THE SIC OF IT
How should the value of the £ 84bn events industry be correctly measured ? Martin Fullard makes the case for more focus on Standardised Industrial Classification ( SIC ) codes
ack in July I wrote a piece entitled ‘ Why has the events industry been left behind ’, and it seemed to resonate . Indeed , some 17,000 of you read it . The thrust of the piece was that the events industry is not correctly administrated by Companies House , and in short , many businesses that operate in the UK ’ s world of events are in fact assigned elsewhere . The net result being that , in black and white on the paper before them , in the eyes of HM Treasury and Office for National Statistics ( ONS ), the events industry does not exist … in the way we say it does .
The £ 84bn value figure that we use to articulate the size of the industry is the result of some Herculean research , and not a figure awarded to us by central Government .
Social media is awash with comments lamenting the institutional failure to properly recognise the industry and its value , especially as Brexit is back on the agenda .
While the short-term objective of our sector is to simply survive the Covid-19 pandemic , we must work towards developing a formal structure in the SIC code system in the medium-term .
However , this presents a challenge .
First of all , we must have a full set of SIC codes . At present , of the 752 codes that exist , only three directly link to the events industry . They are : Section N , code 82301 is assigned to ‘ activities of exhibition organisers ’, code 82302 ‘ activities of conference organisers ’, and Section I notes code 56210 is assigned to ‘ event catering activities ’.
So , not much to go on for an industry as diverse as ours .
I took myself to Companies House where , with a sample list of 100 venues , organisers , agencies , and suppliers , I investigated whom is registered as what .
The results were illuminating and prove the point I am trying to make . Of the 100 businesses I selected off the top of my head , only 25 were assigned to one of the three available SIC codes .
About half of them are registered as ‘ 96090 - Other service activities not elsewhere classified ’. Many venues are registered as ‘ 55100 - Hotels and similar accommodation ’. Agencies were the biggest “ offenders ”, with SIC code assignment including ‘ 59112 - Video production activities ’, ‘ 73110 - Advertising agencies ’, ‘ 70210 - Public relations and communications activities ’, ‘ 79120 - Tour operator activities ’ and ‘ 70229 - Management consultancy activities other than financial management ’.
Only four of the agencies ( including some of the largest ) were using one of the event-assigned codes .
At this juncture you will correctly remind me that this is expected , as there are insufficient codes , but all of the agencies I selected do involve themselves with conferences , so why not select that code , which is available ? Businesses can select multiple codes , not just one .
That , though , is beside the point . The real issue here is that every events business that has not registered as one of the three events assigned SIC codes ( regardless of their accuracy ), is essentially contributing to other sectors .
This is no truer than with hotels in the hospitality sector . I do not have any official statistics , but we all know many events take place in hotels , either for the day or over multiple days . As you would expect , most of the hotels I checked out on Companies House are registered as ‘ 55100 - Hotels and similar accommodation ’, although weirdly not all . Some are also registered as ‘ 68209 - Other letting and operating of own or leased real estate ’. I don ’ t know why .
93290
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