This week, we delivered our first ever event in the Middle East! It is always exciting to go somewhere completely new and to challenge ourselves working with a different culture. Chris and I set off from Heathrow to Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As a massive exporter of natural gas and a magnet for many other financial industries, this country does nothing by halves.
We were brought over to provide an after-lunch energy boost to a conference of about 800 delegates. With a packed agenda, we only had around 25 minutes to make an impact and teach the whole room how to play together as one!
Can you believe that in those four bags you can see with us at the airport, we had over 800 percussion items? This demonstrates how easy and cost effective it can be to provide any size of group with our type of event activities.
When we arrived and stepped outside the airport, the blast of heat hit us, even though it was late at night. We were then whisked away to be met by the very impressive Doha skyline.
The next morning we went to meet our client and see the venue. The conference centre just outside the city was simply huge. We were warmly welcomed, shown around the colossal building and went over the plan from top to bottom.
On the event day itself, it was time to put our office’s careful planning into action. As soon as the delegates left for lunch, we had a team of ten helpers swarm around the room placing the instruments on every seat. I am always impressed at how quickly this can be done.
Our bewildered guests filtered back in from lunch to find instruments everywhere! It was now show time.
Although the audience contained many international delegates, I was acutely aware that this is quite a conservative and strictly Muslim country.
My particular style of facilitation is often based around comedy, energy and a few zany antics. While not curtailing how I work too much, I was just a little more sensitive and less demonstrative in how I led this particular session.
This paid of in seconds as we had the whole room involved, on our side and sounding fantastic. We stuck perfectly to time and gave the room a blast of surprise fun that very few of the audience would have seen before.
Our brief was to wake everyone up and give them something totally different to remember the day with. I believe we did that but, more importantly, they did that!
All the instruments were conference giveaways so there was no equipment clear-up required. We walked off stage leaving a totally energised group for the next speaker on the agenda.
With our client really happy, we waved goodbye and walked into the sizzling heat.
We look forward to coming back and wish everyone involved a big thank you for having us over and trusting us with such an important event.
It was a perfect example of how easy it is to deliver maximum impact with a large group while keeping the budget sensible. More and more we are travelling across the world to bring epic experiences like this with little or no fuss. Please Contact Us to discuss how we can help you.
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