Corporate drumming events in Cheltenham - Boomwhacker ice breaker at the Cheltenham Race Course
Corporate drumming events in Cheltenham - Boomwhacker ice breaker at the Cheltenham Race Course
We are proud to announce that our biggest corporate drumming event this year took place at the Cheltenham Race Course for the Mid Counties Cooperative.
Six hundred delegates participated in a mass percussion session using the fabulous Boomwhacker Tubes. What an amazing event it was! Thanks to some the highly skilled production crew, the opening sequence was particularly memorable. Here is an account of how the event ‘kicked off’: Explosive drumming performance!
As all the delegates entered the room after lunch, the lights dimmed and the sound of a solo African drum could be heard. The spot light shone down on a drum soloist who played a stunning introductory riff on his drum. Suddenly the spot light went out and he was gone. Immediately the spot light shone down on another drum soloist who started playing from the opposite side of the room. The spot light went out and immediately shone back on the first soloist – they both sounded as though they were talking to each other. As the attention switched back and forth between each soloist, it became clear that they were both getting closer to the stage! Finally as both drummers approached the main aisle, the lights came on and suddenly a full African drumming band created a big sound using bass drums to accompany the soloists – the beat was electrifying!
Conference Ice Breakers in the Midlands.
The introductory performance created the perfect mood for what was to come next. African drumming is about involving everybody and the delegates certainly gave their full participation as they clapped to the beats of the drums. But this was just the beginning! What the delegates may not have been expecting was that they were going to be the main act! Underneath each of their tables were packs of Boomwhacker percussion tubes. Delegates at each table passed the Boomwhackers around so that within minutes the entire room was filled with the sound of the tubes playing harmonious beats with the drums!
Steve Rivers quotes:
It always amazes me how seemlessly a huge number of people can play in time with each other. It is as though the power of everyone playing creates cohesion and support to everyone who participates. Within seconds the entire group of 600 delegates at the conference had managed to find a common pulse with the Boomwhackers – this happened instinctively with very little input from myself!
The final sound of the big ‘600 strong drum orchestra’ sounded truly amazing. There were all together six different rhythm parts being played by delegates seated at 76 tables in the room – all were coordinated and each table contributed to a piece of music which had become rich, syncapated, complex and beautiful!
Read feedback from Tarra Simmons from Mid Counties Cooperative.
Large conference ice breakers such as these are about creating the wow factor, so that everyone remembers the conference for years to come. Such an event provides that all important ‘lift’ in an organisation – allowing the entire team to be able to see what is possible when everyone fully participates.
Unbeatable Energy Ltd would like to thank Tarra Simmons from Mid Counties Cooperative for inviting our input to the conference and for maintaining such excellent dialogue prior to the event.
We would also like to thank Dave Hughes and Heartbeat Promotions for providing the superb sound and lighting – their input ensured that the event ran smoothly, and maintained a high level of professionalism.
Corporate ice breakers for training session - Unbeatable Energy work with Google
Corporate ice breakers for training session - Unbeatable Energy work with Google
This month we had the pleasure of providing a Boomwhacker workshop for a rather well known search engine company known as Google. Here is Steve Rivers’ account of the event: ‘‘There was something unusual about delivering this event. Like nearly everyone in the world who has a computer, I use Google everyday.
Google’s logo is probably the most familiar icon in the 21st Century. If you are trying to get from A to B, exchange big files online, researching or uploading videos, sending and receiving emails, planning your diaries, or simply wanting to know everything you need to know about almost anything, Google is sure to be involved somewhere. I can therefore be forgiven for being somewhat thrown when I received an enquiry from one of their representatives.
Rather embarrassingly, I even asked the enquirer to spell the name of their organisation because I couldn’t quite hear it – it sounded a bit like Google! Anyway I felt incredibly honoured and excited to be asked to deliver an event for them. Google wanted us to work with a group of outstanding students from the UK who had been attending their Bold Immersion Education Programme.
The Boomwhacker session was scheduled to close their course with something to energise and bring everybody together. The group were absolutely brilliant to work with! They were bright, confident, and really up for giving things a try. As a music facilitator it is always really refreshing to work with a group who give you so much back. When they clashed the Boomwhackers together, the group really gave the percussion tubes some ‘pow’!
A small group of only 30 began to have the sound of 100! By the end of the session we had managed involve the diatonic, pentatonic and chromatic colours from the Boomwhacker range and had managed to create the complex ‘Dorian’ rhythm which combines up to seven rhythm parts. All this was combined with dance movements which the participants fused with their rhythm grooves. The final two minutes of the session? – Awesome! Finally I was completely inspired by working at the Google office.
However, ‘office’ is not quite the right word – it was more like walking into an art gallery. How can I describe it? You know how every now and then you click onto Google and the logo has been changed to some new visual theme or topic. Well it’s like seeing all those things in 3D! There were so many things to attract the eye – colours, shapes, weird pods, Telephone boxes! The place was perhaps as one might expect – unmistakably ‘Googly’ – an environment buzzing with fresh ideas and creative energy.’’
Unbeatable Energy would like to thank Google for giving us the opportunity to work with their students and we hope we can have the opportunity to work with them again in the future.
