Appleton Special Dream Weekend, the annual summer party series, runs from July 28 until August 1 in the beach resort town of Negril. Today, associate sponsors Jamaica Observer publishes its sixth in a series of articles on the event.

FROM July 28 to August 1, the normally laid-back resort town of Negril comes alive with this year’s staging of the Dream Weekend — eight parties and a stage show over five days.

Charged with pulling all the events into a cohesive brand is managing director of Dream Entertainment, Scott Dunn. Along with his team of six — including four directors and two account executives — he oversees the marketing, logistics, creative output, safety issues and public relations for the annual event

“My team is great and knows their roles well. So, my job is to provide support for them and to fill a lot of gaps. As a result, I’m heavily involved in sponsorship negotiations and relations, negotiating with suppliers, bar logistics, gate management and finance. It’s very time-consuming — Appleton Special Dream Weekend takes 11 months to plan and the dream never sleeps. So it’s all day, every day. I spend a great deal of time communicating with international partners including sponsors like Glitzzy and Speir and hotels like Swept Away, Ayurveda and Hedonism.”

Unphased by the series’s success over the years, Dunn and his team are not about the rest on their laurels.

“Dream Weekend promises an experience like no other and we deliver that every year. A Jamaica Tourist Board survey done last year indicates that 92 per cent of our patrons rated the festival excellent, very good or good, so that demonstrates that we are living up to expectations. The event is extremely difficult and it never gets easier, contrary to popular belief. The entertainment and events industries are very dynamic and constantly shifting, so we work hard to stay on the pulse of things. We have a different approach to marketing and to the event planning business. We knew the growth and sustainability would come from outside Jamaica and we focused on that from early. We also knew that we couldn’t do this as a side job or hobby and we all left good careers to live the dream,” Dunn continued.

For the past two years, promoters of Dream Weekend have added a new live show and this year the likes of Bounty Killer, Masicka and Spice have been included in the line-up for what is dubbed ‘Dream Live’.

“All artistes want to perform on Magnum Dream Live, because it’s one of the biggest shows in the Caribbean. But the challenge is booking them before they are booked on the big, international, summer music festivals. This year we have Popcaan, Bounty Killer, Spice, Masicka, Ding Dong, Bella Blair, the Magnum King and Queen of dancehall (Accid and Clymmax),” said Dunn.

The Corporate Area and the second city, Montego Bay, got a taste of what is to come as the Dream Weekend team staged launches in those locations in the past weeks.

“Kingston is our home and a lot of dreamers are in Kingston. This year, we also launched in MoBay, beacuse the second city is our biggest local market and we wanted to show them some love. In the past we have had launches in Japan, Germany, St Lucia, Barbados, Toronto, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta and South Florida,” Dunn concluded.