The Sea of Red (and Khaki)

Every year, my company brings together its leaders from HQ and the field for an annual gathering of the Red and Khaki!  This event consists of the company leaders giving brief overviews of their divisional strategies and vision.  Sounds like a boring afternoon, right?


Well, not really.  You see, everything my company does exceeds the normal grind.  They spend an inordinate amount time and effort making every event a memorable one.  We have an incredibly talented Events Planning Team and the result of their work is usually dazzling and entertaining.   Even the most benign company events, like a corporate vendor conference, are usually high energy evolutions, complete with shock and awe and always with a surprise or two in the mix.  This event is no different.


The day starts out with the entire 10,000+ HQ army and a few thousand additional visitors from the field spilling on the downtown streets decked out in our signature Red and Khaki. City buses, normally crowded with boringly dressed businesspeople, are filled to the brim with the bright red shirts.  As they arrived at there normal stops, the buses spew their like-colored passengers onto the streets and the masses soon fall in line and flow in the same direction like an overflowing river of red.  To add to the homogeny, the surrounding downtown hotels are flooded with the same red and khaki dressed battalions who eventually join the swarm.  It looks like a cult of neatly dressed, well groomed fanatics have taken over downtown.  How mid-western!


For the next few hours, downtown seems relatively normal, but around noon, the herd reappears.  This time in a crosstown flood moving from the city center to the basketball stadium, Target Center, on the edge of the city.  Every street is choked with Red and Khaki and traffic for all intense and purpose comes to a standstill while the 13,000+ strong horde moves through the streets.  This is just the beginning.


The multitudes pile into the stadium where a DJ is spinning upbeat dance tunes and acrobats and cheerleaders whoop the crowd into a frenzy.  Little by little, the seats fill and soon the entire hall is one huge blanket of red. This is the celebration of another outstanding year and what makes it even more impressive is that it was done during a recession.  People are happy!  "It is good to belong to a winning team" is the theme of the day.


The CEO appears on stage to a standing ovation and eloquently addresses the crowd with praises for a job well done.  He has successfully steered the company through tumultuous times and the crowd shows their thanks with numerous, genuine ovations.  This is not mendacious, but true admiration for excellent leadership.


A few more corporate leaders give inspirational and lucid speeches addressing the corporate successes and challenges ahead, as well as thanking the throng for a job well done.  After the first few, the announcer's voice signals the one of the many anticipated moments of the day:  the first mystery performer.


To keep the crowd foaming, the speeches are punctuated by performing artist and famous people that have ties with the company.  Some are exclusive artist to the company and others simply share the corporate altruistic values.  We know there will be performers as we have them every year, but the identities and times that they perform are a well kept secret.  So we listen attentively to each speaker hoping that the next announcement with start out with ".... this grammy winning artist...."  It is like going to Sesame Street-on-Ice as a kid and waiting for Big Bird.  Hugely satisfying!


This year, our first entertainer was Keith Urban.  He came out and sang a few songs and then between songs 2 and 3 brought the house lights up to see the red horde.  He made some jokes and then had his own Red and Khaki ensemble brought out complete with store name-tag and changed into it.  As I said, these are always interactive and entertaining.  He made some more jokes, began his third song, invited a bunch of people from the crowd on stage to sing with him and he was gone.  A good start.


Over the years, this meeting has had some great performers from Rihanna, Elvis Costello and Tony Bennett to Pearl Jam and Faith Hill.  We have even had Shikira humping an amplifier as a warm-up for the Black Eyed Peas, but the most memorable performer is Michael Buble. He has performed twice for us and each time, he comes with a relaxed attitude and good humor.  Last year, he disappeared in the crowd, had a few starstruck women sings duets with him and finished up with allowing half the crowd to take individual pictures with him. A crowd pleaser each and every time.  A few years ago, we actually had Colin Powell come speak to us during the event.  Truly, a once in a life time experience.  As I said, not your typically corporate gathering.


Anyway, a few more speakers marched through to thunderous applause and then the announcer began again ..... "two time grammy winning, blah, blah....please welcome ..... John Legend."  Now we had real pandemonium.  Since I work for one of, if not the most philanthropic companies on the planet, giving more than $3 million a week away in charity, they always like to have celebrities who can further the cause.  The main focus of the charity work has always been children's education and apparently John Legend is a huge supporter.  He played a few songs for us that had not yet been released for a new movie that highlights the plight of children in the US.


The event moved briskly through various leaders highlighting various departmental successes and new initiatives and few more acts including Enrique Iglesias and a few others a cannot recall.  Each leader was eloquent and continued to build the excitement with culminates each year with the Marketing presentation.  My company is a marketing powerhouse and this is the time where we get to see the new market campaigns for Christmas and beyond.  You got to love company that produces adds so entertaining that thousands of people can be mesmerized for 30 minutes just by running commercials.


Sometime during the marketing montage, the final and most anticipated performer is always revealed.  This year was no exception.  In the middle of the final segment, we were treated to none other than Taylor Swift.  Now I am no huge fan of the county-pop crossover genre, but I have to admit, the girl can put on a show.  She danced through the crowd and invited a few hundred up on stage to sing and dance with her.  She brought up the lights and was so impressed with our likeness in red that she took a picture and Twittered it.  But those of you who follow Taylor Swift's Twitter already know all about this.


All in all it was another unbelievable corporate meeting with all the trimmings.  It not only provided a great overview of the corporate vision and direction, but it was damn fun too.


You got to love the Red and Khaki!