Artificial intelligence (AI) could be the most revolutionary development in travel since commercial flight, transforming the way we book, navigate, stay and play.
Since 2008, Stage and Screen has provided cut-through travel solutions to creative content innovator, Cutting Edge. Our service agility, negotiating muscle, and availability day and night puts the Cutting Edge broadcast teams on site, on time, for major sporting events Australia wide.
ABOUT CUTTING EDGE
This creative content specialist offers leading services and technology to film, television, broadcast and digital clients throughout Australia, the UK and Japan. Key services include outside broadcasts (OBs), commercials, feature films, reality TV, interactive and online design, animation, visual effects and sound design. Cutting Edge has supported projects such as Network Ten AFL, Australian Idol, MasterChef, and the Baz Luhrmann film, Australia. The company has also worked on the Big Brother Series in Australia and Hell's Kitchen in the UK, as well as large scale commercials for clients such as Coke, McDonalds, and Toyota and Mitsubishi in Japan.
CHALLENGES
Cutting Edge has diverse travel management needs, centred around its hectic schedule throughout the year. Every week, the company provides OB and/or other services to at least one major Australian sporting event including AFL, 20-20 cricket, netball, basketball, golf and other sports. The company sends teams of video and sound technicians, riggers, reporters and other crew members to all corners of Australia, to cover events that are often running simultaneously. Destinations range from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to regional centres such as Cairns and Launceston.
As their sole travel management provider, Stage and Screen's key challenges are:
- managing travel for 10 to 30 Cutting Edge staff and/or VIPs at a time, on an ongoing basis
- securing flights, accommodation and cars to ensure the Cutting Edge teams always arrive in good time to set up for and broadcast from the events
- managing frequent, last-minute changes
- driving cost savings and value across the company's travel activity.
OUR PERFORMANCE
Stage and Screen's Assistant Team Leader, Rachel Waggett, provides agility and a tireless approach to meeting the needs of this dynamic client.
Rachel focuses her energies on the following solutions:
- booking accommodation up to a year in advance (mindful of the fact that major sporting events draw large crowds and high occupancy levels) to ensure there is never any shortage of accommodation for the Cutting Edge teams even over long weekends such as Easter and Anzac Day
- negotiating hotel and car hire rates specifically for Cutting Edge, based on our relationship with suppliers and high booking volumes, often securing lower prices than Cutting Edge's own preferred supplier rates
- providing hotel famils for Cutting Edge's travel bookers, to educate them on properties that will best suit the company's needs
- booking flights a month in advance to secure seats and ensure all team members working on the same event arrive at approximately the same time
- giving the travel bookers access to our web-res online booking tool, to speed the booking process and save the company on fees and travel rates
- booking the Cutting Edge OB truck onto the Spirit of Tasmania ship from Melbourne to Devonport (for one-day cricket matches in Hobart each year), including liaison with the shipping company to confirm the truck dimensions
- providing high attention to detail in managing travel for VIPs such as cricket commentators for Fox Sports, to ensure their air travel, hotel check-ins and car hire always run smoothly
- flexibly managing last-minute changes associated with changes to crew members on many events
- providing a fast response on all services and being available to Cutting Edge at all times
- providing a 24/7 emergency support service, which is used by Cutting Edge as much as twice a week
- undertaking quarterly reporting and performance reviews to continuously monitor the company's travel spend and compliance levels.
THE CREDITS
"The key to our successful business relationship is that Stage and Screen has taken the time to understand our business and our requirements. We have not had to alter the way we operate to fit in with Stage and Screen's processes and procedures. In fact, it has been the opposite. As our business has changed, Stage and Screen has always kept pace and changed with us."
- MATTHEW LAWSON - CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER/DIRECTOR CUTTING EDGE
