Event Roche China Annual Meeting 2011
Venue The Venetian
Organiser Shanghai VR Conference Organizer
Delegates 1,530
Date January 16 to 20
The brief
Roche is a medical and pharmaceutical company that hosts an annual meeting focusing on sales and incentives for its mainland Chinese delegates. Over a five-day period, an intense agenda consisting of meetings, training, product launches and themed dinners had to be arranged to encourage mingling between four business units totalling 1,530 people.
As Roche’s meeting consisted mostly of on-site activities, it needed a venue that could facilitate everything seamlessly within one property. The Venetian was chosen as it offers accommodation, meeting space and banqueting for large groups all under one roof.
Challenges
With 500 to 600 people arriving at the same time, check-in and other logistics had to be as efficient as possible. To avoid potential bottlenecks, The Venetian arranged for a dedicated counter to welcome delegates. As the delegates were subdivided into four groups, essentially it was like having four separate clients with their own schedules and specific requirements. Venues had to be large enough to contain the entire group but also allow breakouts for smaller groups.
Execution
On both full days of activities, breakfast was followed by morning meetings, lunch and afternoon breakout sessions. The first evening’s dinner was broken into four large groups, depending on their business unit.
The second day ended with a gala dinner and awards presentation set up with rows of tables and resembled a king’s feast, arranged at Roche’s request. The company felt that traditional round banquet tables were not conducive to teambuilding. Each table was able to seat 200 people and banquet staff had 90 minutes with restricted space between groups to serve the four-course set meal. Roche initiated a friendly competition to see who had the most exuberant table.
On the final day of the event, Roche ended the conference with 10 groups of 150 at a farewell lunch following a morning of plenary sessions.
Comment
“The Venetian team is very efficient and the service level at the hotel was very high,” says Charles Xu, national sales manager with Roche. “We made breakthroughs in a few areas, such as having annual and departmental meetings at the same venue simultaneously, the whole team staying at the same hotel and new entertainment elements throughout the event which went so successfully.”