CASE STUDY: Large Teambuilding Meeting

Client: Fast-growing national retail restaurant chain’s “Family Reunion”

Challenge: Find the ideal destination, venue, activities and production to energize and inspire more than 1,000 restaurant owners, managers, leaders and vendors. Can the Mary O’Connor team do it? Within budget, of course!

Our client calls on us to run this meeting bi-annually. Their objectives are to recognize and reward as well as inform and educate. Mary O’Connor and Co. was retained for site search and analysis, contracting, logistics, a team-building activity (a last-minute add-on, to boot!) registration and delivery.

Though it has many creative aspects, the big “wow” of this meeting is a teambuilding activity where we get to put our creativity to the test! Last meeting, our thorough RFP process led our client to choose Charlotte, N.C., as their destination city and the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) as their special event venue. We sought a location that would deliver the “warmth” that is an important core value to the client while meeting the logistics need of a one-hotel solution for more than 1,000 delegates.

The USNWC challenge: A new venue – one of its kind in the country – the USNWC had never done a private event larger than 200 guests. The center offers a variety of outdoor sporting activities including high courses, hiking, rafting challenges, flatwater kayaking, river kayaking and wall climbing, among many others. At the time we selected the venue, the kitchen was yet to open. Over the course of the next year, with Mary O’Connor’s personal involvement, we helped the USNWC develop the event fully to include capacities per hour, towels, EMTs and, ultimately, bringing in an agreed-to off-premise caterer who had a better infrastructure to support the dinner event for 2,000 that the client required. From waivers on buses and wrist bands to guide guests to dinner tents, the expertise of Mary O’Connor and Co. helped USNWC ultimately deliver an exceptional experience that cannot be duplicated anywhere. (For a taste of this venue’s look and feel, see www.USNWC.org.)

The off-premise event was an acclaimed success and has become the benchmark for all future off-premise evening events for this client. Overall, the meeting resulted in overwhelming success for all organizations involved in the planning and delivery of the event. Participants in the program were recommitted to the message of warmth, community commitment and our client’s brand. We’re now working to best our efforts for this client’s “Family Reunion 2009.”