You can find the original post HERE and a summary of key points reprinted below. It’s a site well worth revisiting.

At one point in your sales career it will hit you that a client is neither profitable nor a part of your ideal client profile which, means they’re costing you and your company money.

Before you fire a client here’s a list of my top three that should be cut loose.

1. The Blue Light Special Client – This is the client who wants everything done for the least amount of money. At one point they stop being profitable and now become a drain. Stop throwing your time and money out the window when you could be prospecting for the right client. The best way to deal with them is to raise your rates until they ask to be let go or start to charge for everything you do.

2. The Sky is Falling Client – This client is always in a panic mode and expects you to be at their beck and call no matter what. Of course it’s always your product that is at fault not them. It’s best to call them out on this and say it’s obvious that the product is the wrong fit for them. They’ll either work with you or let you take the product back. Many times they will not want to look bad in front of their management and will be agreeable to work with you on getting the bugs out of the system.

3. The Check’s in the Mail Client – If you spend more time conversing with accounts payable then it’s time to re-evaluate the client. Some of them may not be soluble enough to support your products or services. Most of the time these accounts are inherited, and were a mistake in the first place, but someone may have been desperate. In this case, finding a suitable solution that works for them is necessary, even if it is a competitor. It’s worth the aggravation.

It’s not easy to let clients go and before you do make sure this is a team effort and your management is involved. It should be carefully orchestrated on how, when and who will do the talking. Diplomacy is the key. Most of the time the client is unaware of their behavior and once confronted they’ll make the effort to work with you. The key is not to burn any bridges, but make it a win-win situation.

Nice one Stephanie – thanks for the great post and again, if you enjoyed this then make your way over to her site. She has another fabulous post all about sales prospecting that crosses the line.

Source Note: Check out the original website post here.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

The previous year in our post Event Teams Should Eat More Fish we promised to eat more fish… and by that we really meant blog more regularly and…uhh… eat more…uhh fish. Well I am pleased to declare that we have eaten some fish in the past year… not alot but some and yet we are yet to manage our end of year AWOL problem.

So this year we as a group declare that we will eat some more fish and give some serious attenti0n to the issue of Dec-Jan. Any suggestions… that are legal and acceptable to general public mores will be entertained… dancing, flowers, a nice bottle of pinot noir.

In the meantime – we have a very interesting 2011 with lots of promise and hopefully some really great clients and gigs. First up is a roadshow for a Korean firm keen on sending us all to 3D and an incredibly challenging Fijian project being produced by founding partner and soon to be Director of Creative Events (Asia Pacific) for the MCI Group – Darren Kerr. Our loss their gain. Be kind to him.

Feed him espresso daily, Mexican food on Fridays, and try as best you can to not mention the ever growing crop circle at the crown of his head – he get’s thingy.

hee hee.

Darren recently returned to the FACTOR’ry mid last year and is currently wrapping up some projects with the team as he hopscotches between Istanbul, Hong Kong and Singapore. Good luck Dazza, Jacinta, Jackson, Ed and whatshisname!

Sadly we can’t actually disclose more details on these specific FACTOR168  Creative Event Company events  due to the hellishly restrictive non-disclosure arrnagements we accepted in return for a small wooden chest of gold coins. Turns out it’s a variety mix of Australian one and two dollar gold-ish coins but still… an impressive little chest it is.

oh and since we are entering the Deceember-January digital wastelands of the FACTOR’ry team posting much if at all – we wish all our valued clients, partners, peers, fans and the guys that visit us trying to sell cheap stuffed bears a very safe and let’s face it -sensational 2011. Woohoo!

Time to race off and work our tails off now like mad people however from a digital presence it may in fact resemble a pack of grizzly bears deep in hibernationzzzzz.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

A strong live communications experience is driven by clear event marketing which is packaged and presented in a theatrical manner. This is where professional event agencies and studios play a critical role.

• Identify the most important message you want to share with guests and focus all the event elements at each sensory level. This will ensure your message is communicated at an intellectual and emotional level.

• Plenty of events have failed with ill-prepared presenters fumbling about on stage, while a black-clad production crew desperately try to second guess their intentions. The solution is to set aside a block of time, say two to three hours, for rehearsal time to see the event run through from start to finish. Care should be taken to physically rehearse presenters (and entertainment on stage with technology. The full complement of event production crew should be in attendance. No event has failed because it was rehearsed too much.

Darren Kerr, Partner and Producer of the FACTOR168 Creative Event Company

Source Notes:

The above published in the South China Morning Post. Strangely this September ‘MICE BIZ’ supplement it featured in is not available online… so the source material snapshot is below along with the Chinese character version alongside it.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management and event production services across Australia and throughout Asia.

Business Theatre. Strike the Balance.
Events often fail because they are too extreme. They are so fully focused on the business objectives that, let’s be frank – they run the risk of boring even the most committed attendees into a coma. No-one ever got excited about attending a boardroom meeting or worse still – a droning talkfest with no opportunity to interact and contribute. Don’t do it.

On the flipside, some events are so social, so very theatrical, that it is almost impossible to identify and address any commercial objectives other than perhaps everyone had a good time and they kinda recalled seeing the host’s logo here and there. We often call these parties. Not corporate events.

Seriously, an effective corporate event needs to strike a balance between the two. A strong business event is driven by clear event marketing objectives and is packaged and presented in an appealingly theatrical manner. This is where professional event agencies and studios play a mission critical role – they bring business and theatre together in the same room. As one client told me – we put the special into events and ensure that the Yin and Yang of business and theatre is well balanced. Get the balance right and you ensure the event will be far more engaging and effective at a personal and an organisational level.

Keep it Simple, Keep it Focused
This is the harsh truth. No one will ever know as much about or love your product, service or company as much as you. Sure, they may well enjoy your passion and perhaps admire your Wikipedia knowledge, but please, ultimately what they really want to know is how your company/product/service is going to improve or add value at some level to their own professional and personal needs. That’s business and that’s okay.
You’ll achieve this mutual satisfaction in an event setting by ensuring that your event messaging is simple, focused and consistent.
Identify the single most important key message you want to share with your guests, and then focus all the event elements, like a laser, into ensuring that this message is effectively delivered. This will not only ensure greater message penetration but will contribute to ensuring that whatever the desired post-event action, such as buying the product or service or elevating the organisation’s profile, is actioned by your guests.

Know Your Audience. Know Your Magic Moments.
Although they may appear so, audiences are never the same and with that, the challenge is always to know them better. To know them is to love them.
This applied market knowledge ensures that a bespoke event experience will be better designed to resonate more effectively with your target audience. This is the business element of business theatre. The good theatre part is ensuring that your event has a number of identifiable “magic” moments that will enchant or thrill or engage. Maybe all three.
Invariably these are moments that connect with people on a more emotional level – part of the human condition. Perhaps it was an impressive product launch mechanism, an unexpected guest speaker, a popular star, a new product range… the list can potentially be endless.
These are the moments that really stick with guests, the moments revisited around the proverbial water cooler, the moments that may well go viral, and in doing so promoting and championing your business, product or service. This is ideally what you want. It’s good business and extends on the event experience well after the event has closed.

The single greatest element that ensures successful event experience
You wouldn’t be far off the mark if you declared that it’s planning. And without question if an event is not well planned and considered you’ll certainly come unstuck.
Yes, but let’s drill down a little further. We’ve all witnessed seemingly well planned events that have suddenly come apart spectacularly like a dropped glass on a tiled floor. Invariably it comes in the form of nervous ill-prepared presenters stumbling about on stage while a team of black clad production crew desperately try to support and second guess the intentions of these presenters.
Take the time to rehearse. Mark it down as a mission critical item. It is.
This will mean ensuring that there is a mandatory block of time set aside between the event installation window and event doors opening to your guests. As a general rule, we’d recommend at least two to three hours minimum for this.
This rehearsal window should see the event flow stepped through from start to finish and specific care and attention placed on physically rehearsing presenters along with any and all entertainment cast with the full complement of production crew and event producers in attendance.
Trust us, this will be good money and good time well spent. No event ever failed because it was rehearsed too much. Ever.

Respect Your Audience
Your guests, your clients, those that form your audience, are incredibly time poor as we arm-wrestle an equitable work-family balance. And let’s be honest – with an increase in our daily electronic chatter, we’ve all developed social media-inspired short attention spans.
The net result is that your potential guests have become much more discerning with their time, how it’s used and for how long, and in doing so have become extremely unforgiving with those that fritter it away wastefully on their behalf.
So with that in mind, your event invitation is going to have to be really appealing to cut through this clutter and stake out a claim on a packed schedule. And of course your prospective guest will also be wading through a deluge of other competing event invitations for the same time and headspace.
So if you do manage to entice your guest to your event, then it had better be memorable, meaningful and engaging or you’ll fall short of achieving your event specific business objectives. Respect for your guests and their time is crucial in ensuring the event works. Worse still – it may well consign your next event invitation straight to the trashcan. And without guests, the live communication platform of events is mute to say the least.

Summary
Respect your audience, respect their time – you rarely get a second chance so commit to delivering an event that will translate into a sensational experience that delivers on clear business objectives and “magic” moments.
To do this, the event needs to strike an artful balance between business and theatre with a brand message that is simple and focused. And of course rehearse like your professional life depends on it. Ultimately, long term, it does.

Darren Kerr is a partner and producer at FACTOR168 Creative Event Company. He has been delivering creative, strategic, and tactical event services throughout Asia and across Australia for almost two decades for clients as diverse as Amway, Westfields, NCR, The Walt Disney Company, EMC Corporation, Swire, and Oracle. Visit www.factor168.com.

Source Notes:

The original published story can be found in the micenet Australia October Issue here.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event services across Australia and throughout Asia.

Congratulations also goes to all the other winners and finalists and particularly to FACTOR168 Creative Event Company supporters Peter Noble, Annika Oman and all the rest of the hard working gang at the Byron bay Bluesfest who not only took out the ‘Best Cultural or Arts Event’ award but also won the grandaddy award of them all – the ‘Australian Event of the Year’.

The following are the snapshots of FACTOR168 Creative Event Company as a finalist and along with overviews of DAe and Bluesfest. Based on these alone, it’d be fair to say that the Australian events industry remains strong and vibrant to say the least!

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company is a proud boutique Australian event agency that spends the majority of its commercial focus and activities in promoting and celebrating the Australian event industry abroad with the exportation of Australian creative, strategic and tactical event services and innovations throughout Asia and beyond.

As a company FACTOR168 delivers on a broad range of B2B and B2E events within Asia employing and exporting not only Australian technical production expertise but also the engagement and promotion of Australian performing artists within the corporate events field.

The exportation of Australian event excellence has come in the form of industry consultations for a number of Asian based event agencies and the provision of Australian event expertise for a broad range of clients that have included UBS and The Walt Disney Company in destinations such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Siem Reap, and Seoul.

In addition, the company was very proactive in the promotion and celebration of Australian event capabilities and the fostering event innovation through organizational participation such as board membership within ISES Hong Kong and with industry articles published online and within event trade magazines including CEI and Mice.Net.

The company also promotes Australia as a desirable events destination and is well positioned to service international clients that desire sensational events through powerful experiences within Australia.

In the first half of 2010 alone, DAE single-handedly delivered the world’s two largest live events in scale, spectacle and entertainment. DAE created and produced the Opening, Closing and Victory Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which took place in February 2010. Within two months DAE followed on the heels of this success by creating and delivering the largest multimedia show in world history, for the Opening Ceremony of Shanghai 2010 World Expo – the largest World Expo since its 1851 inception. From Olympic to Expo, Vancouver to Shanghai – Australian company David Atkins Enterprises has raised the bar in global live event production.

VANCOUVER 2010

Vancouver 2010 enabled DAE to use the Ceremonies as a platform to tell Canada’s story to the world, defining the way ahead for Canada and its watching public of more than three billion people worldwide. The broadcast of the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games remains to this day the most watched television event in Canadian history, the most watched non-US Olympic Ceremony within the US, and one of the top three most watched Olympic Ceremonies in world history.

SHANGHAI 2010

The first overseas company invited to independently create and produce an iconic event within China, DAE worked closely with Chinese cultural authorities to deliver a Ceremony that showcased China, and the great city of Shanghai, to the world. DAE’s Opening Ceremony in Shanghai set numerous world records, such as the biggest LED screen ever made, the largest searchlight installation in the world and one of the largest pyrotechnic shows ever created. The 30-minute Outdoor Show took place on a 3.4 km stretch of the Huangpu River in central Shanghai over buildings, bridges and bodies of water.

Bluesfest has grown to be one of Australia’s premier music festival events. Held annually for the last 21 years over the Easter long weekend, the 5 day musical extravaganza attracts people from around the World and across Australia to the North Coast of New South Wales, Byron Bay.

From humble beginnings in 1990 attracting a modest audience size of 6,000 music lovers from around the country, Bluesfest has steadily developed its reputation of excellence amongst musicians and concert goers nationally and internationally throughout its 21 year history.

This years Bluesfest celebrated its 21st Birthday and the opening of the new purpose built site at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm (10mins North of Byron Bay).

The Sun was shining and the laid back blues festival vibe was in full swing, with over 80,000 attendances across the 5 day Blues and Roots extravaganza.

Patrons were welcomed to the new site, to a massive array of the best blues, roots, folk, soul and world artists. This years headlining artists included Jack Johnson, Crowded House, Buddy Guy, Gipsy Kings, Roger Hodgson from Supertramp, RocKwiz, Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club, The Fray, Angus and Julia Stone, Lyle Lovett, Jeff Back and many more.

Source Notes:

The final winners and finalists along with their individual snapshots can be found here and here.

DAe website can be found here and the fantastic Bluesfest can be enjoyed here.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management services throughout Australia and across Asia.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences – www.factor168.com

With that I took the opportunity to sit down in Hong Kong recently for a coffee and a chat with a long standing friend and business associate – Bert Li from Amway.

Bert has for the past decade plus been charged with the responsibility of delivering a series of annual events throughout the world, many of considerable scale, on behalf of Amway Greater China.

In doing so Bert occupies a unique position in being able to comment directly on the experience of engaging and working with a variety of diverse event company partners, large scale and boutique, not only in Europe and North America, but also with companies like ourselves operating within Australia and Asia.
Are there any significant differences in the working style from region to region?
In a word – yes. According to Bert, he has found that event companies stationed within Asia are more flexible in their overall approach. They display a greater willingness to accommodate his organisation’s very specific needs and have a greater appreciation for his guest’s expectations.

On the other hand, he found that working, for example, in the United States and in many parts of Europe, that it was more a case of an ‘Our Way or No Way’ position being adopted.

Many seemingly creative event outfits were often hamstrung by their own process ‘sophistication’ rather than being focused on being more client-centric showmen. This was often further compounded by their lack of knowledge discovery and empathy for the host organisation’s culture and event legacy. Not surprisingly, many proverbial wheels have had to be reinvented over time.

Bert was quick to add however, that despite Asians being more accommodating with their working style, they still functioned with a different set of standards which often translates into an inconsistency in terms of delivering fully on their service promise. He nominated China as being particularly challenging, Thailand and Malaysia as being challenging, and Hong Kong and Singapore as being less so. He conceded that this was not as big an issue within western businesses.

By way of an example, Bert shared with me an occasion where a number of high-end projectors were ordered for an event in Southeast Asia. Technically they had the capacity to be very bright as promised, however no allowance had been made for the actual age of the bulbs inside. Turns out the projectors were not so bright at all but the vendor felt they had delivered, technically, on what was promised. It is often said that it’s the devil in the detail and this is certainly the case in some parts of Asia depending on your vendor.

I asked Bert for his take on events within Australia. Bert describes Australia in pre-and post-Olympic terms. He believes that the games contributed to the local event industry adopting a more mature international outlook.

In doing so this event helped transform Australia into a nation open to adopting an attractive blend of Western and Eastern practices that makes it well suited to Amway Greater China.
This led me to ask – so what makes a good vendor for Asian events? This is difficult to determine but Bert lists three personal must-have points – the person, the culture, the creative.

Bert places a huge amount of stock in the creativity and energy of individual event personalities, their ability and leadership, and their collegiate manner.

The event lead needs to be someone who is easy to work with, brings value and expertise to the table, and proves to be a quick good fit with Bert and his team.

Ultimately Bert and his vendor need to share, as Bert puts it – a ‘You Die I Die’ shared outlook on the event outcome.

Naturally the event company needs to demonstrate its capacity to deliver on what are at times very complex events. Just as importantly, it needs to also be seen to inhabit a real creative culture that is passionate and energised about designing and delivering a uniquely memorable event. This is no small challenge when one also has to allow for and overcome the massive creative legacy of guest experiences already in place from previous events and the competitive nature these sort of big scale events attracts.

Bert tells me that as part of his duty of care, he often counsels his fellow colleagues sitting on the tender selection panels not to be taken in by too much overt displays of creativity. He cites extensive animated 3D rendering as an example – pretty but often without substance. Instead he advocates concentrating on what the key creative thread running through the entire event concept actually is and how this will translate into achieving their primary goal.
That goal is to generate unique and enduring Amway event memories. Ensuring guests feel valued and have enjoyed a unique event memory that will excite and “incent” them along with their colleagues, friends and family into the future.

This sits at the heart of any good event and we agreed that the keys to a successful Asian event rest with an acknowledgement of audience identity and the application of considerable showcraft expertise.

An Amway guest list is drawn from across all the provinces of China. There is a huge degree of diversity at play in terms of language, cultural and social mores. So it comes as no real surprise then that Amway events pragmatically place a huge amount of importance on the creation of a compelling and visually rich event environment above anything else.
This then translates into a programme featuring the universal appeal of music and dance. The creative also tends to favour audience favourites such as special effects, including pyrotechnics and stage mechanics, as well as innovatively embracing new show technology applications.

In terms of identity, guests do not travel from Asia with the expectation that they will then engage in what is for all practical terms a common Asian event experience. They don’t want same same, they want different. An example of this, and a common mistake made by event companies catering to Asian guests, is to try to emulate a Cirque du Soleil styled event programme which would normally go over very well with a western audience. It’s just not that effective in the east.

Incredible costumed performances with awe-inspiring feats of strength, acrobatics, and aerial skills are… well commonplace and just not as special within Asia. If you manage to secure the opportunity to attend either the Red Theatre’s Kung Fu show or the Tiandi Acrobatic show – both in Beijing, you’ll never look at Cirque the same way again. Better to remain true to the event hosts’ cultural strengths where possible.

Identity however, can be utilised well with some tweaking. Bert tells of the time he staged an event in Austria that featured a massive temporary ice rink featuring a Chinese national skater. One of the other highlights of the show was a performance by the world famous Vienna Boy’s Choir. By all accounts they were sensational but unfortunately the Chinese audience was left feeling indifferent. There was no cultural reference and it apparently lacked showcraft in terms of how they were presented – which was simply so as not to detract from the voice.

Bert returned to the choir concept in Melbourne.

This time around however, a new choir was assembled and featured two important additions. The application of identity and showcraft.
To the delight of the audience, the choir were schooled in a number of Mandarin language songs and importantly the performance was also given a stronger showcraft treatment – cascades of dry ice fog and an artful lighting design. Not surprisingly, the reception second time around was hugely positive from the audience.

This checklist of the person, the culture, the creative makes good sense to me and could or should be applied to most client-vendor partnerships within the Asia Pacific.

The other key learning take-away from our catch-up was to never underestimate the importance of cultural identity and to never forget that an event is all about business theatre. These two factors were certainly in place when Bert and I first met. He engaged me to produce Australia’s largest inbound corporate event series on his behalf.

This memorable event featured iconic Sydney event sites where we entertained and mesmerised over 13,500 guests. This event has since served as a quality benchmark for both our organisations. Since then Bert has revisited Australia with smaller events on the Gold Coast, Melbourne and a return visit to Sydney is currently being mapped out and planned for.
Knowing Bert and his team, I have no doubt it will be another amazing event that innovates and motivates and will, without question, require Bert and I to share another Causeway Bay coffee together into the future.

Darren Kerr is a partner and producer at FACTOR168 Creative Event Company. He has been delivering creative, strategic, and tactical event services throughout Asia and across Australia for almost two decades for clients as diverse as Amway, Westfields, NCR, The Walt Disney Company, EMC Corporation, Swire, and Oracle.

Source Notes:

For the published version in the September issue of Micenet Asia – please click here.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event management services throughout Australia and across Asia.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences – www.factor168.com

The #eventprofs Blog Awards were presented this year at Event Camp Twin Cities thanks toFreeman. The winners were announced LIVE by Lara McCulloch-Carter (@Ready2spark) on the 9th at 5:00 pm for event professionals all across the globe to see.

Winners Announced

> People’s Choice Award: This blog received the most overall votes of all votes submitted. Therefore, this blog is the people’s choice.

Winner: Liz King Events

> Best Thought Provoking Blog: This blog provides high quality, unique education that challenges the way you think.

Winner: Liz King Events

> Best Eye Candy Blog: A blog that is visually inspiring and pushes the limits of your creativity.

Winner: Design Dawgs

> Best Corporate Blog: A rockstar corporate blog that knows how to connect, converse and add value to its clients.

Winner: Factor168

> Best Wedding Blog: Serving either brides or other wedding professionals, this blog represents the best the that wedding industry has to offer.

Winner: A Big To Do Event

> New Kid on the Blog: New on the scene, this blog is a force to be reckoned with – providing a new, unique and valuable perspective to the industry (to qualify for this category a blog must have been started in 2010).

Winner: Engage

> Best Industry Advancement Blog: Dedicated to propelling our industry forward, this blog is irreverent, provocative and challenges convention.

Winner: Velvet Chainsaw’s Midcourse Corrections

Source Notes:

The above copy provided by Event Camp Twin Cities and a ‘live’ stream of the event can be replayed here.

For more FACTOR168 Creative Event Company ‘applause’ – check it here.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event services throughout Australia and across Asia.

Event Management = www.factor168.com

In designing an entertainment program that would be powerful, impactful and yet sympathetic to the historical surroundings, it was felt that instead of another tenor, the headline performers for this event had to be more contemporary and in keeping with the feminine spirit of the Apsara.

Australian classical stars excelled in this role, with The 7 Sopranos and the electric strings trio Maske delivering a collection of world class performances that had this international audience enthralled, moved, and delighted.

Other highlights of the event included the Godfather of Asian Jazz – Jeremy Montierio in concert, along with carefully choreographed theatrical appearances by Khmer Knights, traditional drummers, beautiful Apsara dancers, and a heartfelt prosperity blessing delivered by the local brotherhood of Buddhist Monks.

Guests were also spoilt with a selection of local Khmer and international cuisine prepared by a host of special guest Chefs who worked alongside the fabulous hospitality team from the Raffles Grand Hotel D’Angkor.

Event production, event styling and signage, staging elements, massive ice carvings, transportation, and site facilities including an extensive power generator farm were provided by combination of local Cambodian vendors and specialist expertise drawn from the FACTOR168 Creative Event Company trusted network of partners based in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali, Brisbane, and Sydney.

This very special event experience was produced by FACTOR168 Creative Event Company on behalf of one:fortyseven communications for a global information technology corporation with strong corporate social responsibility ties within Cambodia.

Source Notes:

Special thanks goes out to Scott at our valued agency client one:fortyseven communications.

* Selected event imagery can be enjoyed by invitation in our Showcraft Image Gallery.

If you’d like to keep in touch with us – than go to our social media page full of twits and facebookery here.

FACTOR168 Creative Event Company delivers creative, strategic, and tactical event services throughout Australia and across Asia.

Sensational Events through Powerful Experiences – www.factor168.com

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