Corporate Events Plus

August calm before the storm!

Quoting on projects and pitching on events along with picking our way through Exhibitor manual details to ensure the correct trucks arrive at the right entrance gates for the next project at the 02 venue in London next weekend. August is a bit of a funny month. Time to catch up with the end of year business paperwork too as we head into year 16, clear the office of accumulated clutter and plan the next tranche of training before the Conference season starts again.

I am looking forward to working at the Frankfurt Motorshow early next Month, the next round of automotive technology to inspire project thinking. It is valuable going to these Exhibitions. Particularly when you get to appraise other countries work at International events. This can be a great source of leaning new communication methods.

But for now, after shocking bank holiday weekend weather, the sun is streaming in through the office windows while we are busy doing paperwork, typical!

This month has been varied for work with projects in exhibition taking up most of our time.

Always something new to learn Read More

Do you consider the environmental impact on your event?

If you use this systematic approach it could help you consider the environmental impact you may be having when Producing an event.

Plan ahead

Change the way you do things to reduce and prevent waste

Do

Implement your plan, Reduce by using less packaging or by improving efficiency

Check

Measure your waste methods and performance, can you reuse products?

Act

Review what you are doing and measure your methods against competitors. Are you acting responsibly?

IOSH, The Institution of Occupational Safety & Health is a British organisation recognized internationally for Health and Safety Professionals. I am glad to have passed the Managing Safely exam.

The course was very interesting, detailed with 8 modules, an Introduction to Managing Safely, Assessing risks, Controlling Risks, Understanding your responsibilities and the law, Identifying Hazards, Investigating accidents and incidents, Measuring Performance and Protecting the Environment.

A very thorough course worth going on.

Where has April gone?

Most of it spent in the classroom for me, First Aid at work,

Fire Warden / Marshal

And currently I am working through another Health and Safety course.

Sometimes we can be too busy with the day job to take stock and re train or update our knowledge of legislation and requirements necessary to manage our work.

Some interesting facts from the Fire Marshal course. There are on average 11,900 fires in business each year, 1,425 people are injured through fire at work and there are 35 deaths related to fire each year. That is 35 people who went to work in the morning and did not come home at night.

Think about it……Do you have an escape plan in place for your staff? Are your fire doors wedged open by mistake? Are the fire exits free from clutter? Is your fire fighting equipment up to date?

And so Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona comes to a close, 200 attending countries, tens of thousands of delegates over a 4 day period, 1,700 Exhibiting companies over 94,000 net sqm of exhibition space. The 40 strong team Read More

Technically directing the build of a two tier exhibition stand at the World’s largest Mobile phone congress is very interesting. Companies from all across Europe are constructing incredible structures from Steel and Glass. There are many English companies building stands. As a country we are still recognised as leaders in our field. However, on this project we are working with a local stand builder in Barcelona and we are enjoying the experience.

Ian and Alberto checking progress on the first floor of the latest build project at MWC in Barcelona

A saunter through the 8 Halls on the way back to the hotel at the end each day enables a keen eye to pick up tips for the future although photos are not allowed which is fair enough.

The venue here in Barcelona have embraced recycling of the natural waste associated with packaging items brought to the stands and there are Safety officers patrolling the halls to ensure contractors are adhering to ‘hot works’ (working with welding or grinding equipment) also enforcing working at height regulations. There are literally hundreds of contractors on site, in our hall it is a sea of hi viz and coloured hard hats.

Pre Production Coalface

This has been a full on month of pre event planning.

If only the end customer could see the effort that goes into the technical pre – production of any live event or exhibition stand build. A myriad of supplier and client expectations to juggle. Sometimes it can be as simple as choosing a carpet or wooden floor surface finish but there are more difficult elements to nail down such as local planning and building regulations when using steel supports or when building at height, even more so when constructing abroad.

A technical recce to Fira Gran Via Barcelona for a project next month – for 4 days next month this space will be filled with thousands of delegates at Mobile World Congress 2013.

Handy note …….when was the last time you backed up your computer files?

Merry Christmas to one and all, a busy end to the year and a full order book to look forward to for January, February and March with Retail, Financial and Telecoms projects. 2013 is going to be starting with a bang !

We took our annual break during December and managed to fit in a familiarisation trip by Helicopter to view the island venues of Antigua. What a tonic to see some sun and to feel the warm air half way through the English winter.

Antigua from the air

3D or not 3D

Interesting demonstration Read More