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As part of your research , do you look at the strength of a destination ’ s food and beverage sector ?
How have the needs for your delegates changed in the last two years ?
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Definitely , and not just because we are in the food industry ourselves . Food plays a big role at the event . It helps keep people motivated and energised throughout the day . Food is also part of the celebration and if you do it right , it ’ s an experience .
There is a trend that people expect better food now and if you get it wrong , it ’ s the one thing people remember and will complain about , even if everything else was amazing . However , if you get the food right , it can be one of your biggest features and people will talk about it for a long time afterwards .
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Technology now plays a huge role in events more so than it has done before . We are a generation of ‘ Uber ’ s Children ’. More and more , people demand ease and convenience in their daily lives and events are no different .
For example , our table plans . Delegates don ’ t want to stand in front of a screen anymore to wait for it to scroll around to get to their name so they can see where they are sitting . That ’ s not convenient . So now we send an individual push notification to their event app with their table number .
Sustainability is also a big trend . Delegates often ask questions around this . For example , what happens to any surplus food or what happens with single use crockery . All of those things matter , and we ’ d also factor this into the venue choice .
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Are you seeing a demand for more experiential meetings or a change in the variety of food you offer ; how has this affected your conference programme ? |
What we do Scotland case study see is that the events which are experiential , which have a connected theme throughout , are the most successful ones , and the ones that land the right messages .
For example , the last RGM Fest was all about creating great experiences for our guests . We mirrored some of the fundamentals of our guest experience in a restaurant at the event . For example , we had professional greeters welcoming our team to the event and surprising and delighting them during the day . And we set up a ‘ make it right ’ helpline for delegates to contact us throughout the day and evening if their experience was less than perfect so that we had a chance to make it right , there and then , instead of them walking away dissatisfied .
The delegate journey is a big part of the experience . This year we used our ‘ Chicken Town ’ advertising to form the basis of our guest journey . We turned all of the shopfronts and windows in Glasgow ’ s SEC concourse into generic ‘ chicken shops ’ and placed road markings on the floor and literally created ‘ Chicken Town ’ at the venue .
There was deliberately no KFC or conference branding or anything else that the team would usually expect . The team had to travel through Chicken Town , to get to registration and it was only after that point that they were able to pass through a tunnel and enter ‘ KFC ’, where there was a giant illuminated KFC bucket hanging from the ceiling acting as a beacon , it was a whole lot of fun .
Previously when we have wanted to launch new products or restaurant concepts , we have built an entire KFC restaurant or kitchen studio at the venue to let delegates feel it , experience it and immerse themselves in it rather than just present some slides . We create experiences rather than a conference .
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