The range of luxury cars on display at the Qatar Motor Show was astounding. The Mercedes in the photo was particularly stunning, with doors that opened upwards like wings - just like the time travelling DeLorean in the Back to the Future movies. I wouldn’t call myself a motoring aficionado, but I could certainly appreciate the sleek lines and futuristic design of all the cars around me. I imagine that some wealthier motor show visitors would have purchased these amazing cars on the spot. In future I will probably be dodging out of their way as they tear recklessly down the Doha highways with zero concern for anyone else.
During the Motor Show I was managing the stand for one of our clients, an Islamic bank. Of course, our stand’s general atmosphere was somewhat sedate compared to the action-packed-pop-music-blasting-party feel of many other stands, in particular our other client: a large international oil company. Hostesses at other stands were dressed in bright colours, miniskirts, tight trousers and high heels, while ours wore black abayas and covered their hair. BOOORRRIIINNGGG. I guess after all, how wild can a bank’s image really be.
Our stand was offering free coffee, which immediately drew people in like vultures. Many came directly from outside aiming to get coffee and leave. We had to quickly implement a ‘customers only’ rule to prevent our coffee supplies coming to an end before the motor show did.
The exhibition centre was packed throughout the whole weekend, especially Friday when all the manual labourers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh have their one weekly day off. They milled around taking photos of absolutely everything, snapping up freebies and generally having a grand old time. The chubby Michelin man was an especially fine photo op that I also took advantage of.
It’s been a mad and crazy week, no, an entire month. I worked my ass off, learned a lot about events and PR, had some great successes and got some amazing experiences to add to my CV. But it’ll be nice when January is over and the working days go back to normal, not to mention having weekends free again. I’m looking forward to that very much!!
