The Mela is Europe's largest Asian open air festival and the 2013 event attracted well over 200,000 people to celebrate the Bengali New Year with a mix of parades, stalls, exhibitions, funfairs and live music. It is a complex and sensitive event to steward, but AP's knowledge of the event and local area ensured that the company's staff made a significant contribution to its smooth running.
"We have been working at major events in Victoria Park and the surrounding area for many years, so it was a natural process for us to bring that together with our previous years experience of the Mela," says AP national sales manager John Phillips. "Of course that didn't mean we could relax at all! We put many months of planning into the event, working closely with all the organisations involved to ensure everything from road closures to rapid response teams were managed effectively and with as little disruption as possible."
AP prides itself on building long-term, high-quality relationships, so making a positive first impression is essential. This was certainly the case with event management company Ubique Leisure.
"This was the first time we had worked with AP Security and what a 'smiley face' team they were. Nothing was too much trouble for them, from helping with radios to quietly closing down a dodgy caterer with the minimum of fuss," says Ubique's Steve Braden.
(Jim Evans)
