Friends in high places…..

I’m a professional event organizer.  And with EVT I work all over the world, marshalling other professionals and specialists to deliver amazing, breathtaking, exciting, memorable experiences.  EVT expects the best from the people we work with, and as a result deliver the best to our clients.

 

But sometimes it’s a good thing to remember what drew us all to this profession in the first place.  For example, the simple joy of creating something from scratch and being able to look on in wonder and say….”I did that.  It’s so cooll!!! “,  the pleasure of working with a team with little or no budget for the sole purpose of seeing what we are really capable of pulling out of the hat when we don’t have easy or local access to a full range of props, linens, furniture and theming, and top name corporate acts.  The crazy things that can happen when when budgets are forced to take a back seat and innovation and creativity take a step forward to compensate.

 

The best opportunities we have to go back to our roots in this way are when working in remote locations (and I’m talking about Australia now). The moment we have to truck or fly equipment somewhere I know the budget will be psyching itself up to take a couple of very deep breaths and then throw the equivalent of a two year old’s temper tantrum in the middle of a supermarket.

 

It is true that it’s not easy getting ‘stuff’ to places that aren’t well connected.  But just because something isn’t easy doesn’t mean that the budget from our client magically increases to match the difficultly level.  And therein lies the problem.

 

But problems are not problems, they’re challenges.  Because what happens when the prices go up and keep heading up is that people like me go rogue and start talking to local people, ‘normal, everyday’ people.

 

Which brings me to my point.  Every now and again it is great to be reminded how much fun it can be to work with complete amateurs.

 

All you really need to do is find one local resident, just one, with the ‘spark’, that little look in their eye that tells you they can’t resist a challenge  Someone who is liked and respected and who can help energise and unite their community to create something amazing.  A one off, just for one night.

 

What happens then?  You get a whole community excited and motivated to be involved in something out of the norm.  People who can’t resist the idea of showcasing their hometown to the ‘outsiders’.  People who will put in long hours and huge amounts of their own time, blood, sweat and tears to bring our vision alive.

 

Port Lincoln in South Australia is one such community.  The surrounding area is stunningly beautiful, the people are friendly and it’s a short flight from Adelaide.  There are some great ‘individual experiences’ to be had – shark diving, swimming with tuna or sea lions or tasting the delights of the local winery.  But that’s kind of it in an ‘unique, incentive destination’ sort of way.

 

Unlike Adelaide, there is no long list of MICE suppliers to choose from.  And for a lot of the services you might want there are no suppliers at all.  Pretty much everything has to be flown in from Adelaide.  Don’t get me wrong, the actual conferencing and accommodation itself is handled beautifully by Port Lincoln Hotel and their amazing staff but once you leave the meeting room your options for unusual, and well serviced event locations are limited to say the least..

 

Unless of course you make some interesting friends aka ‘locals’.  I’m not going to name drop but they know who they are.

 

Friends who’ll take an idea and run with it. 

 

Friends who’ll find the oldest tuna boat in Australia and transform it into a sushi station for pre dinner drinks and canapés,

 

Friends who’ll recruit an army of local volunteers to transform a tin shed into a magical world through natural talent and sheer hard work. 

 

Friends who’ll sweet talk farmers into providing walls of straw, artists and tradespeople to provide side show games, people to drape, light, disguise and make outrageous props and theming.

 

Friends who’ll convince retired chef’s who could hold their own in 3 hat metro restaurants to serve out of this world, innovative food whilst ensuring the diners have fun at the same time,

 

I’m proud to call them my friends (even though I never knew half of the names of the entire crew – there seemed to be hundreds of people giving their time and good cheer throughout the course of the two day set up).  There wasn’t a professional event supplier amongst them but by the time those guys had finished, it was one of the most beautiful (and funny and quirky and simply brilliant) transformed venues I’d ever seen.  The energy level and good humour throughout was inspiring and it was an honour and a joy to work with them.

 

As for the end result, our client had seen the ‘before’ version of the venue and was very uncertain when we urged her to trust in the amazing powers of the Port Lincoln Posse (despite much good natured teasing and promises of outrageous forfeits should the desired effect not be achieved).

 

Who knows when I’ll next be fortunate enough to have another event which takes me back to Port Lincoln but I’d do it again tomorrow at the drop of a hat – and so would our client.   Judging by the coverage from the local media, the team rocked!!!

 

And if you’re thinking of heading off to Port Lincoln to hold a conference or event – do it without delay!!!  I’ve never worked with better and all those new friends are just waiting there to meet you.

You Tarzan….Me Injured

South Africa……It’s bucket list stuff.  6 star safari lodge, breathtakingly swanky outdoor en suite showers which give the local wildlife an eyeful every morning, game drives at dawn and sunset with the accompanying heart-starter coffees or sun-downer cocktails.  Wild tribal parties in the Boma and memory card after memory card filled with once in a lifetime photos taken during the search for the ‘Big Five’.  (Incidentally no one can ever remember the fifth…everyone gets the elephant, the rhino the leopard and the lion but what of the poor Cape buffalo – they’re always forgotten)

And there’s obviously something about finding yourself in the wilds of Africa (albeit pretty luxurious ‘wilds’) which brings out the Tarzan in every man.

This was apparent at 3.30am one morning when I was woken from a deep sleep by the unmistakable sound stylings of the wild man himself shattering the pre dawn silence and echoing across the plains.  Come on…you know it well…..AaaaaaehahegahaAAAAAehehaehhahaha

Johnny Weissmuller sadly passed away in 1984 so after careful consideration I decided it could only be one of my group.  Correction, ‘some’ of my group.  There was definitely more than one culprit and the sounds were emanating from several different directions and showed no sign of abating.

Mindful of the fact that in the films, whenever Tarzan did his warble thingy, a vast variety of wildlife tended to come running tout suite, I decided to investigate – just in case I had to divert a herd of charging elephants away from the breakfast area.  There’s nothing that disrupts a group more than having to wait to be seated first thing in the morning.

I jumped out of bed.  I armed myself with a pair of flip flops (it is a completely unknown fact that they are 100% effective against charging elephants – but I’m a professional, it’s my business to know these things)  and set for battle I stumbled out onto the veranda of my ‘hut’.

I squinted out into the darkness in all directions.  Obviously, what with me not actually being a meerkat I failed to sense any useful information at all and turned around to walk back into my hut – nose first straight into the patio door which I was too half asleep to remember closing.

It really hurt.

Really

After a few minutes of pathetic moaning and rocking back and forth whilst clutching at my face I noticed that the Tarzan cry had abruptly stopped so even though I spent the rest of the night prodding tentatively at the white hot ball of heat which had previously been my nose, at least I could do it in relative silence.

Over breakfast the next morning (the area thankfully unscathed by elephant charge I might add) I refused to answer why the middle of my face looked like a baboon’s bottom until I’d gotten the gory details of the Tarzan story.

It turns out that experience of the outdoor showers had inspired all the chaps to have a Tarzan Cry competition and it had been scheduled for 5.30am that very morning.

However, a few select members of our group (they swore that they’d been guarding the camp perimeter against the local wildlife but I happen to know the closest they’d gotten to animals that night was the zebra skin rug on the floor of the bar in the main lodge) had been en route to their huts at 3.30am and ‘accidentally’ let off a shout.

That set off a chain reaction throughout the huts as the male population, thinking that they’d overslept, stumbled out of bed and into their outdoor en suites to do their vocal bit until their wives and girlfriends had restored order and sent them back to bed.

The moral of this story is threefold.  Firstly, leave the wake up calls to your iPhone, secondly flip flops might in theory protect you against an elephant stampede but they’re definitely useless against a patio glass door and finally nobody remembers you when you come in fifth.  Bet you’ve forgotten already…….