“Adam Proto was an exceptional mentor. He is highly creative, innovative and has been a true inspiration. Although it seems so long ago, I still remember his teachings and guidance when planing and producing events. He set myself and my team, later in Aylaa, up to achieve the best we could. Adam gave me the tools and the support to go on to produce some of the biggest event productions in the UK and USA. I have regularly used his lessons to guide junior staff and other events professionals I have worked along side over the years. I would recommend any one who has the opportunity to work or be mentored by Adam to grab the chance with both hands. I hope Adam and I will have the opportunity to work together again in the future.” February 7, 2012

1^stEve Laws, Brand Manager, Virgin Entertainment Group
was with another company when working with Adam at Terbell Event Management Training

About Transforming Education Summit

The Abu Dhabi Education Council, with its partners OECD, Booz & Company and ATIC is organising the first annual Transforming Education Summit (TES) in May 2012.

"Looking at how to make schools and universities better, not just what makes them good!"

TES is the global forum for education transforming leaders – TES is the global forum for education transforming leaders – it's uniquely focused on the dynamics of transformation.

TES Vision:
"To be the forum for effective transformation leadership and dialogue between leaders of education transformation and their key stakeholders"

TES Concept:
"An exclusive Abu Dhabi located Summit for dialogue of transformation leaders and key influencers to: •Share insights and good practices on leading education transformation
•Set the TES Transformation Agenda

TES provides transformation leaders with enduring outcomes:
•Insights and networking opportunities of the 2 day Summit in Abu Dhabi
•The TES Transforming Agenda report
•The Education Watch – a global annual education survey
•Regular working groups of policy, community and business leaders

Log onto - www.tes-abudhabi.org for more information on the Summit

HQ Creative are organising the event alongside ADEC, the scope extends from creating the registration process and web site to the turn key delivery of the project.

Check out HQ Creative on www.hqcreativeuae.com

1 Week Internship at HQ Creative Dubai:

Day 1:
I looked at a detailed budget sheet for a client meeting for 3.30pm this afternoon, we had to reduce the costing and take some items out as our budget was too high for the client. If it meant lowering the mark up percentage or taking out a few items it’s worth it to make the client happier and gives us the chance to win the pitch along with chances of developing a long term relationship with the clients.
I had lunch around 1.00pm then went off to our client meeting in Abu Dhabi with Adam and Producer Katie.
It took less than two hours to get to Abu Dhabi; our meeting took about 15 minutes so I guess it’s quite a long journey for a 15 minute pitch but that’s the kind of timing and preparation it takes for a 15 minute pitch sometimes, that’s just events for you. I took some notes and learnt that there were other agencies pitching for the same project and budget was a big issue for the client with our charges being the most expensive so Adam did his best with the mark ups, he also took some items out whilst maintaining the quality that HQ offers, still we can't take it for granted that we will get it that’s why it's worth knowing who our competitors are before we turn up and it helps to know what pitches they’ve won before. Of course our strength’s is what we can put emphasis on, experience, quality and most of all the creativity so Adam did just that, he explained his creative ideas for the event and this impressed the clients a lot, we’ll have to wait and see if we win the pitch.

Day 2:
I watched one of the designer’s create 3D view of a stage and venue design step by step come together. My God, a lot of editing, deleting, retouching and polishing, the creative team aim for perfection and every detail makes a huge difference in winning the pitch, a lot of time, patience, thinking and consistency is required for a perfect design.
After lunch I looked at a list of companies that our coordinator will be calling up to inform about HQ creative services. It’s not as simple as just making a call, it’s important to get hold of the right person which doesn’t always happen with the first call, planning what to say and get them to be interested with a subtle approach by sending them information about us by email first and wait for them to come back to us when they’re ready.
Later in the day Adam asked me to explore Microsoft project 2010 in order to create task breakdowns & milestone reports. I spent a few hours learning the basics from the book realized that the planning, time keeping and organizing in events is non-stop and planning alone just takes up a lot of time, just knowing who is doing what, when and where on Microsoft project makes life a lot easier in the long run and creates a great communication line for the team especially when there are preparations to be done for more than one project in the same time and new tasks are always coming up unexpectedly to allocate to someone in the team.

Day 3:
Adam gave me a new brief to read which was sent to us today from a Tourism Development & Investment Company from Abu Dhabi. He asked me to re-create a HQ creative version of the brief to send to our suppliers.
I’m glad Adam asked me to do this as the last time I looked at a brief was almost a year ago at the course and I’ve never seen or written an event brief before so wasn’t sure exactly what to include and not to include. I looked at the contents page to see what’s crucial for the supplier’s, re-read each paragraph and paraphrased it in my own words, a bit of editing, copy, cut and pasting was done too. I learnt that it’s important to pay attention to detail and send full details of listing of items with the right size, quantity and measurements so suppliers know exactly what they’re doing and can have it ready within the given deadline.

Day 4
I attended a client meeting with Adam for a professional football league association. They wanted us to build a creative stage for them within 3 minutes on the football ground / stadium. I took notes and learnt a lot about football tournament ceremonies as well as stage design ideas.
I must say football was never an interest of mine so good listening skill is the only tool that’s going to get me through this meeting. Even if you don’t know anything about the topic, activity or event if you listen and write the notes down it can be discussed later and the right information can be delivered to everyone else in the team.
Adam asked me to write up a creative brief based on the meeting to hand to the creative team, at first it sounded difficult as I wasn’t sure what a creative brief was and so I thought I’d get started by writing bullet points of the meetings.
Adam had a look at it and told me to re-write it in more detail so the creative team knows more about the company and exactly where, when and why they are having the event along with the client requirements such as details of a creative stage and the budget.
The client at the meeting mentioned that we are one of her favorite agency she’s worked with along with one other, this means we have a very good chance of winning this pitch providing we deliver a much more creative stage than the previous one. I must say within four days my knowledge and confidence has increased from day 1 and I can’t imagine how much I will learn if I stay here for a few months.

Day 5
I spent a lot of time looking at the server today and realized that there is so much to learn from there. I looked at the photos of Christmas decorations HQ has done for various malls in Dubai, they were all very different designs and very well thought out. I also looked at some pitch presentations. This was a really good insight on the hard work, HQ Creative team put together to make it all happen from research, to preparing a pitch and organizing then delivering the event, it shows how professional and organized they are as a company and I think I made a good choice of work placement to learn good habits.
Later Katie the producer asked me to type out a copy of a cover letter from a hard copy which she needs to email a client for a proposal, everything has to be done professionally, worded very carefully so the client can agree with the proposal by writing and both sides can proceed further.
Later, I approached the people in the production department and asked them about their parts of the job, they told me that they were working on a shopping festival happening tomorrow where we will be managing the stage / entertainment for 16 days. I asked Adam if I can get involved as this is a good opportunity to see a live event be set up for the first time, he thought it was good idea, can’t wait for tomorrow.

Day 6
The shopping festival was happening at the beach next to the mall, I watched the stage be build up and red carpet get cup up to stick on the floor, the entertainers hired were celebrity look alike including Justin Timeberlake, Britney Spears, David Bekham, Will Smith and many others.
I helped with moving furniture into the backstage room and dressing room for the performers due to arrive tomorrow morning, everything was full of dust and the floor was sandy, some pieces needed a good clean as they were coming from the warehouse so I guess organizing events isn’t so glamorous; both production and project management team have to get their hands dirty in setting things up together, it’s also about good teamwork.

Day 7
I woke up earlier than usual as Andrea the Assistant Producer needed my help with setting up the dressing room, backstage room and lounge room for the performers before they arrived, including cleaning everything and shopping for the performers at Ikea to buy things such as table lamps, refreshments, snacks, table cloths, tissues, hangers and rails for their outfits.
We spent a lot of time cleaning up as there was no sinks nearby to get water so we wet the sponges with mineral water, the furniture from the warehouse was so heavily stained, this was the least enjoyable part of the job but if it doesn’t get done then the performers can’t get comfortable and this will ruin the whole event which will make us as an agency will look unreliable and professional.
Once the power was on we got the sound and audio tested, we played around with stage lighting and added a few lamps in the backstage room as it will get dark in the evening and everyone needs to see what they’re doing, the performers arrived and did some rehearsals to get warmed up with the speakers and sound system. Things can easily go wrong with events so is important to prepare your selves as much as possible, test everything is working before the guests / audiences arrive.

Abu Dhabi Art Case Study

If anything the build of Abu Dhabi Art 2011 was a demonstration of how in the face of adversity and effective carnage it’s possible to pull an international standard art show out of the bag and create a show literally out of a sandy hole in the Desert.

The event this year was moved to Saadiyat Island in Abu Dahbi to a newly constructed venue called the UAE Pavilion which was brought from the China Expo to the UAE and rebuilt in under 5 months. I was contracted to do the consultation on the venue to make it ready as a purpose built venue for events and in particular Abu Dhabi Art, little did I know that we would be producing the first event and the handover period was a few days before the opening event.

We moved in 5 days before the show opened and construction was still in full swing with ceilings not even plastered let alone painted, there were no windows in the building because they were made the wrong size so that meant no air-conditioning. The lift and stairs to the second floor weren’t built, no house lighting and the toilets were - well let’s say that it was a very dark room that was more like a solitary punishment cell than somewhere one could retire to relieve one self. This was a real shame because knowing what I had taken on meant that the one thing I needed more than anything else was an available toilet!

Quietly it was dawning on me that this was a large sand dune I needed to climb and had to drag my team, suppliers and clients long with me. We had to build nearly 2000m of 3.5m high exhibition walling with a complicated truss system holding it all together, all this is a venue that we only had drawing for and no accurate measurements. Sure enough the building work and the 1000 labourers traipsing across the 7,000 sqm of carpet made mincemeat of the pristine look we were trying to achieve – at times we were taking 2 steps forward and about 1000 back, it was like herding cats!

We were building the exhibition so quickly that at one point we built one of the crew into the walls, we only realised when all the drilling and noise stopped and we heard him screaming for us not to leave him behind the wall for the duration of the show – We had to remove a whole section of wall to retrieve him, he was a happy man and made sure he stayed on the right side of the wall building for the rest of the build – made me chuckle….

Finally one of the crew said we could see light at the end of the tunnel, what they didn’t know was that that as just me with a torch and we still had a long way to go. The finishing was a long haul job which involved almost all the crew doing 48 hour shifts with no sleep or rest, time was running out and we had a colossal amount of work still to do, galleries were turning up to set up there booths and they were walking into what still looked like a building site – still no air-conditioning and as we all knew but never ever discussed – no air-con = no show

The final 24 hours involved an army of crew crawling all over the site fixing everything from skirting boards to roofs to the booths that had ordered them, and then came the “special orders” from the galleries who wanted their walls moved or the space re-arranged. This was about as welcome as a city banker at a demonstration outside St Pauls.

Finally, in came the cleaners, up went the gallery signage and branding, off came the plastic and within hours we had accomplished a miracle and the impossible all at the same time.

The event opened on time and with a few minor hiccups which in the great scheme of things were insignificant considering five days earlier we were in a cesspit of dust, scaffolding and broken spirits.

“It’s truly possible to accomplish the impossible and deliver a monumental challenge if you have the determination and belief in yourself and the team around you”  

Trust in your Terbell mentors because they will give you the tools and ammunition for your event battles and share their knowledge so you only fight only the ones you can win!

Abu Dhabi Art (ADA2011) is an international platform for modern and contemporary art from around the four corners of the world.

The first two events 2009 & 2010 were held at The Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi. Traditionally the event is held in the first week of November.

The inaugural event in 2009 exceeded expectations and included 50 of the world’s most prominent galleries from 19 countries displaying a wealth of museum quality work to more than 15,000 visitors over a four day period. In 2010 the number of visitor rose to 17,000.

Abu Dhabi Art creates a dialogue of cultures by bringing together a selection of leading art dealers and innovative new galleries and surrounding them with an exceptionally rich schedule of special exhibitions, public programmes and cultural events.

 

The 2011 event will move venue to the UAE Pavilion on Manarat Al Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. The UAE Pavilion is a purpose built venue designed specifically for hosting the exhibition area of Abu Dhabi Art and along with the exiting exhibition centre, surrounding land and the St Regis Hotel.

We are at the build stage with five days to go before the art arrives to be hung!

These are the pictures for today 5th November 2011

 

Dubai Debt Crisis Halts Building Of World's Largest Indoor Mountain Range

January 14, 2010 | Issue 46•02

DUBAI—Representatives from the emirate of Dubai announced with disappointment this week that its recent debt crisis has forced developers to halt construction on the city's long-planned 22-mile-long indoor mountain range.

Planners continue to take future reservations for the mountains' 9 and 10-star hotels.

The culmination of a decade's worth of ambitious and expensive building projects, Dubai's estimated $100 billion debt officially brought work on the artificial mountain range to a stop on Tuesday.

"This is a very sad day for the emirate of Dubai," Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum told reporters at a press conference held inside the gold-plated anti-gravity chamber in his palace. "Although I believe it is the basic right of all who visit us to be able to scale to the top of a 15,000-foot-tall manmade snowcap, these tough economic times have made it an impossibility. Never before has our proud municipality faced such a grave crisis."

Added Sheikh Hamdan, "The time, I'm afraid, has finally come for us to tighten our jewel-studded belts."

With only seven of the planned 19 peaks completed and the artificial glaciers only partially frozen, the real estate firm Nakheel now says the landmark Alps Dubai development will miss its planned April 2011 opening date, and with it, the controlled volcanic eruption that would have commemorated the event.

Some of the more conservative construction projects completed before Dubai's financial meltdown.

"Everything had been progressing right on schedule," said project manager Zayed Kemaar. "The plate tectonics were almost in place, we were getting good vulcanism, and we had helicopter-loads of marble and schist arriving every day from Switzerland. We even had herds of pure-white albino bighorn rams standing on five of the peaks. Then, of course, the bottom fell out, and now we barely have the money to keep the air conditioning on."

Added Kemaar, "It just goes to show you that, when the economy is down, vital infrastructure projects like this are always the first to suffer."

A number of Dubai officials have even speculated that the cornerstone Jabal Khalifa mountain, which, at 27,100 feet—not counting the 300-foot-tall Lebanese-cedar log flume atop the casino at the summit—would have been the sixth-highest peak in the world, may have to be canceled entirely.

"At this rate, we may be forced to dip into the vast diamond mines we installed in the center of the city last February," Kemaar said.

Across the city there are signs of how deeply the overall economic climate of Dubai has been affected. Thousands of VIP tables sit empty, Lamborghinis clog dealership lots, and, with many unable to afford the usual imported pet foods, the streets are filled with starving stray snow leopards and feral peacocks. Empty glass tubes, once intended to contain seawater in which the city's fleet of nuclear commuter submarines would travel, hang forlornly 30 stories overhead.

As the emirate reels from the news of the mountain range's suspension, developers and government officials alike remain stymied on the best course of action for resolving the debt crisis and resuming work.

"Maybe this cold hard dose of reality is what Dubai needed," said Sheikh Hamdan, adding that he remained "hopeful" his mountain range would one day be completed. "Maybe it's time for us to pull ourselves up by the straps of our handmade custom-fitted patent-leather Italian boots and put our slaves back to work. Only through ingenuity, perseverance, and forced labor can Dubai get back to being Dubai again."

Event management isn't……….

–      Sitting in an office ticking off a to-do list

–      Being wined and dined by clients or suppliers

–      Telling suppliers what to do

–      Making endless lists of tasks for others to implement

–      Unloading trucks

–      Sitting behind the sound desk

Event management is………..

–      Walking around the event and observing

–      Managing suppliers and other resource

–      Identifying problems and working on solutions

–      Guardian of the mission and strategic objectives

–      Maintaining a good H&S and working standard

–      Guest, crew & artists welfare

–      Smooth show/ performance/ content delivery