Event Report: With Aloha From Maui

Ted Bowers, Kristen Rensch and Natasha Allaire

The Challenge: 

Combining an authentic Hawaiian experience with an immersive element that met the needs and expectations of a non-English speaking group of guests in a luxury resort on the island of Maui.

The Event: a global company's reward program for 425 Asian High Achievers and their families. 

Dates: June 22-25, 2019

Location: Grand Wailea Resort, Maui, Hawaii.

The Result: truly unforgettable memories!

Enhanced Entertainment:

Ted Bowers: "Typically when working for an international audience that doesn't speak the local language we focus on creating entertainment that means something to them. The beauty of Cirque acts and magic are understood universally. In this case one of the magicians we had spoke the group's native language fairly well and he wanted to make his performance as engaging as possible . We met with the MC/Interpreter for the client who wanted to make sure that the magician's linguistic skills were up to par. An impromptu enhanced act was born. Our magician incorporated the interpreter as his assistant. She explained the act step-by-step as the magician's sidekick and that added a lot of interest for the client's guests. The audience became truly engaged in the enhanced performance.

Our second magician had perfected a non-verbal performance, thus creating a flawless performance of universal appeal."

Authentic Experiences:

Kristen was born on Oahu and has strong ties to Hawaii.

"One complaint native Hawaiians had in the past was that their culture was frequently trivialized, distorted and exploited for show and tourism purposes. Nowadays the tourism and meeting industry thankfully pays more attention to getting it right. We included many Hawaiian cultural and culinary aspects in our event and we consulted with our Native Hawaiian contacts to ensure that we were executing the plans correctly.

One such example was our luau. Typically a luau lasts around 2 to 3 hours and it is held to celebrate a special event like a birthday, a wedding or a birth.

For our corporate event guests we negotiated an abbreviated, however authentic version that focused on Hawaiian traditions and imparted the history of the islands in a format that was most engaging to a non-English speaking audience."

Kristen: "Another traditional Hawaiian element were the hula lessons for our youngest guests. We had about 75 children under the age of 14 in the group. As in the past for this client we offered a gifting suite for the kids with a variety of gifts selected by age range. At the client's suggestion we paired the gifting with a hula lesson. The dancing lesson doubled as an English language lesson and the participating children performed their hula dance as part of the final night reception show. Talk about audience engagement, unforgettable memories for kids and their parents and great return on investment for the client!"

Mahalo for reading!