Soaring Communications

Posts Tagged ‘Organisers’

Tip-ex 2010, which took place from 27^th-29^th May was a great success for the organisers and demonstrated how as a town Harrogate can pull together and generate long term reward for a huge range of businesses.

HIC’s director, Stuart Quin “Economic changes over the last two years have impacted businesses of all sizes.  Where a town like Harrogate can work together to help a business facing tough times it is in our best interest to provide support and we look forward to welcoming Tip-ex back next year.”

Tip-ex, which is the UK’s only exhibition dedicated to the tipping industry was scheduled for 2009 but cancelled due to the recession.  Rather than impose heavy cancellation fees on an already beleaguered exhibition, HIC agreed to postpone the event, preserving long term revenues and ensuring the event’s success.

Despite the downturn in the economy and the cancellation of the 2009 show, more than 2,000 visitors attended, using a variety of the town’s business and leisure facilities, including hotels, restaurants and pubs.

One key factor of the event was the use of the Crescent Gardens – the council car park – for the spectacular display of several brand new tipper trucks.  Images of this have been and will continue to be used throughout the tipping industry, increasing regard for Harrogate as a world leading business tourism destination.

Quin continues: “Events like Tip-ex have a huge economic impact on Harrogate, providing revenues for businesses of all sizes.  Harrogate is a beautiful destination and the use of an outdoor space such as Crescent Gardens adds to the town’s superb business events infrastructure through the use of unusual spaces.  It has become more crucial than ever that the town works together to secure and keep these valuable business events – the ability to provide this, and other, outdoor space is an important element in the offering.”

Following the devastating fire at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate last month the whole of Harrogate, including Harrogate International Centre and Destination Harrogate (an association of the town’s 12 leading hotels) pulled together to ensure valuable event business remained in the town.

Harrogate International Centre’s, deputy director, Simon Kent, said: “After such a tragic fire, it was imperative for Harrogate to pull together as a community and for all pre-booked and planned events to go ahead. Event business is exceptionally important to Harrogate and our immediate focus was to ensure business as usual.”

Harrogate International Centre, along with Destination Harrogate venues was able to accommodate several of the events planned for the Majestic at no extra charge to the organisers, whilst both staff and customer accommodation was sourced across the rest of the town.  Additional infrastructure was also put in place to ensure logistical needs and transfers were all met.

The Toymaster Exhibition operations director, Ian Edmunds said: “[HIC] helped turn the disastrous event of the 5^th May at the Majestic into the resounding success that was Toymaster’s May Show…  I fully understand and appreciate the difficulties and challenges our event must have presented you all with having booked it on the Monday and needing the carpet laid on the Friday, not the normal time scale I would expect anyone to adhere to.  To say you were all a pleasure to deal with is a total understatement.”

Harrogate International Centre’s Simon Kent concludes:  “Clearly our primary intention was to maintain the current business for Harrogate and ensure the additional revenue streams were maintained for our suppliers, partners and third parties across the town.  However, to have such a resounding endorsement and subsequent confirmation that Toymaster will continue to support Harrogate really is the icing on the cake.”

I mentioned in the “Got a Blockage” post that I had recently attended a superb creative writing  course.  Well the organisers are running another, also in Cirencester, Glos. and I highly recommend it…

SILENCE SPEAKS
 
Saturday March 28 10am – 4pm
 
Swithin Fry and Catherine Lucas
 
‘All creativity comes out of inner spaciousness’ Eckhart Tolle
 
Can’t get started or don’t know where to start? In the Silence Speaks workshop we’ll be sharing tried and tested techniques to shift any creative blocks. We’ll get your creativity flowing and give you a step-by-step plan to keep it flowing.
 
Is your inner critic drowning you out? Bring it along and learn how to befriend it, work with it.
 
This will be set against the backdrop of stilling the mind through meditation  and body awareness to get in touch with your inner, unique, creative voice.
 
If you would like further information, please email swithinfry@gmail.com.
 
£37
For bookings: New Brewery Arts Centre 01285.657 181

Event Assured, Europe’s leading innovator for event insurance solutions, is working with venues throughout the UK to raise awareness of event insurance  and its benefits.

The affiliate scheme has been launched with the three Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) venues, under the watchful eyes of ex-MIA Director. Charles Blowfield.  The venues are:

·         Savoy Place, London

·         Teacher Building, Glasgow

·         Austin Court, Birmingham

The affiliate scheme allows the venues to recommend Event Assured via electronic links to their comprehensive, industry- leading, online insurance portal – www.event-insurance-online.com.  The venues receive a marketing fee dependent on the volume of business done by Event Assured.

Event Assured, managing director, Brian Kirsch :  “Whilst we are obviously looking to this scheme to generate new revenues, our priority here is to reach more organisers and educate more people on the benefits of event insurance.  Venues  are often the first contact a booker will make in the planning process so they are uniquely able to recommend services and we firmly believe that more people should be considering insurance during these troubled economic times.”

Savoy Place, consultant, Charles Blowfied:  “It is hard to express how high a value I place on event insurance.  In any number of situations it can save an event , which in turn saves organising companies and jobs.  Our decision to work with Event Assured goes beyond the un-rivalled quality of the cover they provide to their professionalism and long standing reputation within the industry.”

As a follow up to my post several weeks ago ranting about the quality of some of the exhibitors at WTM I thought I would mention a little more about exhibition PR, its benefits etc…  This is made all the more relevant by our trip to Barcelona  last week for EIBTM.

Any exhibition organiser worth his (or her) job title will be working flat out in the lead up to the exhibition to ensure footfall.  Through a combination of marketing and PR strategies they will be working day  and night to bring in more visitors of the right quality.  It is quite simply in their best interest to do so as a low number of poor quality visitors will disappoint and turn off the exhibitors, making their sales job even harder the next time around.

Once the organisers have done their job, it is up to the individual exhibitors.  If the organisers get it right in terms of visitor profiling then the exhibitors only have themselves to blame if visitors don’t visit their stand.  Floor space, location , stand design and staff all play their part in attracting visitors but even exhibitors on smaller budgets can make a significant impact.

Using PR at the right time in the build up to a show directly affects people’s awareness of your presence, stand, new products or indeed offers you are making.  By reading and hearing about you or seeing promotional material in advance, visitors will either plan a trip to your stand or be far more aware of what you offer when they catch a glimpse of you at a show.

The opportunities to promote your presence at a show are vast but the simplest starting point is the organiser – so talk to them.  They need case studies and stories to help them promote the show as a whole so get on board and benefit from their experience and media  links. Exhibitors should also try to get involved in new or fringe elements of a show, such as conferences – they offer yet more opportunities for PR and profiling.

Beyond that it is a case of seeking your own opportunities, understanding what media your potential clients are exposed to and achieving coverage where it is going to have the most impact for you and your attendance at the show.

The actual show days are obviously vital to achieving exhibiting goals  but the right application of pre-show promotion certainly shortens the odds and makes life a little easier.  The exhibitor, like any craftsman has many different tools available to him, they all have a purpose and if they are used in the right sequence the outcome will be successful. It is simply a matter of balance.

More on this subject soon…