With help from Jack Morton Worldwide, IBM India staged the largest live communication event in its history last week--a “town hall” experience for 19,000 IBM employees in India, including 10,000 in Bangalore and 9,000 linked by satellite at sites in Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. Joining the “IBMers” was a select group of international investors, clients, government officials, policy makers and leading academic experts. In addition, 340,000 IBM employees in more than 170 countries will access the event in the days to come via IBM's intranet.
IBM chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano led the event in Bangalore, which included a presentation from the president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Bollywood star Dia Mirza acted as emcee. Event highlights included recognition of prominent individuals from Indian business and society whose innovative contributions have made a positive impact on the world.
New York-based Jack Morton produced the event with a team drawn from the U.S., U.K., Australia and India. Jack Morton has worked with IBM on internal and customer events for nearly 15 years.
The go-ahead for the June 6 event was received from IBM on March 27. Just five days later, the Jack Morton team arrived in Bangalore and began building a fully functioning, purpose-built event facility capable of comfortably accommodating more than 10,000 people. From initial briefing to final delivery, the event took just 76 days to execute.
“India is profoundly important to us and our clients," said Josh McCall, Jack Morton Worldwide CEO. "In India there is a great appreciation of the power of experiential marketing and growing demand for what we do. We are delighted to have worked with IBM to create such an ambitious event in one of the world’s fastest growing markets.”
EVENT FACTS
Total attendees: 19,000
Total team on-site: 164
Number of days on-site: 53
Labor force: 9,000 man-days
Total area of live site: 33 acres
Square yards of structures: 26,000
Square yards of fabric: 6,892
Number of video projectors: 30
Number of individual scenic elements: 136
Number of light fixtures: 458
Number of loudspeakers: 144
Number of radios: 270
Number of generators: 19
Fire proofing: 270,000 square feet
Number of air-conditioners: 404 (capacity 3,000 tons of air per hour)
Number of tailors: 100, who sewed 8,000 seat covers in 12 days
Number of ushers: 123
