You’ve probably heard the stories of famous bands who, when they perform, demanded a dish of only blue M&M’s be placed in their dressing room. But, have you thought about the person who had to pick out all of the other colors?
In the business of events, this is logistics.
Last week, I wrote about the volunteers of the Savannah Food & Wine Festival who work to make this huge festival possible. This week, I’ll focus on the logistics.
When we took on the challenge of organizing this world-class festival last year, we knew it would be a monumental task with many things that needed to be done.
Let me begin with wine.
Weeks before the week-long festival started, hundreds of cases of wine and spirits arrived at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center. This was our centralized hub for all of the wine and spirits, both purchased and donated, worth more than $500,000 shipped in by our many suppliers and distributing partners.
From there, we had to distribute the cases to each one of
the 52 events and experiences at the perfect time so it could be chilled to the appropriate serving temperature.
From there it was food.
With more than 20,000 plates and tastes expertly served, we also had to coordinate with food delivery. Each of the events had a separate menu, with several courses, created by some of the top chefs of our time.
We had an amazing partner in Sysco. Some chefs needed tuna for a special course. Sysco sourced line-caught blue fin ahi tuna from Hawaii and had it flown to Savannah less than 48 hours after it was caught. Another chef needed fresh halibut, Sysco took care of our chef and had the fish flown in from Alaska.
We also had location logistics.
At the Taste of Savannah in Ellis Square, it took over 48 hours for crews of dozens to set up the event with hundreds of tents, signs, ice buckets, netting and Big Green Eggs. As a sponsor, they had 10 of their very big green eggs grilling up Georgia Grown products. They all had to be placed at a certain time and location and brought to just the right temperature.
Each of the vendors had their own set of logistics. They required certain amps of electricity, which required generators. They needed permits to serve food and drink. They needed hotplates, chafing dishes and hundreds of plates and napkins. They had to bring in all that is required to serve thousands of hungry food and wine fans.
Then there was tear down. After all, for every event that is set up, there must be a break down process as well.
We worked with the city of Savannah on closing streets, sanitation and crowd control. We hired dozens of security officers, both uniformed police and civilian security.
We also had to move our VIPs through the city and from event to event. Land Rover Hilton Head provided transportation, including bringing in the stretch limousine Land Rover.
The 350-plus volunteers whom I mentioned last week? We also had to train, feed and deploy them.
Several of the tastings required that we bring more than 600 fragile, lead-crystal wine glasses. At Taste of Savannah, each of the thousands of participants received a souvenir GoVino glass. All of those had to make it to Ellis Square. Each event had its own set of signs that had to be created, printed, distributed and hung.
Of course, all of this proved, logistically-speaking, to be challenges along the way to producing a festival that brought in thousands of people to Savannah.
Today, we’ve already begun to set up for this year’s festival that will be held Nov. 10-16. Our team toured Ellis Square and Johnson Square preparing for this year’s expansion of Taste of Savannah, which will bring on a new set of logistics.
However, we embark with the wisdom of experience and the hopefulness of great things ahead. As you enjoy the festival this year, I hope you look beyond the experience and think about the logistics that went in to making an unforgettable festival.
Michael Owens is president/CEO of the Tourism Leadership Council and co-founder of the Savannah Food & Wine Festival (www.SavannahFood
andWineFestival.com) Feel free to email him at michael@tourismleadershipcouncil.com or by calling 912-232-1223.