Conference Snapshot

CONFERENCE ORGANISER:
All Occasions Group (AOG), Adelaide

CLIENT: Confidential

ATTENDANCE: 1,200 delegates DATE: March 2006

VENUE:
Burswood Convention and Events Centre, Perth, WA

CHALLENGE: SOCIAL PROGRAM
Faced with a growing number of attendees fuelled by word-of-mouth advertising and an excellent track record for delivering exciting gala events, the numbers for the “Stars of the Stage” gala dinner rapidly increased to 1,200. Given the extremely large sound, lighting and stage rig that was required for the entertainment, “Bjorn Again” and “The Leading Men”, AOG had previously set the maximum number of attendees at 1,100.

Not wanting to disappoint their delegates, the client continued to accept additional bookings and challenged AOG to “make it right on the night”. To further add to the challenge, 24 gold-reserved sponsor tables were requested as prime front-of-stage seating. Considerable liaison took place with the banquets manager and staff at Burswood to ensure that all gold-reserved sponsors were seated with the best possible vantagepoint for the dynamic line-up of music and entertainment. Within 24 hours, the AOG team arranged the notification of table numbers to the 240 VIP guests via personalised hotel-room drops.

With lighting and a sound rig to rival a rock concert, and on an extremely tight budget, nearly 1,200 people dined on gourmet WA produce, complemented with award-winning local wines, and danced the night away. The growing list of compliments and accolades AOG received was testament to the fact that their client, the gold sponsors and their VIP guests were ecstatic about the event.

CHALLENGE: TECHNICAL
On day one of the exhibition set-up, it became apparent that the majority of the 70-plus exhibitors were relying on fast Internet connectivity to run presentations and applications from remote servers. By 1pm the available bandwidth had been consumed and all Internet connectivity had failed.

Faced with this looming disaster, the AOG team appointed their on-site IT specialist to commence the rather complex troubleshooting process required to resolve the problem. With numerous networks, switches, hubs and thousands of hotel, conference centre, casino and other complex data connections, the task was extremely challenging.
In the face of mounting frustrations from the exhibitors and the delay in delegate registrations caused by the failure of the on-site web registration system, the IT specialist worked feverishly to resolve the issue. Within three hours the problem was traced to resident viruses located on PCs in the exhibition area, which were promptly removed from the network, virus scanned, cleaned and later allowed back online following final inspection.

The team at All Occasions Group:

CHALLENGE: ACCOMMODATION
The shortage of on-site accommodation available on the Burswood complex for the 1,200 attendees necessitated a number of delegates to be housed off site at a range of Perth city-based hotels. To provide all delegates with easy transport to and from the Burswood complex, AOG arranged complimentary morning, afternoon and late-evening coach transfers. This service was very well received and ensured that all delegates arrived and departed in a timely and efficient manner.

From left to right front row: Robyn West, Administration Manager; Cheryl Quinn, Administration Manager; Jodie Clifford, Business Development Manager;
Left to right back row: Anne-Marie Quinn, Managing Director; Will Boran-Fogarty, IT Specialist; Genesia Mandica, Conference and Events Co-ordinator;
Chris Thomas, Conference and Events Co-ordinator.