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( an Indonesian state). It was no accident that the Prime Minister of Sarawak himself approached us. He introduced himself, shook my hand, and spoke with the events team individually – all of whom he knew. This was a government figure who understood the importance of business events. He was in regular communication with the business events team, helping them bring in events, helping them make pitches.
As a result of this collaboration, Sarawak has made huge in-roads as a state. Some years ago, Sarawak hosted a clean water conference that resulted in investment by foreign companies into Sarawak’ s water supply, which was in dire need of development. These investments have made a major difference. In Sarawak, business events have literally saved lives.
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squeezed and with the rapid utilisation and integration of AI, many members are questioning the value, if not for larger scale lobbying and impact”.“ Companies want value and representation, something many feel they are lacking.”
A re-thinking and new approach to a super-group of association heads So what should be done? For Max, it’ s not necessarily about cutting down the number of associations.“ I don’ t think the way forward is just to remove our brilliant associations. What we need is a consolidated expert board representing the full industry landscape. Taking the great work UKEVENTS is doing and progressing this forward with key areas such as funding, business relief, ethics and security around AI, diversity, tax and access and much more. So what if we created, as an official, single statutory centralised body, that captures all industry intel and data across every sector, one that aligns all associations and sector bodies( with a membership above a particular size) have a seat within an elevated group, a centralised platform
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that can truly represent the industry in its near-totality. Like a super-group of events reps.”
The UK success story The events industry in the UK is a real success story. With huge interest from outside global businesses in acquisition, including leading Private Equity and Venture Capital, it’ s truly a top player globally. A look at the top events companies globally will turn up Britishlisted names. But there’ s a real risk, here in Britain, of resting on our laurels and even sliding backwards.
Elsewhere in the world, in fastgrowing economies like the UAE, some European, Vietnam and Indonesia, governments see the value of events. They get involved, they invest – they don’ t get in the industry’ s way. The Emirate government, for example, is intensely involved in its events industry.
Lessons from Southeast Asia Last year, when I was at IMEX Frankfurt, I spoke to the former CEO of Business Events Sarawak
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Above:
Max Fellows,
founder of allpoints
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Cementing ourselves as world leaders Which brings us back to the UK. In Britain, we don’ t have such dramatic tales of life-saving conferences to tell. What we do have, though, is a hugely successful industry, with the potential to contribute even more significantly to our( struggling) economy. But we are held back by a mismatch between our monetary value – more than the pharmaceutical industry – and government recognition of that value.
The UK events sector doesn’ t need to reinvent itself. What it needs is to organise. The industry already generates revenue, jobs and international influence at scale. But for such a large and influential industry, its voice is surprisingly weak. While other governments are getting stuck in, helping to invest in and build their events industries, the UK is entirely relevant to a very healthy and competitive private sector. By forming a super-group of association representatives, the UK could cement itself as the quintessential world leader in business events – and give the government the success story that they so desperately need in these times of economic turmoil. n
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