Last week I returned from a project in Bali for the Forever Living Global Rally 2023. We did a series of events at the Westin Hotel and also the GWK Cultural Park in Denpasar. The annual project which is usually somewhere impactful and luxurious gets the main successful sales teams together from all over the world for training and new product launches. The activities for families and Forever business owners are an important part of working and doing something together during the weeklong event, helping to build up a party atmosphere for the final weekend event and profit share announcements.
As you can imagine this takes a team of tried, and often tested, people who know the client well and they all drive towards the guests having an amazing time and being in good spirits to go to training workshops, attend country meetings to discuss sales and plans for the following year. Its an important event for Forever and it remains important to their business model, despite the online changes many of this style of business have had to embrace.
Putting it together is a very small team of HOD’s, of which I am one, under the guidance of Mark Gocher, Pm extraordinare, that select suppliers for their department, and what is not available in country is sometimes brought in from the nearest country that has the required specialist equipment. Despite relatively cheap labour costs the equipment coming out of Jakarta was found to be prohibitively high. Whether this was because we were just after the G20 in the same venues or whether that is the going rate, we had to get creative for some of the technical equipment. A policy of charging for everyday and not the usual 3 day as a week hire certainly helped tip it over acceptable cost limits.
So, a few tips if you are doing an event in Bali and need suppliers. We met some amazing people who guided us through the processes in Bali and they were invaluable. I had a lovely lady working as part of my team, very calm and precise and spoke fluent English, which was very helpful for working with my local suppliers. Her name is Aulia Irawan and her company is a small travel agency, PT Odee Indotrans so she is packed with local knowledge and worked with the suppliers we found effortlessly.
For print I used a company called Bintang Sempurna based in Jakarta but they have a partner in Denpasar in Bali. They were very efficient, and the product was great, we had large format prints, pop ups and card cut outs for photo opportunities, they also did a lot of stationary printing for us too. Their reaction times to new items required were flawless and effortlessly delivered.
For set build and display materials for a registration, a rally zone and a store we designed and built we used Workshop 88. Their contact Tommy was very quick in responding to requests especially extras we needed. They supplied crew to build and install and all the teams were really quick, and the finish was excellent. They have partners around the islands and in Jakarta as well.
For tech companies, there are a lot in Bali. They all seem to have some good kit, but it would be difficult to recommend one in itself, as they are all quite small, so they use a lot of other companies to do specific tasks in our experience. It became rather confusing as to who was doing what and not great when trying to keep on top of any ongoing issues. The local tech Production Manager who was invaluable, Deny Pambagyo should be contacted to give you guidance and steer you in the right direction. He will know where to point you and I would suggest you have him on site for his local knowledge of what is possible and what isn’t.
A local team of Pm’s (from Australia) headed up by Producer Ron Anderson spent many days building a wonderful stage and Led screens only to be thwarted by torrential rain. Ultimately it would have been possible to rescue the night given more time, but we had guests literally getting into coaches when the decision was made to pull the evening event at the GWK cultural park.
All in all a great experience and with the last minute venue change due to bad weather for the main event, the incumbent tech team, the local suppliers and the Westin hotel banqueting team, quickly worked to find solutions to move a party for two thousand people from a massive outdoor space to a standard room in a hotel 20 miles away, but still keep most of the show content and drama.
Finally a word for Tim Roffey of Ambar Installations whose support enabled me to find Aulia and the graphics company. His in country knowledge and language was very useful and as always delivered with charm and humour.
Pictures: Richard Penhaligon
