This Should Have Been An Easy One - But Then EVERYTHING Changed - TED BOWERS Reports From Vancouver

This was The TRIPLE Whammy!
This international conference for a longtime client should have been a walk in the park. The program, 3 days and evenings, had been planned out in every detail months in advance. We are very familiar with the location, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
But then hundreds of logging truckers, worried about the future of their industry and their livelihoods, blocked the streets with a demonstration.
Tens of thousands of activist youth, the Sustainabiliteens, followed Greta Thunberg's call and took to the streets in a Global Climate Strike.
Finally, our host hotel workers went on a still on-going labor strike after more than a year of Union and hotel owner negotiations over issues related to safety, workload and job security failed to yield results.

The good news: Ted and his team performed pure MAGIC and made it all happen anyway.

Ted: "The main part of the conference was planned to take place at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. A core group of the clients' event staff were already in town when a hotel worker labor strike started that affected our hotel. The labor strike included housekeeping and the banquet department. Service at the hotel came to a standstill. Negotiations were on-going but the decision was made to err on the side of caution and move the whole event to the nearby Convention Center. The CC was busy but had some space available to accommodate, just barely.
I got the call at home at 8am on Sunday morning. We immediately started planning for the new situation and locations. We traveled to Vancouver on Tuesday. Load-in was supposed to start on Wednesday. We actually finally started on Thursday when the space became available. The final new plan was eventually agreed on by all parties by 6pm on Wednesday night, just hours before the load-in had to start. The Convention Center had welcomed us but their procedures differ from the way things are done at most hotels. We could not turn the same room over from General Session to Banquet and back as we usually do. This changed everything as we had to set up two complete sets of audio-visual equipment where we usually work with just one for the whole program as it is the same requirements for General Session and Final Night Banquet."


Our lodging was affected.
"We still stayed at the hotel since our rooms where booked but it was like sleeping in a ghost town. We had no services. There were guests there but no employees. The hotel was very apologetic and agreed to pick up a lot of the extra cost we had to incur.
Besides the cost for the new locations and equipment we now had to hire a bus company to transport attendees back and forth multiple times every day."

But that wasn't all!

Due to two major demonstrations, Downtown Vancouver went into lock down. The City decided to block bridges to traffic for safety and clear the roads for the demonstrators.
Alas, this also meant that our local vendors and entertainers had to work miracles to get around the closures and make it to the locations.

Hundreds of logging trucks paraded into Vancouver all the way to the convention center to protest the cutbacks in their industry during the Union of British Columbia Municipalities conference on September 25.

Over 100,000 teens were allowed to skip school to walk during the Global Climate Strike on September 27th, again shutting down the inner city of Vancouver.

Vancouver's beauty and the wonderful cooperation we got from our Canadian partners made up for the obstacles.

Ted: "The Vancouver Convention Center is absolutely stunning. One of the main rooms looks more like a ballroom than a convention hall. It has an about 40' tall ceiling with a floor-to-ceiling panorama window overlooking the bay. Our client had already decided to hold his welcome night reception there during a site visit last year. Consequently we already had a year-long business relationship with the CC for this conference which definitely helped us get the space for the rest of the conference so very last minute. We used this room for the General Sessions as well and the second night banquet took place at the CC. We had hired local entertainment for both nights."






The Final Night event had been planned off site, at the Vancouver Aquarium, surrounded by sea life. 



Ted: "It was crazy. As long as I have been in the industry I have never experienced anything like it. Sometimes weather affects an event and the venue has to be changed. But I have never had an entire conference changed due to a labor strike, a trucker strike and a Global Climate Demonstration all at once. We are thankful for every one's extra efforts and support - and grateful the conference turned out to be a success after all."

Thank you for reading.