imago cuttings - april 2015

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Meet in the Midlands

Paul Colston (http://www.conference-news.co.uk/author/paulcolston/) 1 month ago No

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Birmingham takes centre stage

Birmingham City Council has been at the centre

of some big stories of late and events and

conferencing have been at the forefront of that

news.

First the council announced the sale of the NEC

Group in a £307m deal. This was followed up in

March with the news that the council is to raise

more money to pay off its debts by putting the

new Grand Central shopping centre at New

Street on the market a full six months before it is

set to open to the public. This announcement was

made at the international development exhibition

and conference MIPIM in Cannes, a graphic indication of the power of

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Meet in the Midlands | Conference News http://www.conference-news.co.uk/meet-in-the-midlands-2/

1 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

events to act as marketplaces for the biggest deals.

The tranformation of New Street Station at Grand Central highlights

the new kind of welcome awaiting those arriving in the second city by

rail.

Delegates will next year start forgetting the old station design steeped

in the ‘60s DNA of British Rail and step into the 21st Century.

England’s second busiest station will, at last, make a proper first

impression on business tourists arriving to attend events in the city and

wider region.

Birmingham City Council leader Sir Albert Bore described the

development at New Street as signalling “an incredibly exciting year

for Birmingham, with Grand Central just one of a number of

redevelopment projects coming to fruition, which in turn will create

more job opportunities and attract greater investment to our city”.

Birmingham’s destination marketing organisation and conference

bureau have experienced difficult times struggling to retain staff and

funding. A leaner organisation is now focusing hard on attracting

conferences and major events and using the ‘More Birmingham’

campaign.

Connectivity continues to be a big card in the city and the region, and

not just because of the new station improvement. Birmingham Airport

services 143 direct routes from key business destinations. And the city

sits at the hub of the country’s national motorway network.

Key sectors being targeted for conferences include professional and

financial services, engineering, life sciences, creative and digital

industries (in line with Business Birmingham/inward investment

objectives).

Quality businesses and universities mean there is often a high

concentration of potential delegates already in the city and surrounding

region when it comes to both association and corporate meetings.

Anniversaries are good for marketing, and some Birmingham

institutions and locations celebrating landmark birthdays include:

Cadbury World – 25th

Birmingham Royal Ballet – 25th

Rotunda – 50th

The ICC – 25th

Brindleyplace – 20th

Lunar Society – 250th

Birmingham Cathedral – 300th

In a big year for sport, Birmingham will play a key role in the delivery of

the Rugby World Cup 2015, while Edgbaston cricket ground has been

awarded some of the biggest fixtures in world cricket including an

Ashes test.

Other projects stretching into 2016 include work on the Paradise

Forum site, a new Metro line for Birmingham city centre and a

Shakespeare celebration to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the

bard’s death. Work is also to begin on HS2.

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2 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

With 18 qualifying conferences, Birmingham improved its global

standing in the latest International Congress and Convention

Association (ICCA) city rankings by 32 places to 136th. The gap of 16

meetings between Birmingham and Manchester has remained

unchanged. However the city has overtaken Liverpool and Cambridge

to become the sixth most popular UK destination for international

association conferences/meetings.

The city claims to have overtaken Manchester to become the most

popular destination for domestic business tourists outside London.

Venue updates

The ICC Birmingham’s Vox Conference Centre is set to open soon as

part of the UK’s first integrated destination leisure complex at the NEC

site. While Resorts World will include a 178-room, four-star hotel, an

11-screen cinema, restaurants and bars, an outlet shopping centre and

a spa and casino.

Resorts World, now owned and operated by Genting UK, is a £150m

fully integrated leisure and entertainment complex the first of its type to

be built in Europe. It includes the Genting Arena.

The £26m Barclaycard Arena (formerly the National Indoor Arena)

development, in the city centre, meanwhile, was launched under its

new colours by Michael Bublé.

National ticketing agency, The Ticket Factory, is another part of the

NEC Group’s business. Add to that hospitality brand, Amplify and

caterer Amadeus. The NEC Group also has three new business

launches that signal its aim to take its expertise further afield: NEC

Group International, MemoryHaus and Eight Feet Tall (the latter a

specialist agency for the live events industry). A head of steam is

bubbling up and that is only likely to power the motor more forcefully

under the new private owners of the Group, LDC.

Symphony Hall has a new events space. Its ‘Next Stage’ is a ‘floating’

stage floor which covers the stalls’ seating and offers a new capacity

for up to 620 delegates.

The Golden Square is a new £1.6m, 4,000sqm public realm space in

Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter. The scheme is part of the Big

City Plan and will provide a flexible space to host events and

encourage more footfall into the area.

Birmingham was recently listed in the Rough Guides’ Top 10 places to

visit in 2015 thanks in part to its ‘first-rate restaurant scene’. A host of

new eateries open this year – many with events spaces.

A £50m redevelopment of luxury retail and leisure destination, The

Mailbox, will see Harvey Nichols double its size.

In the local hotels, the Hyatt Regency’s £6m refurbishment has seen all

of its 319 luxury bedrooms, ballroom, suites, and eight conference

rooms undergo a revamp.

Thirty Club rooms at Malmaison in the city centre were renovated

earlier this year.

Marco Pierre White’s steak restaurant and the Hotel Indigo are set for

a £200,000 transformation as both venues begin their fourth year of

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3 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

trading at The Cube.

Near to the reconstruction around New Street Station sits thestudio, a

venue spread over four floors and able to cater for 250 people, with

breakout zones complete with bean bags and retro games.

A roof terrace, with a BBQ menu, is available over the summer

months.

Recent clients have included the MIND charity, which held its

conference at thestudio, and Goodyear which brought its annual sales

conference to the venue.

The neighbouring construction projects have not made for an easy

environment to make events business as usual, and management says

it has been a challenge, not least with the tram route work on top of the

New Street station redesign. “We’ve worked hard with all parties

concerned to make sure our clients weren’t inconvenienced and have

also taken the opportunity to refurbish some of our own areas

simultaneously,” says thestudio’s commercial director Julian

Kettleborough.

It has, nevertheless, been the venue’s busiest year to date,

Kettleborough notes, with 60% of bookings coming via agencies.

Kettleborough hopes to add another creative space and open a new

venue in another UK city, in addition to the existing Birmingham and

Manchester sites.

Gluten-free? Try Heritage Motor Centre

In the UK 1 in 100 people suffers with coeliac disease. The Heritage

Motor Centre in Gaydon recently became the first Museum and

Conference Centre to gain ‘Coeliac UK GF (Gluten Free)

accreditation’. The centre offers gluten-free options in both its Café

and for delegates.

Operations manager Tom O’Reilly says: “We wanted our customers to

know that we take special dietary requirements seriously.”

The centre has a separate gluten-free kitchen to ensure there is no risk

of cross contamination and all staff have been trained in the safe

production and provision of gluten-free food.

Motorbiking

Over in Solihull, Nick Hartland, director of the National Motorcycle

Museum (NMM), is reporting good business from the likes of

Sainsbury’s, Pfizer and Xerox and says a unique museum attraction,

allied to high quality venues and services, including plenty of parking

and easy motorway access, offers an easy events ride for any

organiser’s money.

Hartland picks out the consolidation of agents as the biggest challenge

in developing the business. “As the larger agencies we work with tend

to be more systems-based, nurturing this relationship is a challenge.

As a result we developed a larger, more proactive sales team to work

closely with them.”

Recent investments made at NMM include a £150,000 refurbishment

of the flagship Imperial Suite.

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4 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

Hartland says competition has increased and day delegate rates being

squeezed. “We have attracted a more diverse portfolio of clients

during the past year, resulting in an increase in events,” he says, “but

at a lower cost per-head. Over the last two years we have managed to

increase turnover and gross profit.” He reports that 60% of the events

business is national with agencies providing 50% of bookings and

50% coming direct.

Football hotbed for events

The Midlands has always been a hotbed for football clubs and those

best prepared to navigate the ups and downs of success on the pitch,

are ones with steady income streams from events.

As Aston Villa FC fights for Premier league survival, the stadium’s

events business has been in better form, winning awards for catering,

hospitality and sustainability. The club’s VMF project is a training

restaurant for apprentices to prepare food and is backed up with

produce from an allotment nearby. It is run by the Roots and Renewal

Foundation, which gives opportunities to young adults to work and

tend the allotment.

Non-match day business has seen growth over the past two years and

the events team is holding its own in a very competitive local market

venue league.

Forty miles north and Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Molineux events

team has been building its commercial relationship with Jaguar Land

Rover, which has an engine manufacturing plant nearby.

The stadium has hosted a number of recruitment events for the

automotive group.

The Molineux team reports “huge uptake” in agency business,

following the first phase of a £50m investment in the stadium facilities.

The £20m Stan Cullis Stand offers match-day hospitality for 550

guests and three new areas called WV1 allow corporate customers

more options for meetings, not just on match days.

Despite challenging budget parameters, the Molineux team now

detects a general optimism and an increase in not only the number of

events but also that customers are prepared again to invest more, to

ensure the events success.

“The newer facilities mean that the stadium is now open to the larger

Asian functions,” adds conference and banqueting Manager Julian

Britton.

Worcester Warriors appointments

Briefly changing codes: as Worcester Warriors aim for promotion back

to the Aviva Premiership, the hospitality team at the Sixways Stadium

reports three additions to its Corporate, Conference and Events sales

team, with Richard Cawton, formerly business development manager

with

etc.venues in Birmingham, joining to focus on non-matchday business

development.

Lincoln: discover a new value proposition

Lincoln, not a well-known player in the conference league, is preparing

to permanently re-house the Magna Carta in a vault at Lincoln Castle

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5 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

in the 800th anniversary year of the document.

The display will be the jewel in the crown of a 10-year £22m

refurbishment programme at the Castle, where a visit can be part of

any after-conference group tour.

Washingborough Hall Hotel has undergone its first major

refurbishment in 150 years, adding ‘The Winston Room’, an

orangery-style extension for events for up to 120 delegates. The

Lincoln Hotel has also been refurbished.

There is value to be had in Lincoln with DDR rates starting from

£29pp.

There are over 1,000 bedspaces in the city and a direct train service

connects to London daily. DoubleTree by Hilton on the Waterfront has

a main conference facility that can host 200 delegates and 60% of

business is local. 70% of business comes direct, with the rest coming

through agents, the hotel says.

Lincolnshire Showground reports a busy international calendar of

events including the Harley Davidson Rally in May.

Two universities and several colleges boast high-tech conferencing

experiences.

Destination Management Organisation – the Visit Lincoln Partnership –

recently created the Meet Lincoln project around a growing group of

venues and accommodation providers and acknowledges the

challenge is making the destination more well known for corporate

meetings and events.

Warwick remains dedicated

Warwick Conferences, set in the University of Warwick campus on the

edge of Coventry, continues to specialise in purpose-built training and

conferences delivered at three veneus: Scarman, Radcliffe and Arden.

Head of sales and marketing Rachael Bartlett says the venue’s

commissioned research shows more than half (56%) of event bookers

acknowledge that a dedicated venue leads to increased levels of

satisfaction.

Bartlett says the biggest challenge over the past year has been

maintaining rates in the face of the economic downturn.

“We needed to justify our higher cost to clients – especially to those

who weren’t as familiar with our ‘no hidden costs’ approach.

“Despite challenging client budgets, it’s clear that the lure of the

low-cost still can’t compete with valuable interactions with people,” she

notes.

The strong business presence in the area, particular the automotive

sector, Bartlett adds, allows Warwick Conferences to meet the specific

meeting needs of local industries.

Delegates can discover many after-conference treasures in

Warwickshire, with a variety of medieval and Georgian market towns,

two famous castles at Kenilworth and Warwick, and five Shakespeare

Houses at Stratford-upon-Avon.

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6 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

Sundial provides the time and space

Dedicated conference venue supplier Sundial Group has two Midlands

venues, Woodside in Kenilworth and Highgate House in

Northamptonshire.

Jaguar Land Rover is a client at Woodside and a new permanent

bridge building simulation facility at Highgate House is the latest

attraction for teambuilders there.

The group’s biggest client is the Judicial College, responsible for the

training of England and Wales Judges. The College has been using

Highgate House for more than 20 years.

Sundial MD Tim Chudley offers this advice to organisers: “Not enough

organisers consider how to measure the ROI from their events. We

would love to work with them to improve this.

“Too many are pushing to shorten their events rather than improve

their results by allowing time and space.”

Leicestershire’s inbound welcome

Over in the East Midlands, head of Leicester Shire Promotions Simon

Gribbons says the Athena centre in Leicester is thriving for gala

dinners with its Art Deco style appeal.

Mercure – Kings Hall also in Leicester city centre, meanwhile,

welcomed the UKinbound Annual Convention (11-13 Feb). Two

hundred delegates from the UK’s tourism industry attended the event,

which spread over the National Space Centre, Athena, Ramada

Encore and Holiday Inn Leicester City.

Deirdre Wells, OBE, chief executive of UKinbound, described the

convention as one of their most successful to date.

The biggest challenge for Gribbon remains getting the area on the

radar of the clients and their PCOs. In terms of regional strengths he

lists the central location, competitive DDR rates and the ‘conference

hub’ concept of a separate conference venue and accommodation

outside of it.

Pro-activity clearly makes a difference and a successful PCO fam in

October 2014 led to several leads for business, says Gribbon.

Reinforcing the dedicated venue message is imago which recently

gained Investors in People Gold standard.

Emma Boynton, head of sales and marketing, points out that East

Midlands Airport and Birmingham International Airport are both handy,

while London St Pancras serves Leicestershire in a little over an hour.

Aside from the accessibility, Boynton says delegates visiting the

Loughborough site can get away from “the hustle and bustle of the city

centre and immerse themselves in the event and take away more

knowledge”.

The last 12 months have seen continued growth for all three of imago’s

venues, Boynton reports, and her team is now working to a strategic

plan, seeking business from sectors which matches the profile of

Loughborough University, including events in the association, not-for-

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7 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

profit and charity sector, as well as those associated with sporting and

disability organisations.

Imago’s eight-year rolling plan of improvements saw £245,000 spent at

Burleigh Court in the last year.

Tanking it at Belvoir Castle

Belvoir Castle, set in 16,000 acres of woodland, can offer delegates

views across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. It has

recently moved into corporate away days and offers clay pigeon

shooting, falconry and tank driving. Medieval banquets can be

organised for the hungry delegate and, last year, the Association of

Taxation Technicians chose the Castle for its 25th Anniversary Lecture

and Dinner.

Stephen Foulkes, treasurer of the Chartered Institute of Taxation &

Association of Taxation Technicians (East Midlands branch), says the

venue “added kudos to our anniversary event, which demanded a real

wow-factor”.

Swinging to events in Kettering

Also looking to the corporate market is Kettering’s Wicksteed Park,

founded by Charles Wicksteed, the inventor of the modern slide and

swing. The park has a refurbished Edwardian pavilion for meetings

and can cater for 1,000 delegates. On site events are run by the

Unlimited Potential charity.

Spotlight on Nottinghamshire

Nottingham has built up critical venue mass and boasts two

universities, the East Midlands Conference Centre (EMCC) and

Orchard Hotel both on the University of Nottingham campus.

There is also the Capital FM Arena and the Galleries of Justice in the

Lace Market.

It is no secret the old conference bureau was starved of funding, but

organisers are now able to turn to a new Nottingham Event Team, part

of Experience Nottinghamshire. Support services include hotel

booking and organising special offers and discounts for delegates.

Recent conference business has included the GMB and the England

Athletics Association. The Royal College of Nursing will host its

International Nursing Research Conference at the EMCC in April. It

follows an influx of events from medical associations.

The city is within reach of northern cities via rail and road and only 99

minutes from London by train. You can travel by tram in the city.

Nottingham University Hospital Trust is one of the largest teaching

hospitals in Europe and the city has 55,000 people working in Life

Sciences, a sector with big potential for events. BioCity, one of the

largest life sciences business incubators in Europe, and MediLink – a

business network for Life Sciences – are other important jewels in the

city crown.

The Nottingham Conference Centre is to host international spinal

experts for the NSpine international conference in 2015.

Drayton Manor

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8 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

And, if it’s fun you’re after with your main event in the Midlands,

Drayton Manor Park can combine activities with conferencing. The

Tamworth theme park’s Tower Suite can host 500 delegates and the

Hamilton Suite which can accommodate 220. There is also a 152-seat

4D cinema and a four-star hotel on site.

Case Study

Michelin at Alton Towers

Where: Alton Towers Resort

Client: Michelin (one of the top three tyre manufacturers in the world

and renowned for its roadmaps and the Michelin stars awarded to

restaurants).

What: Sales and marketing conference for the Michelin truck tyre

product line to launch 2015. The event was to plan the product launch

and hosted 111 Michelin employees.

When: 5-7 January 2015.

Content: Michelin provided an overview of performance in 2014 and

delivered information regarding targets and plans for 2015 within the

overall theme of ‘Good to Great’.

An external speaker was brought in and an evening of entertainment

incorporated into the awards ceremony. The event also included

exclusive hire of Air Ride for an hour.

Client comment: “The conference was deemed the best to date. This

result was achieved through attentive staff of Alton Towers and

excellent conference facilities and recommendations of external

suppliers,” says Kate Walker, truck tyre trade marketing specialist at

Michelin.

This was first published in the April issue of CN. Any comments?

Email Paul Colston (mailto:[email protected])

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9 of 11 19/05/2015 13:27

3

Simon Clayton of RefTech on five things the industry needs to get right in 2015

A new year often brings claims that there are wonderful new

trends that we should watch out for over the coming 12

months. They're usually hailed as things that should be

adopted and will transform the meetings industry as we know

it - and woe betide those who don't pay attention to them.

Simon Clayton, Chief Ideas Officer, RefTech discusses five

highly important basics the industry needs to get right in

2015...

Continue reading

Find out why Manchester Central is a venue of choice

Hosted buyers attending The Meetings Show have the opportunity to apply to attend a series of

post-show fam trips. One of these visits is being organised by Manchester Central, an award-

winning venue in the heart of one of Europe’s most vibrant cities.

Watch the video here

Industry News • miaList: Who will you nominate? • Sustainable Events Summit announces 2015 dates and new alliance • 25 years of veterinary congresses generates £364 million for regional economy • Techcrunch Disrupt returns to London for second year running • Conference and Hospitality Show 2015 records 30% increase in hosted buyers • Increase in web traffic boosts imago enquiries • NYC & Company highlights unique meetings experiences throughout New York City

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imago cuttings - april 2015

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