| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 08/05/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 94 |
| Copyright: Other |
stagefright
Anyone makingmind-numbingly boring speeches, continually plugging companies (unless it’s Travel Weekly) or generally making a hash of things on stage is fair game for this section.Conferences should throw up plenty ofcandidates for stage fright. Making a strong bid for the new award from the recent ARTAC shindig were Thomson sales director Manuel Mascarenhas for blatant product plugging and JMC sales and UK operations director Denis Wormwell for use of technology.
But just to show I can take it as well as dole it out, I’m going to give the inaugural award to myself for two recent ‘mares’ on stage.
First up was my interview with Thomas Cook chief operating officer UK and Ireland Simon Vincent at the ARTACconference. Everyone knows thattrying to get something out of Simon is like trying to get blood out of a stone, so I was prepared for that. But for some reason I chose to kick off the interview with an obscure football story – if you weren’t there, just think lead and balloon.
Then, at the Agent Achievement Awards, I couldn’t make rehearsals, which annoyed the organisers. By pure coincidence, the organisers were keen to stress, the autocue then failed during my speech. Hopefully, it will be third time lucky.