If you didn’t make it to the Summer Summit, which took place at ExCeL London on 15th & 16th July and brought together members of ICCA, MIA, ABPCO and AIPCO, you missed a series of entirely engaging and insightful discussions and presentations on the challenges the industry is facing and the solutions that are available to it. But don’t panic, all is not lost! In this article, we provide a detailed summary of the issues, points raised and suggested outcomes.
Today’s Challenges Tomorrow’s Vision
The first session, Leading Organisations and Winning New Business in a Post Recession World, was a lively panel discussion moderated by VisitBritain’s Simon Mills with an eclectic mix of panellists including Tracy Halliwell from Visit London, Jayne Nightingale from HRG, Jennifer Jenkins from MCI, Darren Johnson from Visit Brighton and Malgosia Bartosik from the European Wind Energy Association.
The discussion centred on what British destinations can do to secure international event business, especially those lucrative city-wide conventions and congresses. There was a wide feeling across the panel and from within the audience that Britain has a great deal to offer, that demonstrating added value is as important as the price and the country should do more to utilise its strengths, especially using its strong network of world renowned academic venues to influence the academic conventions to come to the UK.
Working together across destinations, knowledge, best practice and resource sharing would enable us to raise standards across the country and bring more events to the UK.
After morning refreshments, the session Technology for the Challenges of Modern Meetings began with Gustaf Peterson of Congrex UK enlightening the audience on the uses of smart phone applications in enhancing the event experience. Gustaf had increased delegate engagement at an event by launching an iPhone app that provided delegates with interactive maps, event details, activity reminders, the ability to send messages to speakers, social networking with other delegates and local hotel, restaurant and travel details. The technology enables organisers to take feedback and analyse trends, make announcements, conduct surveys and is environmentally friendly. With additional opportunities for onscreen sponsorship, Gustaf suggested that event applications can be cost neutral or even revenue generators. Rachel Frank, Kenes Group, ended the session with a look at the appropriate use of technology in event creation and management, suggesting it should be assessed beforehand whether technology can increase the effectiveness of the event and how much it should be used, based on the dynamics of delegates and expectations of client.
Next, Ed Pugh, from event insurance specialist Hiscox, discussed Force Majeure (circumstances beyond your control) and its ramifications for the event organiser or venue in the session The Challenge of Managing Crisis and Risk. The random chaos in the event industry caused by the Icelandic Volcano was an eye opener when it came to making insurance claims. Ed reminded the audience that it is worth including force majeure within venue contracts as additional level of protection, and that venues and PCOs alike should be aware upfront of who will carry postponement costs in a number of different circumstances. His message to the audience, “Discuss the small print!”
The issue’s Ed was highlighting were substantiated and illustrated by an intriguing presentation from Malgosia Bartosik, European Wind Energy Association, who explained in detail the initiatives her team used to rescue a conference scheduled to take place in Poland, which was unexpectedly hindered by the national mourning following the country’s president’s death in a plane crash in Russia, and travel chaos caused by the European flight ban resulting from the Icelandic Volcano.
The much lauded Rowhit Talwar, CEO of Fast Future presented Convention 2020 The Future Defined. The presentation is available at http://convention2020.meetingsreview.com/phase1report. In essence, Rowhit asked the audience to consider what current influences, such as the advance of technology, changing climate and need to cut costs will have on the format of events in ten years time. He suggested that event industry representatives believe investment in events will hold firm, while their clients believe it will reduce. Quality of networking will continue to be an important reason to attend events, while 59% are expected to be investing in event alternatives. 79% believe small and personalised events will become increasingly common and 77% that there will be new pricing models.
Trends from the US are pointing to the outlandish suggestion that events are under pressure to become shorter, yet more intense, with more information crammed into fewer days and delegates enabled to keep up by taking performance enhancing drugs. Believe it or not, the pressure is on to design ‘streamlined events’ that maximise performance. Perhaps in the future you will be organising events where five speakers speak at the same time in the same room and delegates tune in to the one that want to hear through headphones, saving breakout room costs and saving time by minimising the need for delegates to move between rooms.
The day ended with a surprisingly energetic panel discussion, Breaking Conventions and Challenging the Status Quo chaired by industry journalist and commentator, Mike Fletcher, with panellists, Michael Foreman from Kenes UK, Kerrin Macphie from ACC Liverpool, Paul Simpson, Visit Manchester, Andrew Swindells and Park Plaza Westminster Bridge . Two topics dominated, the issue of whether the industry should conform to a pricing structure and the controversial topic of subvention.
The various different aspects of the pricing structure discussion struggled to gain a unanimous decision, although it was clear that the industry would benefit from more transparency in pricing. A contentious point was the question of commission, should it be taken? Should it be passed to the client? Does it put PCOs and convention bureaus into competition with each other or should they share commission? Smaller PCOs claimed it was their best chance to generate revenue. Some suggested that without commission PCOs are likely to mark up room prices and many do, but the discussion ended with Paul Simpson expressing that if, as a PCO, you add value it is OK to charge for it, but Andrew Swindells declared he would not work with a PCO that has marked up prices on rooms.
The issue of hotels increasing room prices when a large convention comes to the city was raised and Visit London’s work to ensure London’s hotels don’t do this was commended. The room was now discussing securing city-wide convention business, which turned the focus to subvention, should local government subsidise event bids based on the reasoning that the economic benefit they bring to a region far outweighs the investment? In general the panel felt subvention was necessary to ensure a bid was successful, although Michael Foreman cautioned that a bidding city must determine a competitive edge and this should be a package of value and price.
ExCeL London’s James Rees, brought the first day to a close with his summary that the day’s proceedings had identified the need for the industry to be Flexible, Innovative and Transparent. The second day was a half day meeting which focused on the need to attract new talent to the sector, outlined in the article Call for Talent, in this newsletter.
