JEDDAH, 14 February 2005 — The glitz and smooth professional operation that visitors to the Jeddah Economic Forum see is a result of months of planning and days of intense work. Unrecognized by most visitors, who are there for the presentations and debates, the formidable logistics of the event are run by a large team of people that the visitors will never meet — unless something goes wrong.
Marc de Beer, the Jeddah Hilton’s director of operations oversees the buildup. “In seven days, we build, run, maintain and tear down the entire structure of the conference,” he said. “Although a major event in our calendar, it is only one.
We have commitments to weddings and other events — so the work has to be extremely efficient and well organized. The buildup itself is the result of months of planning. It’s certainly achallenge.”
Over the five years since the forum started, it has grown in importance and size. The expansion of the number of seminars and workshops that run with the main event caused a need for additional meeting and function space, which has been met by erecting a giant new tent inside the hotel premises.
The fully air conditioned tent — around 50 meters long and 15 wide and fully carpeted and decorated, will become a luxurious dining area for the women attending the conference.
At this stage, professional decorators are busy tailoring ceiling drapes to fit with rolls and swathes of fire retardant cloth piled up ready for stitching.
The advantage to the female guests is that they will have their own private walkways and lift from the conference hall to the tent, which will offer them the same food and service as offered in any of the hotel’s facilities.
As the JEF has grown in international importance each year, the pressure has been on to raise the benchmark on conference facilities.
Kilometers of Category 5 and multi-core fiber optic cabling have been specially installed for the event. “The communications to all part of the Hilton complex will be exceptionally good,” said Keiran Hughes the hotel’s chief engineer who oversaw the installation. “Visitors need never be out of touch with what is going on at the event or in the rest of the world.” Every room in the hotel will be able to access the conference proceedings through multiple live video feeds and attendees can log wirelessly on to the Internet anywhere in the conference venue or the hotel.
The audio visual presentation screen that dominates the main conference hall is the biggest ever used at the forum. That has presented its own challenge. Two of the 500 kg chandeliers characteristic of the Hilton Hall have to be removed. Lowered with infinite care onto specially built mobile cradles, the chandeliers will stand discreetly in the hall out of the way.
To ensure no power outages and to keep the outside broadcasting units of the TV networks online, two one megawatt generators from Agreko are to be installed and supply all the power for the event. “We will not leave anything to chance,” said Hughes, “even if it took some adjustments to walls to get them in.”
If all goes well and the months of forward planning and buildup succeed, the conference will open at the Jeddah Hilton next Saturday.
