These guys don’t know what they’re doing….

It’s ridiculous! (Massive ENTECH screwups)

As we wade though CX Roadshow registrations online and sort out seminar payments, we reflected on ENTECH FUBAR situations as a form of debrief to double check nothing goes wrong on tour in February.

Try this one. 200 industry people were into their second welcome drink outside the film studio in Waterloo, as the brilliant awards dinner team were inside freaking out because the caterer wanted a seating plan. It was ENTECH 1994, and our first go at organizing an awards dinner.

We never thought of the seating plan. Presenter and comedian Fats Thommo seized the moment, and threw open the venue doors. Standing there in his hot pink zoot suit, he yelled for attention. “I’ve got a table for 10. Come forward if there are ten of you. Not you, idiot, you can’t count….”

He quickly filled up the venue, with a table for 6 matched with a group for 4. Rowdy lighting guys from some company hassled him, “shuddup, dickhead. I’ll sort youse out soon….”

The value of a great presenter was never more obvious than the great Plaza Ballroom Disaster of 1997 in Melbourne. At that one, aside from the small matter of hiring the wrong Mclean audio firm (we got the ‘other’ one, not the ‘great’ one), and the video wall crashing, we had the seating plan sorted. But there were far too many awards.

Enter John Blackman, legendary Melbournian funny guy, who took one look at the running order and yelled for a bottle of Krug. Once practically lubricated, he threw out the list and said ‘Get the chick to sing first, then I’ll sort out your awards”. Yes Mr. Blackman, we said, but when do we tell the band to come on? “Tell them to be ready fifteen minutes after I start”. But what if you run longer, we said. “Just keep them off the grog, they’ll be ready when I’m ready”, he yelled.

Before having John Blackman save our bacon, there was the ticketing debacle for the Venue Management Association, whose convention we managed alongside ENTECH in Melbourne. They had 40 different events, and 300 delegates had selected some or all. So we printed 40 piles of tickets, and were still trying to match registrants with tickets when they started to roll up. It was ugly, very ugly.

One year we did our own seminar ticketing within the Hall (1998, Darling Harbour). Long lines formed at the last minute, as eftpos slowed to a crawl. People were late to sessions, or gave up.

In 2002 the external registration contractor messed up the conference and seminar ticketing, and really long lines again made people mad, especially us as we were paying more than 20 grand to the registration contractor.

The second show, in 1996 featured an ill-fated DJ Competition on the Sunday. Someone else had issued literally hundreds of free tickets without our say so, and we were suddenly overwhelmed with kids. The coat check ran out of tickets for skateboards. The venue security called for reinforcements. The actual sound level in the curtained off venue INSIDE the trade show hall had to get intrusive to work. It was steaming hot, there were probably 900 kids crammed in and many more outside getting rejected. Exhibitors were very unhappy. No one was happy.

The exhibitor fist fights, the accidents with fingers and forklifts, the drugged loaders, hangovers. We had them all.

Finally there was the great drink debacle of 1998 deserves a mention. This was where the event co-ordinator at Darling Harbour double booked the bar. Promised free drinks for an hour after the first day closed, swarms of ENTECH-ers walked down to the Cockle Bay Bar, only to find 200 suited Proctologist conventioneers already in there, in full swing.  They were paying for their drinks, ours were to have been on our tab, ie: we paid.  The bar staff were not informed. “How do we know who is who?” the beverage team leader yelled across the chaos.

“Well, they look like THIS”, I said, grabbing a nearby specialist. They pay you. And we look like THIS”, I said, indicating myself. “Our drinks go on my card”.

It was messy, it was embarrassing, and eventually it didn’t really bother most people too much. And we discovered what it is that proctologists actually do!