AV production, set designs, signage, branding guidelines and messaging objectives and so on.

By their very nature, events have lots of moving parts that constantly evolve. They require a huge amount of planning, thought, and applied expertise to ensure it all comes together as a seamless and powerfully engaging event experience.

Expectations are high and the pressure is on for people charged with this strategic, creative, and tactical responsibility. So extra careful consideration needs to be given to who will help you deliver. It’s okay if at this point you need to let out a deep sigh. I am.

Now add to this mix a whole host of regional variables that are at constant play within the business of delivering events throughout Asia.

South Korea is one of the few places where English is not the universal language of business – common elsewhere across global event practices. Neighbouring Japan presents an added challenge with many layers of communication protocol needing to be addressed and worked through to make simple things happen… simply.

Although hugely improved, the Philippines is still sadly beset by implied ‘corruption’ practices, and when working within Indonesia and Malaysia one needs to keep front of mind religious sensitivities in everything you do.

The island city of Singapore remains a great introduction to Asia for many western corporate event clients but rarely sustains a second or third visit. With the opening this year of Marina Bay Sands and Universal at Sentosa, the city will refresh itself as a MICE destination of choice.

Hong Kong, gateway to China, still labours under former past MICE glories as it continues to confront challenges in terms of offering diverse event space that doesn’t look like another exhibition hall while outdoor events are on the extinction list due to unreasonable government noise ordinances.

Bangkok, despite current political instability, still remains MICE attractive although the provision of event services often reminds me of Bangkok traffic – slow and convoluted despite always appearing to be incredibly busy.

The emerging MICE destinations of Vietnam, Nepal and Cambodia offer great potential for the brave and well resourced who are not easily spooked by little pre-existing infrastructure.

And China. Sometimes producing events in China feels to me like walking a movie set of an infamous ‘spaghetti western’ as an unarmed extra who’s been given poor street directions.

It is not so much the Wild West as it is the Wild East with plenty of people willing to ‘help’. As your on the ground event experience deepens, the more you value having a reputable ‘Sheriff’ at your side to better help with the safe navigation of your event.

Of course this is not to say that all these sites don’t offer massively attractive attributes for MICE projects. They, in fact, present as fabulous settings for the delivery of some truly amazing and memorable event experiences. It is more a question of approach.

You could tackle the challenge by jumping straight into the deep end with all guns blazing as you spend an immense amount of time hunting out and engaging vendors. Haggle endlessly and issue deposits to companies you suspect may not really exist in this dimension. Combat the challenges of working remotely with different time zones and fall foul of unexpected cultural nuances while wondering what exactly is going to happen (and for the matter not happen) on event day.

It comes as no surprise that the entire experience of delivering events within Asia can wear many down very quickly. Like constant water against stone. Nice lemongrass smelling water… and a very polished stone.

Based on close to two decades of producing events of scale within Asia, the team at FACTOR168 Creative Event Company recommends to anyone considering an event within the Asian region to make it a mission critical priority to seek out and engage a reputable and seasoned events professional; an events expert experienced within Asia who will work with you as a partner invested in a mutually positive outcome rather than just trawling through endless vendors or waving the proverbial white flag and handing the entire process from start to finish to the nice people in the catering department at the hotel who seemed okay in return for a more generic outcome.

Engaging a strong events professional is the most assured way of achieving your event goals on the ground regardless of the nation and city you visit.

So how do you assess who this outfit should be? Who will serve as your China sheriff? Well don’t go looking for a tiny little tin cowboy badge… look instead for four little letters – ISES.

This represents credibility and a service promise bound by a professional code of ethics. An expert not only within the events profession but an expert in getting the best results on your behalf within a region that is often complex, always evolving and very mercurial in temperament.

Seek out a shortlist of partner candidates from the ISES membership directory, or if you’re engaged within a specific region, query your potential partner and vendors on their professional affiliations and red flag those that fall short.

Your ISES partner will be able help you best navigate successfully through the region, provide informed advice and recommendations, and ultimately add value and diminish your exposure to risks. In my mind I always regard working with fellow ISES members who are well positioned to reduce my exposure to risk as a smart form of event insurance. But without the premiums.

It really is this simple: engage a professional to do a professional job.

So from Hong Kong it is cheers for now… or if you prefer, Yung Sing or even Kong Chien.

Darren Kerr is a founding partner of FACTOR168 Creative Event Company, www.factor168.com. He is a proud member of the Queensland chapter and Hong Kong board member of the International Special Events Society www.ises.com.

Source Notes:

For the online version of this Mice.net.au article – click HERE.

For current and timely information about the meeting and events business within Australia.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company

Creative. Strategic. Tactical.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

We welcome our readers, fans, clients, and any web adventurers that happen to be googling (or yahoo’ing or  bing’ing) their way past to pop over to our Facebook fanpage by clicking HERE and having a look-see.

Oh and while your over there, it’d be appreciated if you click with great conviction the ‘LIKE’ button. It’s always nice to see who we are having a conversation with. Not mission critical but kinda nice.

Of course if Facebook ain’t your thing, keep on visiting the muse for your dose of randomness with all things that pique our interests as events and live communication professionals.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company
Creative. Strategic. Tactical.
Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

This probably comes as no surprise that we are huge champions of brainstorming.

The results are always interesting. Sometimes surprising and curious. And brainstorming for us, has always proven to be a great source and driver of creative innovation in the design and execution of events.

We do it as a team, we do it with our suppliers and partners, and we love doing it with out clients.

But it’s not always about working in groups, some of our best ideas have come from individuals finding their ‘muse’ – we call them ‘idea-showers’. Taking a break in a new cafe, flicking through design magazines, a wander through an art gallery for lunch, justing sitting back eyes close with iTunes running Genesis style.

Different strokes for different folks.

Personally I subscribe to crunching up a ball of paper and tossing it across the office for a 3 pointer basket.

if you’d like to practice before indulging in the real deal – check out these two FACTOR168 approved flash games.

Totally free to play and accessible from any web browser – the first is strangely titled Cyrkam Airtos.

It’s a nice touch where you have to catch the paperball from another fellow wihtin the office before you get a chance to drop one in the basket. More difficult than it first appears.

The second game is kinda more ‘technical’ in that you need to contend with urban environment elements (desk, chair, rotating fan) to drop the balls square into the baskets. This game is called …to the rescue.

If anyone out in the wide world of webbery strays across other paperball games – sing out and share this strange passion of mine.

* The image above is courtesy of Chuck who seemed to have taken a stab at their own ‘mousetrap’. It would seem that Chuck have taken it upon themselves to reinvent the wasterpaper basket. Umm okay.

They call them the ‘waste-less’ baskets because they are constructed from 100% recycled cardboard, and printed with low VOC based inks that is totally recyclable.

Smart design at work. I wonder if the ‘world will beat a path to their door’. Perhaps.

FACTOR168 | Creative Event Management Company

Now of course we still have ‘film award’ nights, we are just mindful of not replicating the golden Oscar, and I suspect with the recent legla efforts surrounding the notion of the Moulin Rouge, we’ll all continue to stage fabulous Moulin Rouge inspired events… we’ll just call them… oh I don’t know – the ‘French Cancan’, perhaps ‘Paris: City of Lights’ or as the Hear and Say Centre event organizer has done -simply rebranding a ‘Moulin Rouge’ event into a “le Windmill de Rouge”

Okay I get that there is always something to be gained from unexpected publicity but it seems to be a tad… petulant… to state it is NOT ‘Moulin Rouge’ while still overtly leveraging off the ‘brand’ name in any case…

And employing the likeness of Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, even slightly blurred… umm could this be a case of swapping one set of lawyers for another set. They do love sending letters out people. That said, I suspect they are safe, Nic and Ewan wouldn’t see much upside to lawyering up against a local charity. Bad business.

Still – good to see Thiess continued involvement despite these grim economic times.

This construction and development company is is an extremely well regard corporate citizen so it is nice to see them actively throwing their considerable support behind a worthy charity.

On a sidenote, as we are want to do from time to time – if your interested in the history of the Cancan then I recommend a quick visit to this site where we sourced the wonderful image of the three dancing girls.

And now for a wonderful video shot in 1943 showcasing the Cancan in action. Magnific!

FACTOR168 | Creative Event Management Company

It is grim. It is 1984. The Gordon Geckos are on the loose. Everything is beige.

Britain’s miner strike, big teased hair, asteroid video game (loved this thing along with the sitdown Pacman), brick mobile phones, vinyl records, leopard prints, Maggie Thatcher lurks behind the scenes and the Cold War Cowboy is at work across the Atlantic. Travel is chorelike and sucks.

Cue the Frankie Goes to Hollywood inspired soundtrack and out stride forth the Virgin Atlantic glamourzillians in their fitted bright red uniforms and sexy stilettos – cutting a swath through a sea of tired beige. Ruby Cool. Very Ruby Cool.

Yup. Based off this ad alone, I’d want to change airlines too. The promise of an attractive branded experience over a simple transactional service can be very powerful. Well done Virgin Atlantic.

FACTOR168 | Event Management Company