Conference Management Latest Events

For the 3rd consecutive year we were delighted to be asked to produce a motor finance giant’s annual conference and awards. Previously the conference involved just the sales team, but this year they took the bold decision to involve the entire workforce from Edinburgh to Southampton travelled to the Barceló Hinckley Island hotel.

The client’s crucial aim was to engage every member of staff in the 2011 business objectives and to recognise the vital importance of every individual’s performance within the organisation. However this presented a challenge on two fronts:
- how to motivate people to give up their weekend to attend the event
- how to engage the non-sales staff with company targets

KDM were asked to manage and produce the conference and to convey the message the concept ‘Celebrating being the best you can be’ was selected and conveyed with the help of a theme with which everyone would easily connect – celebrity, film and awards. We designed a bespoke conference logo and began by sending each guest a personalised ‘Hollywood Walk of Fame’ desktop pad and a unique combination code; guests would use their code to seek to open one of 5 golden safes at the event with the winner enjoying the mystery contents! Further email teasers followed up on the ‘star pads’ to build excitement for the conference itself.

Of course the top performing sales people were also treated to a little VIP treatment as they arrived in chauffeur driven supercars and enjoyed express check in, upgraded hotel rooms, champagne, event goody bags, after dinner liqueurs and red carpet security for dinner!

The Conference Check in area was themed with giant film reels, golden stars, clapperboards and plasma screens displayed the conference logo and welcome message. Once through to the main conference set however the entire look and feel was business focused with the AV set reflecting the company logo for the Directors’ presentations. Following a Q&A session where pre submitted burning questions were answered, guests then enjoyed a high energy motivational speaker followed by a team event centred upon producing a spoof review of the latest Hollywood blockbuster – filmed around their company Directors!

During pre dinner drinks, Marilyn Monroe and Sean Connery dropped by for a glass of champagne and to congratulate the lucky golden safe winners. For dinner, the conference room was transformed to give a glamorous exciting feel to the evening with tables dressed in gold and black complementing the evening awards’ set flanked by giant 7ft Oscars. Hosted by the irrepressible Keith Chegwin, guests were wowed by the video intros, themed film soundtracks and lighting sets as the Directors presented awards which encompassed every area of the business.

‘And the Winner is …….’ our satisfied client! Achieving a 95% attendance, the client was delighted with the results from the event – “I just wanted to say again a massive thank you to you, Kathy and the team for such a fabulous event! It couldn’t have gone better and I am still on a major high. Your team were all so efficient and everything was extremely slick, controlled and timely.”

The highlights of the day were captured by our photographer and each branch’s formal team photograph will ensure they have a reminder of their belonging within the company’s goals.

Nicky

When a major plc was looking for the design, production and management for the annual conference of their senior management team they came to KDM. With the objective of the Chief Executive and his senior leadership team reviewing their progress towards becoming an HPO the standards expected were self evident and with a brief covering the conference from conception to delivery within a three month timescale.

From sourcing the venue – and with over 80 bedrooms plus eight breakout areas needed – this was a challenge. We however came up with the perfect venue in terms of location, quality and price and then focussed upon preparing the conference itself.

We helped in the motivational music selection, created the Conference image, designed the Event invitation and the PowerPoint template design for speakers before moving onto the opening video introduction.
We shot the pre-event film and edited it to show as part of the conference opening sequence and were filming during the conference to produce the final event film which was shown at the end of Day 2.

We designed the set, specified, booked and delivered all the conference AV, reformatted the speakers’ presentations to fit both the plasma screens and the digital projection formats.

At the start of the event we coordinated the rehearsal to ensure that the speakers were familiar with the layout and comfortable with the set and ironed out the inevitable wrinkles.

We then moved on to ensuring that the delegate check-in ran smoothly and their baggage drops worked smoothly and we worked with the hotel through the two days of the conference to ensure that refreshments and room changes worked on schedule whilst facilitating last minute changes and troubleshooting problems as they arose.

The result was a successful conference and a happy client.

When a leading multi-national opened its new £60m investment, a major piece of high-technology engineering with leading environmental credentials and the first Air Separation Unit to be built in the UK for ten years, they chose KDM’s conference management team to organise the plant opening ceremony.

With international guests, employees both past and present together with local dignitaries and the press the event was high profile and had to be to our usual high standards. KDM handled every aspect from the pre-event safety issues to the floral decorations. This involved the temporary structure for the ceremony, all staging and presentation equipment and crew plus the coordination of the post-opening luncheon celebration.

Christmas is the most important time of year for our client, so the key was to motivate staff to drive each and every product in their stores throughout the coming months. We combined tactile areas where staff could view and touch promoted lines with fun activities and conference sessions. (more…)

We were commissioned by an agency to provide a full conference management package for the first meeting of a newly merged company. The aim was to introduce the business and their products to the respective employees of each company. We provided everything for the conference and exhibition sessions including set, lighting, sound and graphics. (more…)

A long-standing multi-national client recently asked us to organise a fully inclusive three-day international conference here in the UK, for forty leading academics and nutritional experts. As well as UK delegates, guests and speakers were flying in from throughout Europe, Canada and the States. (more…)

Hot on the heels of a successful Play Your Games Right! event, our client asked us to provide ideas for their next event – The Middle Managers’ Summer Conference. They wanted to combine two of our activities: Breaking News and Ransom to carry their business objectives and corporate message throughout the Conference. (more…)