As an Event Planner, it’s not unusual to agree to a client’s wishes without assessing how impossible they may actually be and how on earth we are going to achieve them. Imagine shutting a town and the issues that this may raise. Now imagine that this town is Stratford upon Avon and the requested date is mid-afternoon on a bank holiday Saturday during high tourist season! You’ll realise this was the biggest ask Warwick Events has had to achieve this year, probably ever.
BAR are the British Association of Removers. In May this year they held a multi-day programme of events in Stratford. As a special request, they wondered if it might be possible to end the proceedings with a parade of historic removal vehicles through the ages.
Members of BAR would be the first to describe themselves as ‘anoraks’ and for them this was the gilding on the lily. (For one reason or another, many previous conference organisers had not managed to achieve this – to have done this was seeing the impossible becoming possible.) Meanwhile, locals and tourists alike were treated to a fascinating moving exhibition of historic removal vehicles.
Traversing through town was a procession of serene carriages pulled by horses, quaint removal trucks and the most high tech, modern removal lorries any house would be privileged to be moved by.
Shutting down Stratford in the height of tourist season was an intricate challenge and our local influence and knowledge was indispensable. A few months on we’re still basking in our achievement and simultaneously wondering: what next…? All we know is that Warwick Events will surely say ‘yes’ closely shadowed by ‘how?’
