38 MIX AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 http://www.mixmeetings.comthe eventist
FINDING
PRECIOUS
SPACE
An ‘Avon calling’ brought
Maureen Earls to
Asia where she found a
haven for outdoor events
after producing farewell
ceremonies when China
resumed sovereignty over
Hong Kong and MacauOrganising the hong
Kong handover
ceremony, and later
Central harbour
event space made
you well known in
government circles.
But your first gig in
hong Kong was more
transient – how come
you stayed?
I was a corporate event
producer in New York City
and was lucky enough
to get the opportunity to
come to Hong Kong to do
an incentive for Avon. Avon- the cosmetics company
holds a Golden Circle for the top selling ladies from all over the
world. It was a three-day celebration with an awards ceremony in
Hong Kong at the then Regent Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui in May of ’92.
I visited once to do the recce and loved it – I thought this is a
great city and I couldn’t wait to get back. Though I had a nice life
in New York with a really good job, I just felt such a sense of
comfort here in Hong Kong. I felt like I belonged here, I felt that I
had to be part of it.
I met the Rule brothers (David and John) who wanted a
producer to join their company – so by August ’92 I was
back here.
this was in the run-up to the handover of sovereignty
in 1997. For many people it was a period of uncertainty,
but for you it seemed the other way around.
Why was that?
When I arrived I had no real plan. I wasn’t 25, I was in the middle
of my career. I thought maybe I’ll stay a year or two, but I loved
producing events here. What a breath of fresh air from producing
events in the US where your work life was in a lot of angst. In Asia
it was different. The quality was still very high but there seemed to
be more balance in what was important. In the States it was like
living in fear as we worked like crazy ... I was hitting the clock at
110 hours a week on a regular basis.
When I got to work in Asia, clients were understanding: “You
seem tired, why were you working until 11 o’clock? You better go
home.” There was caring to treat suppliers as more human, not as
a machine. I fell in love with that sense of ‘let’s do our work, but in
a gentler way”.Leaving America led to this key role in the Farewell Ceremony
when Britain returned its sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.
All my work philosophy came from my training at Caribiner and
the company was going international. So I said: ‘Why don’t I set up
your office in Hong Kong?’ So I did and in ’96 I started writing to
the Hong Kong Government saying: “What are your going to
do about the Handover?”
I wrote to every department I could think of and usually
received responses saying: ‘Thank you for your interest, there’s
no information yet’. That went on for months until I read in the
newspaper that Stephen Lam [Sui-lung] was to head the HK
handover coordination office, so I started writing to him.
Eventually a tender came out. Caribiner was on the list and we
won the HK Farewell Ceremony to take place on Tamar, Admiralty.share with us how the ceremonies – historic events –
went for you.
I became executive producer of the Farewell Ceremony, meaning
I had a London team working on the design and the content while
my HK production team pulled all the school groups together and
different local organisations for the event at Tamar. I managed
these teams and was the liaison with the HK government team.
We had hundreds of performers: school kids, bands, and the
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Chinese
Orchestra both playing together at the event, which hadn’t been
done before.
It chucked down with rain, and the plan always was that if it
rained we would end the event. We had grandstands, but they
weren’t covered. It wasn’t raining when the event started, but
towards the end everybody was drenched, even though we had
umbrellas for all.
Someone asked me whether we should end the ceremony after
all the official parts ... but we had all these school children waiting
to perform the finale. There were concerns about the audience
being so wet. When I got on the radio and told the stage manager
we weren’t going ahead, she said: ‘Repeat that’ and I did ... there
was silence. We felt sad not finishing the show – but the call came
back from the stage manager saying: “The audience can do what
they want, we’re still doing it!”
This was such a sign of Hong Kong’s spirit. All the kids, adults
and performers felt the importance of being part of this ceremony
and were not concerned about being drenched.
When [Britain’s outgoing governor of Hong Kong] Chris Patten,
got the message that the cast was going to continue, he said: ‘Well,
then I’m not leaving.’ Once he stood up it would have signalled that
the event was over, but he stayed, so everyone stayed.
Eventually I began working on the official midnight Handover