OCTOBER | NOEA COLUMN
Keeping Our Eye on the Ball
NOEA’ s Susan Tanner whets industry appetites as a key association event approaches
Last year, at our annual convention and awards, one of the themes we looked at was collaboration, and although the theme is, from the outside, different, the idea of successful partnerships is once again one that will run through the whole event.
This year the NOEA Annual Convention is asking why so many event professionals still claim that‘ It Could Never Happen to Me’, and how we can bring together our members, and the wider events community to challenge organisers and producers to delve a little bit closer into this statement, face up to the very real threat that at an event, something always goes wrong, and look at ways to mitigate, plan and deal with it.
The programme is classic NOEA, and has already delighted our members as we return to what I always feel is the NOEA homeland; helping event professionals create safe and quality events, before they make great events. To do this we need partnerships and none have been as productive as our Futures Supporter A. C. T( National) Ltd. As well as providing some very senior speakers to the programme – Phil Atkinson, the company’ s managing director to name just one – we’ ve used them as a sounding board on how best to create the right feel to the event.
We want to encourage a‘ safe’ environment within the convention, and we’ re delighted to have industry greats from Dick Tee, Enteetainment, to Simon Hughes, industry consultant, and our own Becky Stevens, Hybred Events, all speaking about their own personal stories, and examples of how it happened to‘ event’ them. We’ re also delighted to have A. C. T( National) Ltd, present Bev Osborne from Training 4 Resilience, to a run a workshop style session where delegates will be invited to join a live scenario of a specific major events issue, and to discuss
coping strategies. Within the session, delegates will focus on‘ preparedness’, be that everything from the preparation of teams, to testing event plans and finding out which improvements are required.
Bev is a specialist in training for emergency response at events, and developing and delivering training addressing the crisis management and emergency response needs of events and venues. She’ s designed and delivered over 150 crisis management and emergency exercises across the outdoor events industry, and I personally couldn’ t be more delighted that A. C. T( National) Ltd, have bought them to our delegation.
We’ re also delighted to welcome Robin Clements, from our new Futures Supporter, Arnold Clark and our great friends at GL events UK, who will discuss the view of event suppliers and production support companies. These are people who have an amazing experience in delivering some of the biggest events on the planet, and have much to share with the room.
We also have representatives from Operation Gothic and the wider police force, who will both be presenting to the delegation and contributing to the many sessions we have. All the time, we’ ll be punctuating the day with personal stories, some of which are eye wateringly funny, that shows that‘ it’ could really happen to anyone.
We hope to see many Access readers at the event as well, and will give you a warm welcome in Bath. The NOEA Convention & Awards will take place in Bath, 21st November, with the day convention taking place at The Guildhall, and the evening Awards in the Pump Rooms. Tickets to the event are still available from eventbrite. co. uk / e / noea-annual-convention-and-awards-dinner- 2018-tickets-40791348020.
“ The programme is classic NOEA, and has already delighted our members”
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