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 This year’s Summer Eventia, one of the events industry’s foremost annual gatherings, attracted a record 250 delegates, speakers, media representatives and sponsors – some 14 per cent more than attended the 2007 conference.
Conference topics at the event, which was held last week at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, covered a wide range of the key issues and trends facing the events sector – from an overview of the global economic situation to developments in events education programmes, and from the latest trends in experiential marketing to the establishment of a common commercial methodology for pricing event agency services.
Parallel workshop sessions ranged over regulatory issues, CSR, health and safety, technology, procurement, client/agency relationships, the provision of destination services, and meeting business objectives through staging effective events.
Members of the National Tourist Office collaboration ‘Where The World Is Your Oyster’ were on hand to promote their countries’ attractions though a series of one-to-one appointments with hosted buyers on the first day of the conference.
On a more light-hearted note, a version of the popular TV programme Room 101 was staged, with leading events industry personalities sharing their pet hates with the conference. Such hates included misleading budget airline pricing, email ‘trails’, fam trip last-minute no-shows, over-hyped ‘green’ credentials, and the serving of warm white wine!
Many of the conference participants travelled to Manchester on board a specially chartered private train, minimising the event’s carbon emissions while at the same time providing excellent pre- and post-conference networking opportunities.
Patrick Collins of event agency Universal CIT took on the mantle of Eventia chair at the conference. ‘The Summer Eventia confirmed for me that we have a huge amount of talent in the events sector,’ he says. ‘We must make sure that we deliver fantastic events through the recession facing us over the next two years. I am also really keen to see us move forward in developing a properly structured and agreed pricing model, and I want Eventia to take the lead on this for the benefit of the whole industry.’
 Izania Downie, Eventia’s executive director (pictured left), adds: ‘I’m absolutely delighted with the feedback we’ve received on this year’s event. We’ve built on the success of last year’s conference and taken the whole programme up a level. I do believe that delegates were energised and inspired by the programme content and by their interaction with other attendees. I’m sure they will have picked up lots of invaluable information and ideas to apply in their own work situations.’
Feedback from the participants was universally positive, encapsulated in the comments of Tina Morris, managing partner of event agency AddingValue: ‘What a great conference: really informative, educational and professional.’
A full event programme can be viewed at www.eventia.org.uk.
Contact
Telephone: +44 (0)121 212 1400
Email: info@eventia.org.uk
Website: www.eventia.org.uk
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