Readers' Choice: Best event agency

As part of CEI Asia's annual Readers’ Choice Awards, here we celebrate the best event agencies across Asia Pacific—as voted by you, our readers.

MCI Group

With 30 per cent of global MCI Group business currently attributed to Asia, it’s clear the agency has set the APAC region
 at the forefront of its goals.

Consultancy services like FinTech and ICT as well as the pharmaceutical industry made up the lion’s share of MCI’s 2017 work, and according to Oscar Cerezales, COO Asia-Pacific: “For 2018, we are bringing to Asia some exciting event replicas, testing new experiential services and prototyping new services. And of course, accelerating the growth of our corporate events, and government and association meetings.”

With larger corporate budgets, increasing choice of destination, and better offline-to- online (O2O) infrastructure, the traditional concept of an event is transforming, and MCI is keeping pace. “We have embraced this change to improve our speed-to- market, improved scalability, better resourcing and developed a new suite of solutions—both digital and traditional—to capitalise on these opportunities,” says Cerezales.

Agency highlight... Pico organised Google's Future of Go Summit in China 

Pico International

Just over a year ago, Pico launched its P3 Innovation start-up incubator, and has since used the platform to raise the benchmark of events in the APAC region.

Chi Ming Kwan, senior manager, corporate communications at Pico, explains: “Advances in technology are allowing incredible experiences to be a part of every event. Describing P3’s assets, she says: “P3 Space, E3 and SSWIFT offerings are our response to a market landscape that is being radically reshaped by all kinds of cutting- edge technologies like AI, automation, the on-demand economy and cloud computing.”

Agency highlights of the year include activating pavilions at Expo 2017 Astana in Kazakhstan, organising the Cathay Pacific/ HSBC Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, Google’s Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, China and Sinagpore’s iLight Marina Bay.

“Our great strength is our flexibility and our impressive experience,” says Kwan. “We have been in the business for almost 50 years, this allows us to see creative possibilities that others do not.”

Uniplan

Uniplan has excelled at supporting the full lifetime of events—before, during and after —and in 2017, the agency continued to head some of the most stand-out projects in the industry. Uniplan was appointed to lead the 15th Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business (APK), registering 1,000 international delegates in the process.

The agency also transformed a raw waiting space at Hong Kong’s Pier 4 harbourfront into a luxurious showcase for Dom Pérignon. The exhibition attracted 365 VIP guests, and generated a reported HK$1 million (US$128,000) in sales for the luxury champagne producer.

For the fifth consecutive year, the agency captained the Longines Masters of Hong Kong equestrian show, selling out all three days of the event and bringing in more than 27,000 attendees.

Uniplan also staged Hong Kong’s 2017 Art Basel, where it managed multiple sponsor booths, attracted a record-breaking 80,000 visitors, and completed the massive installation with just four days’ lead time.