Amazing, truly amazing. What is? Last weekend, 18/19/20th May 07. Why? Oh well just your usual weekend of 5 star luxury, rock heroes and well produced conference organisation. That's all.

OK, enough of the blase already! West End Studios is a production company who work out of Eastbourne. They are really top notch at what they do, and they do a lot of conference organisation for some really quite humungous companies. This weekend was entitled "A Grand Experience" appropriate being that we were at the Grand, Eastbourne, coincidence? Nah.

The Grand Hotel Eastbourne

Friday had us in the "Bentley" pootling down to sunny Eastbourne and meeting with the chaps and chapesses of West End Studios. Rendezvous; The Grand Hotel (Eastbourne natch!), where they had a gang of techys in full swing erecting their set, lights and all manner of audio visual equipment which was to be used to good effect, but more of that later.

The delegates were not due until Saturday morning, however the Hotel was in full swing as there was another conference happening that night GCAP, a mradio marketing company, were having their annual sales awards bash. A bit unnerving to see Fred Flinstone dancing with an 80 year old guest in the tea rooms! Wilma was also there being guided about by a similarly senior citizen.

Stars at their Feet

I think we managed to upset Alex Zane from T4, we thought he was in fancy dress, like the other GCAP delegates but as he says "No, I dress like this normally", right, sorry Alex. (oops)!

After a few drinks and a planning meeting we repaired to our respective hotel rooms to rest for the weekend ahead. Saturday rolled round, sunny, bright, clear but oh so windy, so very, very windy. OK, but there was to be some outdoors activities and the wind could have made life much more difficult.

The singers scared the diners off

The conference started at 10:30, Derek the host, proceeded to explain what the whole "Grand Experience" was to be about. Up to now the delegates had no idea what to expect, but they soon found out. Derek explained "A roomful of strangers will work in three teams to produce a pop record and a video over the course

of today, it will be edited and mixed overnight, ready for a viewing tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Gasps, then silence. "No Really", nervous laughter filtered through the room. "No, really really" confirmed Derek. "You will, but you will be getting some help, please welcome to the stage Midge Ure". Cue Midge Ure, enter stage left. Midge then went on to explain how his experiences with Band Aid and the ensemble nature showed that a disperate group of people can come together and create something really quite special if they work as a team.

However there was a fly in the ointment; Midge explained that he would have to leave the event at 12:30, fly to Rome, record a TV show but would fly back to join us the following morning. So in his stead he would leave us in the more than capable hands of... Chris Difford. Tada! Who you may ask, Chris Difford, he of Squeeze fame, the man who gave us Cool for Cats which makes him forever cool in our books.

And you are?

Chris joined Midge on stage and they explained all that was to unfold during the days event. No sooner had they begun than it was over, and the mayhem ensued.  Those with musical "talent" were extracted from the group and escorted to a room to spend the day recording the song that Midge wrote especially for this event.

"Watch and learn son." Urges Ure		"Is bald the new hairy?" Muses Chris
New aqua-zimmer gets tested		Midge spots the CCTV camera

We then left the conference briefing and hustled off to get changed into Vicky and Emily. We then spent all day going from group to group "helping" them to put together their filmed sections. This was where the organisational abilities of Tanya, Crispian, Ady, Phil, Graham, Martin, Derek, Manni, Michael and all the other people from West End Studios was tested to the limits. With such a huge amount to co-ordinate, log, check and double check it was a testiment to the West End Studios team that no one was ever lost as to what was happeing and nothing went wrong. Awesome, truly awesome.

Vicky just before nicking sumfin'

Emily; F. Shy, retiring wltm M (any).

The day flew past with snapshots lodged in our brains of the waiting staff standing agog. Passing promenaders pointing and snapping. Hotel guests nearly walking in to each other whilst craning their necks to catch a glimpse. All handled by Philip Webley, general manager of The Grand and his super professional staff.

Ady does his best Stevie Wonder

The Adams Family Mk2

Once the days events was over, the rushes were all given to Ady and his production team and their nightmare began. How to slice and dice over 10 hours of footage and edit and mix a song into a pop promo which would last about 6 minutes all told. Whilst Ady's team had that to deal with he joined the guests in the main room and ran a pop quiz, presided over by Derek and Tara who were the scoremasters for the evening. We started proceedings as Andy and Lou in the cocktail reception lounge area and after a brief interlude showed the guests to the main function room and then left for a quick change into Vicky and Anne.

Ady; you can run but can't hide!

One voice? Err, surely two?

The rest of the night had Vicky posing as Ady's girlfriend and Anne creating havoc by eating the scores and frightening the hell out of Ady who ran off whenever Anne got near. The highlight of the evening however was seeing Chris Difford perform some of his best known songs including; Pulling Mussels (from the Shell) (correctly bracketed if my pop trivia doesn't fail me!), Cool for Cats, Up the Junction and Black Coffee in Bed. All done accoustically, and backing vocal duties being handled by the dulcet tones of Dorie Jackson. It was a sublime moment for an instant I ( ) was transported back to my childhood bedroom listening to these songs on my old hand-me-down dansette.

After the evening dinner event had finished we had a few drinks with all concerned, except Midge obviously as he was in Italy! The evening flew by, in a haze of drinks (not too many), congratulations, reminiscences, pranks, japes and jollity. Officially a good time was had by all, that's just in case you were a guest and you are reading this but due to being "tired and emotional" after a long day and don't remember it.

The happy couples

Sunday started (way too early) at 11am (way too early if you had been up untill the wee small hours that is) and the guests all got to see the fruits of their labours. The West End Studios back stage boys had woven their magic and stiched together the disperate, dislocated footage and had created a magic moment. As Midge said the vocals were excellent, the video was a little bit of a "quilt of many colours".

It worked though and the team realised just what they had pulled off creating a brilliant high to end the conference on.

Congrats to all concerned it was a spectacular effort and one which will hopefully be remembered for, not days, weeks or even months but years to come. Hats off to Graham and Phil and their team, all the praise you get is richly deserved. We look forward to working for you again!

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