Conference News Supplements Meet the Midlands Supplement | Page 8

8
Meet the Midlands
24 hours
in the
West
Midlands
Martin Fullard takes a tour of the West Midlands
he West Midlands is a
vast region, and for an
ignorant southerner
like me, there is a
belief that the region is defined only
by Birmingham. Nothing could be
further from the truth. While
Birmingham is a strong conference
and meetings destination in its own
right, there is no shortage of other
cities, towns and attractions which
eventprofs would be well-advised to
explore.
To learn a bit more about the
region – or a lot more, as it would
turn out – I took it upon myself to
take a tour, based on the advice
given to me by the West Midlands
Growth Company.
The first area on my agenda was
the Black Country. Like most of
regional Britain, the Black Country
historically was an area reliant upon
industry and manufacturing. Like so
many others, it witnessed crippling
decline in the mid-20th Century as
the UK careered towards becoming a
service nation. However, things are
changing, and the region is fast
becoming a hotbed for investment,
powered by the events machine and
embracing the service industry.
The first port of call on my
whistlestop tour was the Black
Country Living Museum. If you could
freeze frame a moment in time, this
is it. The working museum is a replica
of the area from a bygone era. The
museum is a popular filming location,
perhaps most famous for its
appearances in Peaky Blinders, with
Charlie’s Yard and the early industrial
scenes filmed here (see p11).
From the old chippy to the chemist,
and from the school to the working
man’s institute, the period spaces
are available for hire. Huge
investment is planned, with a new
conference facility planned to
complement the existing spaces. The
venue is currently a popular choice
for away-days and board meetings,
although it is clear it will be a target
for large-scale events in the future.
impressions reveal it to be a clean,
well-kept, and geographically well laid
out city, with a compact centre. It is
walkable with the mainline station
centrally located.
But what of events? It is not a
destination for conferences and
meetings that I am familiar with, and
I soon learned why. “Until now we
haven’t felt that we were ready,” one
member of the council told me.
Graciously humble. Rather than go in
all guns blazing, the council has been
quietly working away in the
background, researching what it is
eventprofs want from a destination.
The essential mechanics of what is
needed to flourish as a conference
destination are there, so expect to
see the city’s name appear more
often in the events conversation in
the future.
What’s in the events arsenal? One
of the key venues is Molineux, home
of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. It’s
unusual for a football stadium to be
so close to a city centre, but then
again, Wolves have played there
since 1889. The stadium is a trove of
event spaces, with all bar one
offering uninterrupted views of the
pitch. It lends itself well to both
reception-style events and more
conventional theatre-style
conferences.
Another venue of note is the Grand
Wolverhampton
The next stage of my tour saw me
drive 20-minutes up the road to
Wolverhampton, a city to which I
have never previously visited. My
opinion, then, is something of a blank
canvass on which to be painted. First
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Molineux
stadium is a
trove
of event spaces,
with all bar one
offering
uninterrupted
views of the
pitch. It lends
itself well to
both
reception-style
events and
more
conventional
theatre-style
conferences.