Looking back over the last week, I really don’t know what we were thinking when we started the teleconference last Monday morning April 4, 103 hours before the Opening Ceremony of the APSIRE (reproductive Science) conference and exhibition. The call started around 11am between Dan Rivlin, Kenes Group’s Managing Director, Malou Guevarra, the Project Manager and myself. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the actions needed to ensure a safe congress the following weekend.

Despite the “red shirt” move to downtown Bangkok, the guest of honor, The Prime Minister of Thailand has just reconfirmed his presence 2 days before. Most of Bangkok’s residents believed that they would move or just fade out in the next 24 hrs or so… Bangkokians, who are like most Asian’s total shopaholics were rather upset over the fact that the “red shirts” had been preventing them from accessing their favorite pass time – hanging out in shopping malls. The move had closed the heart of the famous 1,500,000 sqm of shopping heaven. Our teleconference lingered around the anticipated disappearance. When we discussed to relocate to one of the nearby centers such as Queen Sirikit National Convention Center or BITEC and IMPACT, the issue of hotels located in the demonstration zone kept on emerging. We concluded that moving the congress within Bangkok did not meet the requirement of moving the delegates out of “harm’s way”. Someone dropped the word Pattaya Convention Center and we all turned quiet for a moment. Very quickly we all agreed that a move to Pattaya would meet all requirements: move all delegates and move the congress. Without much further though we agreed to “just check availability”.

I then walked in the office casually at around noon and the message was handed to me that “yes, PEACH was free this weekend”. It was now 101 hours before the opening ceremony. I remember looking at Malou and then announced to the entire office: “People, what we are about to try will be a once in a life time experience”; it turned out, I was right.

A crisis meeting followed and all teams had to drop all projects. In the meeting we sketched out the criteria we needed for making the move: the congress venue, hotels, cancellation of BKK venue, Cancellation of BKK Hotels, Agreements by all 35 exhibitors to move, contractors ability to services and of course, could we to do this? We split in teams /Operations / Hotel cancellations and Hotel Bookings / Transport from Airport to Pattaya and from anywhere in Bangkok for those who were already here, then set up a call center and PR – communications. The PM would continue to look after the speakers and sponsors as well as exhibitors. Quickly we drafted a Q&A for the various questions and complaints we could think off. And since no one knew what to expect, we thought we were as ready as can be.

My first phone call with with Ms Panga, owner of the Royal Cliff Beach Resort and PEACH Convention Center – a wonderful and safe integrated convention destination. She committed chief negotiator Michael Swart as my counterpart of all communications and teams for F&B, rooms and Operations. Michael and I communicated from Monday till Tue afternoon at which time we had the grid for the event confirmed.

In the afternoon on Monday we had negotiated with all the hotels who acknowledged a special circumstance and confirmed full refund on the bookings. Better yet, the hotels suggested to transfer (free of liability) all deposits to their sister properties in Pattaya. This was truly a feat of luck. So the Holiday Inn and Intercontinental (IHT) transferred to the Holiday Inn, the Courtyard by Marriott to Marriott Pattaya and the Amari Watergate to the Amari Orchid. Centara we would move to the Royal Cliff. Better yet, we could guarantee the same rates!

At around 9pm we received a phone call from the representative of our main sponsor asking what we were likely to do. I happily declared that we were working on the ultimate solution by moving to Pattaya, after which he told me that their security advisors had recommended a withdrawal. I had just lost my main sponsor, 1 out of 2 pre-congresses and likely 200-300 delegates with it.

I was even more startled to hear that one of the main reasons was the potential closure of Bangkok Airport. Of course we all remember the nightmare saga caused by the “Yellow Shirts” the guys who are now in the Government! Personally, I believe that Thailand, together with most countries in the world now have scenarios prepared to never ever let such thing happen again… but it is, however, an argument I could not win.

We announced late Monday night the move by email blast and when we arrived in the morning, the phones were ringing like mad. But we were ready and pleasantly surprised about the rebooking, and not cancellations. Questions about security were answered with a smile – Pattaya is very safe and we can avoid Bangkok since the Airport is in between the City and Pattaya. “Will the Airport close? Of course not!! – better yet, we will pick you up at the Airport and transfer you for free to Pattaya and back.”

Tuesday morning the second main sponsor called. They were also withdrawing. Another loss of 200 or so delegates and my second pre-congress. Still, the withdrawals were voluntarily so of no financial consequence to the congress at this point. We had provided adequate arrangements which would be difficult to challenge legally. We again decided that the Show Must Go On.

On Wednesday (65 hrs to go) we were quietly thinking that if the demonstrators would leave today, would be move back to Bangkok or stay the course. The entire thing would have been harder to reverse no matter what. Then, on my way to Pattaya I received yet another blow by phone: the Prime Minister had declared a State of Emergency in certain parts of Bangkok. Why did this had to happen now? Why not Friday afternoon when everyone is already in the congress. Will this scare people off?

I arrived at my hotel and switched on my TV; we were all over the news. Should we cancel? I just pre-paid the venue and have been starting to move delegates to Pattaya already. We again decided to stay the course. If we needed to cancel, we could do this at any time later since the damage was already done. A quick review by legal confirmed that we could claim force majeur with PEACH and demand full refund. However, we informed PEACH that we wanted to stay the course but now reduce in half the numbers we confirmed the day before and cancel the pre-congress. They agreed to see things through with us.

Since I had added my own mobile number on the list of contacts that was published to all participants, I personally received close to 50 calls a day since Tuesday morning. I must share that this was one of the best decisions I had made because I could have a firsthand understanding of the issues of the participants and personally convince them that the show is on. I do not believe I lost any of the delegates that called me! I was determined to convince anyone, even my staff at various times, that a bad show under circumstances, is still better than no show at all!

Thursday morning, 36 hours before the opening ceremony, where we had long realized there would be no Prime Minister as our guest of honor (believe me, he would be a magnet to the Red Shirts) our Project Manager called me saying she was not sure if we still had a program. We had lost now a total of 12 speakers and more were likely to follow. Is this the final nail in our coffin?

Another teleconference took place between Dan, Malou, Dr Somboon of the LOC and myself. I had send an SMS to Dan Rivlin saying “Don’t let them cancel”. The discussion was long, but concluded that we owe it to those what had arrived and were arriving today (we had been convincing many callers) to have some program. We would decide later if we would call it the ASPIRE conference, or an interim compensation towards the postponed congress. Basically, we decided to build the exhibition, start the conference with whatever we had. Our estimate was around 150 delegates, maybe.

That afternoon we had a face to face meeting with the committee representative explain every option and legal and financial ramification. It was now clear to them as well that the show had to go on.

Friday afternoon we had shuttled close to 200 pax to Pattaya. Add some Thai delegates, deduct some exhibitors and you have around 150 delegates. Registration was going slow but steady, and people were not only considerate on the circumstances, they were also pleased with the choice of Pattaya, the nice hotels and the relaxation versus the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. The Program committee met at 2PM and at 4pm we were ready! Only 5 speakers lost and we new schedule was ready. We had a program. Now we just needed delegates.

We opened our doors at 6pm followed by the welcome cocktail. We counted 361 people and we were smiling.. that number went up the next day to 447 delegates.

We realized that we luckily made all the right decisions, showed major teamwork and strength in supplier relations, avoided major losses, a loss of face, etc etc etc. In my 20 years as an organizer I have preached that the show always must go on – this time, I was nearly proven wrong, but not nearly enough.

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