Don't forget your bamboo sticks

As many of you will already know, on May 12th we were involved in organising Cambodia's first-ever World Fair Trade Day, which saw over 300 Cambodian producers attent to hear speeches, watch a drama, listen to music, take part in games and find out how 'Fair Trade' can make a difference to their lives.

But what you won't know is what went on behind the scenes, including the often-bizzare and unexpected things required for making a public event in Cambodia happen. If you are thinking of putting on any such event on yourself, you might want to first check you have the following:

1) Letters, Letters, Letters! - To make our event happen we needed a total of four letters of permission, all from the Government! One from the National Cultural Centre (the venue), one from the Ministry of Arts & Culture (who have authority over the venue), one from the Ministry of Commerce (who have responsibility for the theme of our event) and one from the Municipality (who have to approve any banners hanging outside the venue!)

Lesson learnt: Apparently nothing in Cambodia happens without the Prime Minister himself knowing about it first!

2) Envelopes...with dollars! - After being denied permission for our first and second choice of venue and the Government department responsible for reviewing our third choice application mysteriously 'losing' our letter, we realised we were missing a trick. One of the Cambodians on our team smiled and pointed out that all we needed to do was to send someone with an envelope containing $50 to meet the Government official responsible and hand it to him with "the notes sticking out slightly at the top" and explain that we hope he finds our letter very soon. According to my colleague, this was not actually a ‘bribe’ but rather payment for using the Government 'fast-track' service!

Lesson learnt: A surprising amount of letters are mysteriously 'lost' by unexplainably clumsy Government officials in Cambodia.

3) Bamboo Sticks - It was about 9pm on the night before the event when we realised that we were missing the key ingredient required to hang the backdrop to the stage...bamboo sticks! After jumping in my friend's yellow 'Tuk Tuk' and driving across the city during rush-hour traffic in search for bamboo sticks (we almost stopped and picked up some sugar cane sticks instead!), we eventually found what we were looking for within the grounds of a nearby Buddhist Temple. We 'borrowed' the sticks and took them back to the venue to be expertly hacked to size using my colleague’s machete. A very Cambodian response to our situation.

Lesson learnt: When organising public events, don't forget your bamboo sticks...or your machete!

4) Clowns – On the morning of the event, we arrived to find the arts group we had hired to perform a dance and drama dressing-up in clown outfits, preparing to go out onto the streets and attract people into the venue (if it was me, I’d be running the other way!) Despite my insistence that it was an invitation event and we had no need for people to come in off the streets, by the time the noses had been painted red and the stilts stuck on the feets, there was no stopping them. In the end, they only attracted those who were already on their way to the venue.

Lesson learnt: Like marmite, clowns do it for some but not for others.

Organising World Fair Trade Day taught all of us on the organising team some very valuable lessons about hosting a public event in Cambodia. How relevant these lessons (and the somewhat random list of essentials) will be, should I end up organising a public event in the UK, remains to be seen.