Where Next? – The Next Generation of Events

With the onset of the current economic and political climate, event agencies are challenged once again, and not unhappily, to re-evaluate the approach we take with our audiences. This shake-up happens every once in a while, and does wonders for encouraging creativity, innovation and creating a whole new approach within the events industry.

The real question is: how do we do it this time?

Those individuals now entering the work marketplace (and thus our audiences) are the same who have not only grown up with but embraced such diverse online presences as Facebook, Flickr, Bebo, MySpace, Spotify and many, many more. These people are the ones we will be talking to when businesses present to their workforces in the future, therefore engagement cannot simply be a well written registration site…

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Very Nice Venues

As an events agency (who provide a free venue finding service!), we are always on the look out for exciting new event spaces that would work for our wide client base. In our 20 years as an agency, we’ve hosted a great number of events including conferences, workshops, receptions & launches, at a multitude of nationwide venues.

Below is a selection of London based venues, that we think deserve a chance in the spotlight – some are old favourites and others we haven’t had a chance to use yet, but that we are think look rather amazing.

So without further ado, and in no particular order, we present, our “Top 5 Venues”…

-          Mary Ward House
quick tip: they have a lovely courtyard which is perfect for summer cocktail receptions!

This picturesque & historic venue in the heart of Bloomsbury has held a number of our events; the service is impeccable & they don’t mind dealing with our relentless last minute requests! It’s idyllic for both exhibitions and events.

“We love working with Comshows as their attention to detail always leaves the client impressed”

http://www.marywardhouse.com/

–          Design Council
quick tip: their award winning in house caterers always have great food on offer – especially the chef’s chocolate brownies!

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Puzzles and solutions

We’ve been thinking here at Comshows about how to add value to our clients’ conferencing events, whilst also appreciating that the current climate isn’t exactly bringing the budget for grand gestures to the fore…

We’d love to start a dialogue with clients and fellow event agencies, to talk about what simple ideas would make an event memorable and unique, without costing the earth. We’re happy to share, and hope you are too!

A few ideas include:

– Large-scale messageboards for conferences and exhibitions, in the style of festival boards, to communicate with both the event hosts and other delegates

– Networking opportunities for delegates, both prior to the event and

– Multi-platform events, to drive costs down from hosting several separate events, making each work independently but in an integrated fashion

– Evening events following the day’s conference – re-enforcing themes during introductions etc., and referencing them visually and with content

Now, that’s just a few. We’d love to hear from you – whether your a business that holds events who wants to comment or make suggestions, or an events team who’ve had experience with any of the above and would like to say how it went.

COI Reveals Appointment Of COMSHOWS ON Exclusive COI PAN-GOVERNMENT Events Framework

Comshows has been appointed as events, exhibitions and technical supplier of the new Central Office of Information (COI) roster which will run for 4 years and is worth overall more than £12m a year.

Simon Hughes, Director of Live Events at the Central Office of Information states, “We had a fantastic response for this review and I appreciate all the hard work that everyone involved had to put in. We’ve extended the range of suppliers on the framework in order to focus our procurement processes and to give our clients greater choice and flexibility. My team is really looking forward to working with the new framework agencies in what will be a challenging period. We are very confident that we have the best mix of talent to help us devise great event solutions for our clients over the next few years.”

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