Farnborough opens new event venue, London’s Science Museum confirmed for TMS Hosted Buyer Reception and Twickenham report reveals importance of brand alignment
Farnborough opens £30million event facility
Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre has opened a new £30million event facility.
The 20,000sqm, purpose-built venue is able to accommodate up to 10,000 guests and joins a portfolio of existing venues on the site.
It already has a number of events confirmed including, Screwfix Live, Merchandise World and Kidz to Adultz South. It will also be at the heart of July’s Airshow.
Gareth Rogers, CEO of Farnborough International said: “We look forward to seeing the space come alive and working in partnership with our customers to plan and create successful events, with all aspects – from the catering, through to the technological capabilities – underpinned by our commitment to precision.”
Science Museum to host The Meetings Show’s hosted buyer reception
The Meetings Show has confirmed that London’s Science Museum will be the host venue for its Hosted Buyer Welcome Reception.
Taking place on the evening of Tuesday 26 June, the event will see more than 300 of the show’s pre-qualified hosted buyers in attendance, ahead of the main exhibition on Wednesday 27 and Thursday 28 June at Olympia London.
The invite-only welcome reception will offer buyers a chance to experience the Science Museum’s Wonderlab: The Statoil Gallery, as well as a sneak-preview of the venue’s new dedicated conference and events space – Illuminate – which will open in January 2019.
Spread across seven different zones, Wonderlab offers a chance to get hands-on with scientific phenomena, where guests can order live experiments at the Chemistry Bar, see lightning strike or travel through space under a canopy of stars.
Registration is now open for The Meetings Show’s hosted buyer programme. UK and international event planners can apply at www.themeetingsshow.com.
Twickenham reveals importance of brand alignment in venue selection
The importance of venues with a strong brand alignment is becoming increasingly popular among event organisers, according to a report by Twickenham Experience.
The report’s findings came from a focus group consisting of both agencies and clients, run by Twickenham Experience Limited, in partnership with The Live Group.
The main findings underlined the importance of brand alignment in venue selection, both to attract delegates, create complementary social programmes, and show an additional level of care from the organiser to their guests.
The consensus was that brand alignment could come on different levels, from the venue’s reputation outside of the industry to the emotional connotations of the organisation.
“Brand is everything to us. The main priority is to make sure the venue is physically capable of hosting the meeting, after that it’s all about the brand alignment we can connect to,” commented Nilu Karavadra, Marketing Director, EMEA, Aveva, who sat on the focus group.
The report also touched on the importance of the wider destination infrastructure as a big part of venue selection, but also that there was still work to be done in terms of raising the profile of stadia as meetings and events options and not just corporate hospitality.
“The report is really interesting to us; it endorses some of the many strong points about our venue and the wider sporting venue sector, but it also shows us we still have a way to go in being the first port of call for event organisers that want more for their event and for their delegations,” commented Nils Braude, Catering & Conference Events Director, Twickenham Experience.
Article by Mike Fletcher