Stacey in Mykonos

Stacey in Greece, not once, but twice in two weeks and why events are da bomb.

It’s really weird this job, I spend a lot of time travelling but there does always seem to be ‘in’ places. Places that are favoured by clients, countries that are ‘trendy’ and so get lots of bookings, venues that are ‘cost effective’ so we end up there a lot, and then there are just the ones you haven't really thought about but you end up in anyway, not once, but twice in two weeks. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to Greece before, a couple of times, but in all honesty, not since the early nineties as part of family holidays. That isn’t because I haven't wanted to, it just hasn't really come up, and I've been either gallavanting myself or working at events all over the Globe. But just not in Greece.  Anyway, our annual company staff retreat was due and I put a call out to a few of our partners to see if anyone could help me organise it at quite short notice (which you’ll all know is not like me at all,  but we’ve been just so busy). Anyway, the amazing team at Hosmark came back to me with a suggestion of their gorgeous Dolce Athens Attica Riviera  -  you can read loads about what we got us to on this blog we wrote about it and I promise to stop going on about what an amazing time we had there. I think you’ve probably all got quite sick of our constant social spamming of all the gorgeous Greek scenery and what we did while we were there.

After an absolutely banging four days away as a team, we flew back to the UK late on the Monday night after a cancelled flight and a few other stresses, back to work for a few days then guess what, I was back off to Greece. Not the mainland this time, but the beautiful island of Mykonos, which is in case you don’t know, only about 178km south east of Athens, but I guess we could say I decided to go the long way round.

I was attending M&I Luxe, an incredible forum for Event Planners and Curators, to come together and network with some of the top DMC’s, Convention Bureaus and most luxurious hotels in the world. The meetings were excellently curated so you met with people who you had live briefs for, or your clients were exploring. None of my meetings were a waste of time, they were absolutely spot on, super informative and really, really helpful! I learnt about new sustainable initiatives, projects that were making a social impact, and F&B packages that provided not only excellent value for money, but were good for the planet, reduced food waste and looked and sounded bloody delicious.

I also got to experience many different team building activities and checked out various venues across the Island, as well as a private gold yacht which I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon on and feeling very “Below Deck”.  Now, not all of this would work for my clients, I mean, I can’t expect most of them to be chartering private yachts, BUT it is super enlightening to see what you CAN do, to push boundaries, to make people feel something, to give them experiences they may never have had or will ever have, and then there was also the reminding oneself that actually, just the process of doing and experiencing something together cannot ever be replicated. I not only learnt a lot, but I made some amazing new contacts and friends (yeah you know who you are Rhiann and Emma), but it also reminded me how bloody amazing events are. AI can’t replace them (remember the shit show that was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Glasgow? I rest my case). Events are the MOST effective way of telling your story, whether it be with your teams, and getting them to build bonds that just cannot be built any other way than being in each other's company and having shared experiences, or showing your clients or potential clients what you’re made of and why they should work with you if they're not already. I LOVE delivering events. It’s my favourite thing to do. So please do drop me an email if you’d like to pick my brains about how you can start using Events in your comms plan, and don’t worry, I won’t push you to charter a gold yacht, but I very much might suggest Greece as a destination if it fits with what you’re looking to do.

Mila Syntoma (Speak soon). Mwah. Sx