|
Throw a party for 1,000 people over a three-day weekend on a
raw piece of land in the middle of nowhere. The reason for
the celebration? To commemorate the initial funding for a
5,000-acre parcel on the northwest flank of Puerto Rico earmarked
for the development of a luxury resort community. The objective
was to give investors a sense of the scale of the project
and engage the local business and social communities as a
way to foster their enthusiasm and support.
We knew that whatever event we planned,
it would have to celebrate and encapsulate the spirit of Puerto
Rico — and it would
have to be created from scratch. Because the site had great
natural beauty but no man-made resources nearby, the event
was complex, requiring nine months of planning. It involved
massive transportation movements, including chartering commercial-sized
jets, helicoptering guests to the site, setting up jeep tours
of the acreage under development, as well as catering and entertainment
components.
The centerpiece of the event was transforming several hundred
acres of land into a Puerto Rican village from the twentieth
century, complete with donkeys, horses, pigs, chickens, and other
livestock. We wanted to create a connection to the history of
the location that expressed the colors, personality and signature
touches that were representative of the Puerto Rican lifestyle.
The cadre of resorts slated to be built, all luxury-oriented,
were committed to embracing the cultural values, architectural
flavors and cuisine of this period in Puerto Rican history. As
a result, painstaking research was conducted on early architectural
influences and buildings and storefronts were erected that reflected
village life in the early 1900s.
It was a wonderful, wonderful event and she stage-managed
the whole thing for three days, said Neil Jacobs, project manager. "It
was a logistics nightmare to bring everybody there and it was
one of her finest hours in terms of event management. It was
superb," he added.
Golf tournaments and celebrations were planned and executed.
One evening event involved coordinating a concert with megastar
Julio Iglesias, his entourage and a guest list of 500 people.
Investors from Asia and the United States participated, and local
and select U.S. press were also invited, which, of course, involved
major coordination as well.
|
|
