SCOTTISH EVENT CAMPUS
BUILDING ON 40 YEARS OF SUCCESS AT THE SEC
The Scottish Event Campus’ 40th anniversary in 2025 was far from the only reason to celebrate, with it having attracted 2 million visitors and contributed no less than £ 557m to Scotland’ s economy. Here, CEO Dominic McKay and CCO Debbie McWilliams outline their plans to build on that success by futureproofing the facilities.
The Scottish Event Campus( SEC) has come a long way since it was opened in September 1985 as Scotland’ s first dedicated events and exhibitions space. Since then, the campus has hosted countless landmark events from the Commonwealth Games to COP26 and a range of other key global gatherings. The SEC has grown considerably, and now comprises the 14,300-capacity OVO Hydro arena, SEC Centre and the SEC Armadillo.
On the back of 40 years of evolution and remarkable events at the SEC, Dominic McKay, who was appointed CEO early last year, says the focus is now on protecting and expanding the core business:“ We ' ve got an incredible business we can develop, and we ' re doing that in an environment in which it is thriving, whether it ' s our exhibitions, conferences or live events. We have a broad campus with plenty of space around us, so we are exploring how we can curate that space effectively to make sure that we ' re planning for the fans of the future.”
In the 2024 / 25 financial year, the SEC achieved an operating profit of £ 4.1m, with live entertainment playing a huge part with a 30 % year-on-year rise in turnover to £ 15.6m. Understandably proud of the SEC’ s remarkable £ 557 million economic contribution, McKay says it is not only having a hugely positive impact across various elements of the supply chain and the broader economy, but it ' s sustaining almost 6,000 jobs.
“ Whatever we do, we want to protect that, while refreshing our strategy,” he says.“ As part of that focus Debbie and I have been traveling the world visiting venues. Like magpies, we return with key takeaways and ideas about how we might pivot to bring new content elements through the campus. A great example is immersive content. With Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition last year we had 130,000 people through the door in 14 weeks. That gave us enormous confidence in that content stream, and we are also seeing success with content strands driven in popularity on social media, such as podcasts, that are increasingly making an impact at the SEC.”
McKay says that at the heart of the SEC team’ s strategy is the drive to provide first-class experiences for fans, promoters, artists and clients:
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