CommuniCreations Inc. - Creative Client Services

SPECIAL PROJECTS

WEYERHAEUSER
PIRATE FEST

THE CHALLENGE:

Each year the Weyerhaeuser company flies out the best of the best of its mill workers to Seattle for a week of recognition events and meetings. It's a true honor for these workers to be selected and the company doesn't spare any expense to show its appreciation.

But each year, those who are flown out become a little more jaded by the ordinary themes the company had used. As such, the event was becoming somewhat blasé.

THE SOLUTION:

One of our creative partners, Lombardo & Company, suggested a Pirate Fest to the company and Weyerhaeuser was very enthusistic about the idea.

Our job was to create the live action portion of the event. In addition to an employee session where the diabolical Blackbeard made them build a plank to walk on as well as other team building activities, we were charged with managing the trip to Treasure Island.

The workers would be pressed into piratical service at their hotel in Sea-Tac during one of their meetings. They would then be whisked away to a boat and shipped of to the "desert isle," where they were to hunt for treasure, be feted by the pirates and be treated to a dazzling show featuring Prince Lightning, fire breather and nail walker extraordinaire and the Island Time steel drum band.

For the treasure hunt, we developed clues for 25 teams (250 different rhyming clues) that led them around the island. The first team to solve all the clues got their pick of treasure from the chest, which included silverware, cameras, jewelry and such.

We hired a band of local pirates and wenches to serve as team captains and atmosphere for the event, 25 of them all told. And we shipped in some specialty pirates from North Carolina and Texas – Texas Tallships and Blackbeard. Prince Lightning was brought in from Jamaica. We were also charged with finding the band and Island Time fit right in.

THE RESULT:

Keeping 250 slightly inebriated mill workers under control as well as 25 slightly more inebriated pirates was a real chore but we managed to pull it off with aplomb. Weyerhaeuser's event planning committee said it was the best event they had ever had and two years later, those lucky enough to have been the best of the best that year were still talking about the fun they had being pirates for a day.