Mixing business with pleasure. Some of our international clients use their regional conferences as a platform for team-strengthening and brainstorming. Having selected Kuala Lumpur as city host, CPB’s event programme included a welcome seminar, three days of conference, three social functions and a fun-based teambuilding challenge. Our mandate as their Turn-key event manager was to assess venue capabilities; coordinate hotel support facilities and transportation logistics; and plan, design and execute their event programme.

While the Hyatt Saujana was initially selected, the venue had to be switched to the Palace of Golden Horses due to date changes. CPB’s contingent of nearly 400 would fill all but four of the hotel’s entire room capacity. However, our greatest challenge would not be room availability or coordinating international delegate arrivals. It would lie in managing the event programme around external events already confirmed at the hotel by other clients. The ballroom would be occupied by wedding functions on two of the three nights, and an afternoon garden wedding reception would restrict access to the hotel grounds during the teambuilding challenge.

Our approach to planning, design and construction had therefore to include in logistical solutions. Both wedding functions agreed to reduce their ballroom usage to 2/3rds so our staging could be fixed in the remaining third. The first night function became a KL tour and dinner at KL Tower. For the second night we provided a Kampung Night featuring our cultural dance troupe at the nearby MINES resort, even though they only had capacity for 225. We expanded the restaurant capacity using a ground-leveling support system and a customised stage platform with canopies. For the third night event we provided a Retro Night Dinner with a 60ft long stage and ultra-violet décor and effects.

For their fun-based teambuilding activity, we divided the delegates into twelve teams and designed a series of land and water challenges such as boat building, a material hunt, physical endurance, fear-factors and mental quizzes. Teams would need to split up in order to complete all the challenges, with CitiPoints earned for each challenge completed to determine the winning team.