Event Report: Nous ❤️ Montréal!

Fall is in the air - we bring the season into the ballroom.

The Event:

The 3-day Fall Meeting of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Guest count: 800

Our Task: Technical and Event Support.

Location: The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Our assignment started with a site visit last April. We had to wear hard hats. 

The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth was undergoing a CAN $140 million dollar renovation. Reopened in June, we reaped the benefits of working in a historic location that had received a 5-star make over just before our event. 

Ted Bowers: "The staff is truly A+ and very international. Everyone is at least bi-lingual but many staff members speak more than 2 languages. We only encountered two Quebecois drivers who spoke French. Everyone else around was happy to translate."

Our Event Manager Ben Majors:  "I guess I'd have to say interacting with the various Canadians in our labor crews, hotel, as well as in the streets will be my favorite memory. Canadians seem a bit less stressed and we all noticed that everyone was truly enjoyable to be around. My take-away from Montreal was the measure of the locals I came in contact with." 

Our Creative Producer and music aficionado Marcelo Cruz arranged a night out before the conference started and knocked one item off his personal bucket list: live Jazz in Montreal. 

"We went to the Upstairs Jazz Bar to see The Jeff Johnson Trio play a tribute to the Bill Evans Trio who recorded a live album at the renowned Village Vanguard. They played 3 awesome sets and did Bill Evans justice. I had never been there before but will definitely be going back during the Montreal Jazz Festival next summer."

We all noticed that football and baseball were not such a big topic but you better know your ice hockey! 

Marcelo: "The Montreal Canadians are gods in this city."

The hotel itself, while freshly renovated, is proud of its illustrious history.

Opened in 1958, named after the current Queen Elizabeth, it has welcomed a long list of famous guests, including four visits by Queen Elizabeth II herself,  her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen Mother and Prince Charles, Fidel Castro, who was the first head of state to visit the hotel, Charles de Gaulle, and Princess Grace of Monaco, Indira Gandhi, Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Sadiq Raji, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger, Perry Como, Joan Crawford, John Travolta, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and two U.S. presidents: Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. 

We were most impressed with the celebrated visit of two global super stars: John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Alas, we were a little late to join the cause, the Bed In for Peace.

 During their famous anti-war demonstration, John recorded "Give Peace a Chance", right here in Room 1742, on June 1, 1969.

Yes, we did belt out a non-recorded version as we had fun creating our Montreal memories.

It's not "adieu", just "au revoir", we will be back, Montreal.

Thank you to our dear friend and client Dennis Maggi. It is always an honor and a pleasure to work with you.

Peace out!