I spent the last three days in a conference at sky city with several thousand other delegates and try as I might I could not find fault with the facilities. Everything appeared to be flawlessly prepared and executed with care and professionalism. I was so impressed with the facilities that I felt I simply have to review them 🙂
Presentation Technology
The big screens, sound systems, projectors and lighting were perfectly suited to the purpose. I did not see any issues with hardware failures, not even as much as a “is this thing on?”. I have a bit of history in this field but try as I might I couldn’t find fault. The worst it got was when a presenter with a lapel microphone walked in front of a speaker, but the feedback was quickly caught and stopped before becoming a problem.
As a delegate I had no trouble seeing or hearing regardless of where I sat.
Service
There must have been dozens of service staff. Serving coffee, laying out and refilling buffets, cleaning messes, collecting dirty dishes, checking rooms were in order between sessions, maintaining security, looking after sound desks, cooking food, serving drinks and no doubt countless other things that I didn’t even notice.
They were all well and consistently dressed, clean and tidy in their appearance and behaviour, polite and respectful, professional and generally just going out of their way to make everything work smoothly.
Branding
I don’t know how much of this was done by the staff at sky city and how much was done by the company running the conference but even before you walked in the front door you knew you were in the right place. There were signs both static and digital everywhere. Finding rooms was easy and from the way everything looked you’d swear you were in the offices of the company rather than in a conference centre.
Food
The food was amazing, it was different every day (with a few staples) and the quality was always exceptional. From simple things like coffee to the exquisite and varied lunch foods everything was done perfectly.
There was something for everyone including vegetarian options and even a separate vegetarian buffet. There were options for the diet conscious and the not so diet conscious (mmm chocolate cups).
Each day there was something different in a separate area, the first day was a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit, the second there were chefs cooking in woks and on the last day there was a lolly bar where you could pick and mix bags of sweets.
There was always an abundance, food was restocked as frequently as required and few people were taking small helpings 🙂
Toilets
What goes in must come out 🙂 The toilets were kept stocked with soap, hand towels etc and were always clean and tidy despite the hundreds of people using them every hour.