The Beatles
Meeting planners are getting more innovative with the kind of events they are organising for their clients. Thinking absolutely out of the box and matching service to experience, they are redefining the concept of events. Lots of new venues are opening their doors to welcome such events. These are unique in their own way and have an identity as more than just event venues. MICEtalk decided to stop by at one such venue, to see how they set the ambience for a very special event.
The venue in question is ‘The Beatles Story’ which is situated not too far away from the Liverpool City Centre and the event they hosted was ‘Discovery’ which is VisitBritain’s showcase event for the meeting and conference industry. A biennial event, ‘ Discovery’ brings together buyers from different markets and allows them to interact with important buyers in Britain and also experience, first hand, the very best that Britain has to offer.
Liverpool and Manchester won the joint bid to host 80 of the world’s top business tourism buyers. The idea was to encourage them to invest in the region. In this context, a special cocktail event was organised by Liverpool and the venue was ‘The Beatles Story’, an exhibition dedicated to the most famous citizens of Liverpool. The venue sees more than two million visitors a year and gives visitors the opportunity the experience the creative spirit of this band, through exhibitions, interactive games, films and other memorabilia associated with the band.
For the VisitBritain event, ‘The Beatles Story’ closed early that evening to general visitors to open up for a special experience for its special guests.
The group of 80 arrived at the venue and they were roughly divided into four groups to be taken around the venue by a qualified Beatles guide. This was
followed by a welcome drink, served by a member of the staff in Segeant Pepper costume. The guided tour was super success right from the word ‘Go’.
Reem Khokhar, Manager, International Marketing, The Beatles Story, details, “Since this was a showcase event for MICE buyers, the idea was to see the entire venue and experience the sort of things that could be done as part of an event. This included a private viewing of the exhibition with a specialised Beatles tour guide, performances by a string quartet and a professional Beatles tribute band. The performances were held in different areas of the attraction to give the visitors an idea of how the entire venue could be used as a space for events. Cocktails were served by the staff in Sergeant Pepper costumes and cocktail canapés were served in the Cavern Club area. They could walk around with their drinks while viewing the exhibition, take pictures with the Sergeant Pepper costumed staff or in various parts of the exhibition. They could even pose against a backdrop of ecstatic, screaming fans to visualise the hysteria a Beatles performance generated or indulge in the multimedia experiences like playing a Beatles tune on the giant piano.”
In the Cavern Club area, even as they took a break from the tour for the next round of drinks and finger food, they were entertained with a song by the Karl Lornie Band, a professional Beatles tribute band. For the comfort of the groups and to give them enough
organising performances, etc. For this particular event, the catering was done by an event management company.”
The next break was in the Sergeant Pepper room and here the background music was provided by Karl Lornie, even as the guests got the opportunity to network and also look around the area. The highlight of the area was of course a blow up of the iconic album cover of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band’.
In the Going Solo area solo careers of each member of the band is explored. The guests were in for a surprise in the John Lennon area as they were greeted with the performance of a professional musician dressed up as Lennon.
The duration of the entire cocktail event was approximately around two hours and a gift bag was waiting for each guest as they finally picked up their bags and coats from the orientation area and headed for TATE Liverpool for a dinner event.