Samantha Gabriel |
Unfortunately, there were as many comments like this: "Park and ride from the Dome and back was a disaster." "The food & drink was a monumental stuff up!!!!!!" "A disaster in organisation."
And this wasn't the only forum where people were venting their anger over the shoddy logistics.
Samantha Gabriel, the director of guest experience agency Logic, says an event's logistics are seldom the stuff of news articles, but get it wrong, and you can very quickly have a bad press nightmare on your hands. "The last thing you want to hear about your event is 'It was great, BUT...'," she says.
This is what Logic does - it takes the BUT out of event logistics. And it does it so successfully that just 18 months after start-up, Logic is doing better than most new businesses could ever dream of.
An independent sister company of VWV, which owns a 70% share in the agency, Logic already contributes approximately 10% to the VWV Group's turnover. Since its launch in December 2010, Logic has grown its staff from two to eight, and its client base is up by 30%. While maintaining strong relationships with existing clients such as Pick n Pay, BMW, MINI, and SAB Limited, Logic has attracted the attention of several new clients, including Blue Moon, OSISA, and Nike.
And all this because Logic offers a unique service: more than just a logistics manager, Logic makes the logistics part of the guest experience.
It's a unique offering that grew out of Gabriel's experiences on several large projects for the VWV Group. Through her then-company T2 Events, Gabriel worked in partnership with VWV on projects like the Millercoors Distributors Conference in Las Vegas in 2007 and 2009, the Confederations Cup 2009 opening and closing ceremonies, and the opening and closing ceremonies for FIFA World Cup 2010.
It was on these projects that she saw a real need for someone who could make logistics part of the total event experience. "Typically, logistics service providers work in isolation, each doing their own job," she says. "And while they might all do great work individually, there's no one person keeping guests' overall experience in mind. Handling logistics without keeping the big picture in mind results in disgruntled guests before your event has even started."
Kingsley Potter, CEO of the VWV Group, agrees. "Event operational environments are getting more demanding and challenging," he says. "We realised that there was a need for a new kind of company, one which truly understood the complexities of managing guest and delegate logistics, whether locally or across borders, without losing sight of guests' overall experience."
And from this thinking came Logic.
The logical choice for a successful eventBut what exactly is Logic? What is a "guest experience agency"? Put simply, Logic is all about handling the logistics of an event in a way that creates a positive association with the brand before the delegates or guests even walk through the door.
"You should be connecting with your guests at each touch point leading up to the actual event," says Gabriel. "What we ensure is that from receiving their invitation to catching their flight home, your guests will have a memorable, positive experience of your brand."
Because if your guests have a poor experience with the logistics, that tends to be all they end up remembering, no matter how spectacular the event. Creating a positive take-home about brands while focusing on the nuts and bolts of events is what Logic does best.
This means invitation and RSVP management, online registration, onsite registration, event database management, travel arrangements, meeting guests at airports, booking accommodation, hospitality management, overseeing guest movement during the event...
"Basically we can be there from your first contact with your guest, to waving good-bye to the last delegate," says Gabriel.
And thanks to innovative technology solutions like Toolbox, an event database management package launched in March and already being used under licence to SAB, Logic can also play a role before and after events, maintaining delegate lists and producing reports on attendance.
"We really do care about the experiences people have at the events we work on," says Gabriel. "We put ourselves in their shoes, imagining what they will see, hear, taste, touch and smell at every point in the process. It's this attention to the total guest experience which makes all the difference in the final evaluation of an event."
And when guests spend their time on Facebook praising the event, paying not the slightest attention to the logistics, that's when Logic knows it's done its job.
