The second and third-tier cities are driving China’s economy, with several having been earmarked for development as tourism destinations. Currently event planners are not confident staging a whole event there, preferring to use them as day or overnight experiences, but with the right investment in infrastructure and support services, they will be next.
We have done several events in second and third-tier cities over the past 12 months – Chengdu, Xian and Tianjin to name a few – for a mix of local and international companies. As with any event, the key to success is sound planning and we always have contingency plans in place.
While second-tier cities can have local suppliers for hardware, we always fly in our crew from Shanghai and/or Beijing consisting of technical and production specialists, coordinators, producers and account servicing staff. All equipment is operated by our team, who usually do the set-up as well.
In some cities local hardware suppliers don’t exist or have only provided for very standard events, so we try to source from larger cities nearby. For a recent event in Dongguan, we sourced from Shenzhen and Guangzhou. In addition, we avoid having goods sent to us and the place itself, and prefer to take with us what we can.
For larger goods, we have trusted couriers from Shanghai and Beijing to collect them from the supplier and deliver to the destination. It is then easy for us to locate these couriers and the goods, and they have logistical solutions in place in case of any issues.
When site visits involve venue sourcing, we develop a shortlist of rentable spaces and venues that may not have been used for events before, such as galleries and museums. For galleries and museums, we have to show how we will protect the artwork, and the price must be right. Once you get the right people involved it becomes much easier. For a recent luxury hotel opening in Tianjin, we wanted to use the adjacent public riverside. We worked with the hotel to secure a permit for this.
David Ong is general manager, operations, Greater China, for Offsite Connections david@oscc.com.cn