Corporate Events Plus

A rare visit to the Franchise Show at London’s Excel proved a mite depressing for an audio visual specialist. There were over 300 businesses promoting their franchise opportunities but nearly all with a complete lack of suitable display back drops or audio visual support! Exhibitors are taking the space but they are not budgeting for any creative impact. As a result they simply are not getting their messages across in a memorable way.

A trip to International Confex at Earls Court in London reinforced the irritation I was experiencing. Given that this is an event industry trade show you would think we could get the seminar areas right! Once again little money or thought has been given to the environment for the delegates. In recent years it has become fashionable to install see through walls to the seminar rooms but it’s very distracting for delegates and presenters alike. Very low screen bases mean that visuals cannot be viewed from top to bottom, except from the front row, which all too often is empty anyway and the audio reproduction for speech is inadequate. I think it’s embarrassing!

Is this lack of finesse and expertise the result of people being brought in who simply don’t have the experience or training to know any better? This isn’t just about budget. I don’t know why we put up with poor technical support and shoddy environments, particularly at events for our own industry!

One positive in all of this, it’s been a good month for catching up with industry news and although the outlook remains tentative we see a busy month ahead with the run up to retail and financial events in April. There is talk too of possible roadshow events in May and June. Could roadshows be making a come back?

The end of February sees us taking a break from the coal face and enjoying some team building coupled to an incentive in Morocco. The chance of a few days in the sun could not come at a better time after the hard winter we have been experiencing this year. And with the latest announcements of the UK economy beginning to show signs of life once again we’re looking forward to a much needed return of confidence in the live events market – when clients revisit their face to face meetings and experiential events programmes. When that happens everyone will benefit!

I hurt my wrist in an accident ages ago and I’ve had this annoying lump on it ever since. So I thought I’d take advantage of a quiet week before Christmas to get it fixed. What a pain! Read More

It’s been a quiet month for us in terms of conferences and events although we’ve just completed a team building day at Towcester Race Course for a new customer; Sandie and Alistair organised the day, which went well.

It’s good to see a client recognising how valuable these events are for their business. Read More

Visited Age Concern & Help the Aged in London this week, to talk about future projects. Really interesting meeting and made me think carefully about the profile of our core team and the benefits that diversity brings. We put a lot of emphasis on innovation in our business and we gain so much from the experience levels in the team. Read More

Sunday afternoon and I’ve been in the office all day; only because I took the day off on Friday and now I’ve got to catch up with the paper work. Typically it’s a lovely sunny day out there and I’ve been stuck inside. Actually, it’s been good – nice and quiet with no phones ringing and I’ve been able to concentrate on getting the invoices out for the projects we’ve completed this week and catching up with the admin without any interruptions – it feels good. Read More

Well the week has started in an interesting way – the boiler decided to explode! Flooded the downstairs office and toilet! We’ve been paddling around on the water logged carpets but fortunately no serious damage. It’s been a fun start to the week. Read More