General Motors' European dealer launch for the new Opel/Vauxhall Zafira.

Flemming Madsen, Director of Sales & Operations of First United, commenced the initial research and feasibility studies for the event in 2002 and, in co-operation with General Motors' European event bureau, Maritz GmbH, the next 3 years were spent negotiating hotel contracts, venue contracts and fine tuning the event, right down to the selection of the design of the cutlery and tableware, which was chosen to reflect the car's qualities.

During the course of a 3 week period, 7.500 General Motors' guests visited Copenhagen for an event which included – of course – test driving the new car, on especially selected routes that included crossing the Øresund Bridge to Sweden; seeing state of the art video presentations of the vehicles USPs in especially constructed cinemas in the Øksnehallen; enjoying fabulous food by some of Copenhagen's best chefs at a variety of restaurants and venues and – during the 200th anniversary year for Hans Christian Andersen's birth - watching an especially created "Hans Christian Andersen on Ice" show, into the choreography of which the presentation of the new car was incorporated, at an ice rink theatre, especially constructed in a former bottling hall at the old Tuborg brewery – a superb show created by the event makers at PCI Fitch.

The overall concept of the event set new standards for the innovative use of many of the facilities that Copenhagen and the Øresund region has to offer and will serve as inspiration for future events.

For the city of Copenhagen, the event generated almost 19.000 room nights of business and involved, amongst other details, that Copenhagen's newest 5 star hotel, Hotel Skt. Petri, was exclusively reserved for General Motors for the duration of the event and that some 85% of the capacity of the Copenhagen Marriott Hotel was also taken by General Motors. To the hotel revenue can be added, the revenue generated by the creative events during the launch.

Quoting Jens Hauer of GM Europe "This is an extremely important event for GM, the object of which is to keep the Zafira at the top of its class and to give our dealers the chance to see and test in a manner and an environment which they probably did not expect.”

Post-event, the feedback has been very, very positive – both for First United and the city of Copenhagen and one quote, from Volker Weber of Maritz GmbH, says it all:

"Dear Flemming,

On behalf of General Motors, we would like to express our gratitude to all of you for a tremendous job delivered for the launch of the New Zafira in Copenhagen from 13 June till 04 July 2005.

Please accept our thankfulness to you personally as well as your team. The level of dedication expressed by yourselves and your team was outstanding, the quality and service you have delivered throughout the four weeks of operation were exceptional and Copenhagen has been proven as a destination for premium class events.

We can only encourage you all to keep up this dedication to your job. Congratulations."

And, of course, at First United "keeping up the dedication" is just part of the philosophy behind the advisory and management services which we provide.

For more information, please contact Mr. Flemming Madsen at denmark@euromic.com