23 Interview |
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use of energy is responsible , and that we can keep bills and invoices under control ? MT : As part of our investment programme , the majority of our lighting technology has been LED over the past nine years . We are a much more efficient building now than we were in the past .
The energy crisis is a global situation . It ’ s not just energy as a height of inflation item . We ’ ve seen in the first four months of this year , compared to a pre-pandemic year , that our energy consumption cost is about 40 % up . We ’ re certainly working as hard as we can to absorb that . At this stage , we haven ’ t been looking to pass on any of those additional costs . We ’ ll have to see how that develops over the coming months and , obviously with the new government administration coming in , a new prime minister , there will
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be an expectation about its impact on energy inflation , its impact on the venue sector , and on businesses overall .
I think the other areas of inflation that has been a real concern is food and beverage . If you look at the year-on-year stats on food and beverage , they ’ re extraordinary . You ’ re seeing grains and feed up about 50 %, meat and poultry up 9 %, seafood up 40 % and beverages up 19 %.
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“ Inflation has been a real concern . If you look at the year-on-year stats on food and beverage , they ’ re extraordinary .” |
We are very fortunate because our in-house caterers QEII Taste is part of the Compass Levy Group , and they buy incredibly well . We ’ ve also looked at what sort of controls efficiencies we can put in , so we can absorb as much of that as we possibly can .
MF : How do you feel your relationship has changed with clients ? MT : We ’ ve adopted a strong partnership approach with our clients . The Restoration Renewal Project uncertainty obviously created some difficulties for us . But we ’ ve managed to bring our client base with us , which is why we ’ re in such a strong position now . All venues have had to recognise the need to be very collaborative and to work alongside clients to get the whole live events business back up and running successfully . CN
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