Flight Centre Brings America To Its Employees

MEDIA RELEASE
6 July 2010

Flight Centre Brings America To Its Employees This Weekend

It takes more than 4,200 hours of planning and preparation to pull together one of New Zealand’s largest black-tie events, but the managing director of New Zealand’s largest travel retailer believes it’s completely worth it.

Rick Hamilton heads up Flight Centre New Zealand and he believes this annual event, due to be held this year on July 10, is imperative to ensure the company’s employees stay the best in the industry and keeps energy and passion levels high throughout the year.

 “Flight Centre is known for its celebrations, and our annual ball is the pinnacle of our social calendar. It allows us to recognise and show case our best talent and gives the whole business a sense of togetherness.

“Last year was a tough one for many businesses and huge events like this were the first to go, but for us at Flight Centre, that simply wasn’t an option. We can’t ask our employees to give us 100 per cent without us giving back to them.

“This year’s ‘Los Angeles roof top party’ promises to be the biggest company event yet,” Mr Hamilton says.

The event brings together almost 1,500 Flight Centre employees and their partners from across the country and is run by Flight Centre’s events team, CiEvents.

Simon McKearney, corporate business leader that incorporates CiEvents, enjoys the creativity, the challenge and the sheer size of pulling an event of this nature together.

“As one of the largest events of its kind in the country, it’s certainly a challenge. There is only one venue that is suitable to hold the event at due to the number of people, the effects used and the performers included,” Mr McKearney says.

A selection of those that win an award at the annual Flight Centre national ball are then flown to Las Vegas the following weekend for the annual Flight Centre global gathering, where 2,800 employees from around the world are brought together by the company to celebrate their success. In 2009 the global gathering was held in Barcelona and 2008 it was in Hawaii.

Some statistics on the Flight Centre national ball:

200 wait staff required
24 kilometres walked by the event manager during set up, running the event and pack down
1600 chairs
285 metres of hedging
60 rolls of gaffa tape
100 crew to set the event up
5,000 canapés
4,500 plates
140m x 9m lycra screen
15 high powered projectors stitched together to form a seamless image
20m x 10m rooftop swimming pool with DJ platform in the middle
Set designers
Two onsite carpenters
80 stage risers
525sq metres of fake lawn
200 sets of fairy lights

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