Exhibition News April 2020 | Page 7

News “Extensive research shows that whatever position a company has before a recession, those that emerge as the leaders afterwards are those that have invested more heavily (both organically and inorganically) during the recession.” Events Intelligence, MD, Mark Parsons £65,943 QEII Centre partners with the Battling Suicide Bus at HRC The QEII Centre took 5asideCHESS’ Battling Suicide Bus to Hotel, Restaurant and Catering (HRC) at ExCeL London from 3-5 March. 5asideCHESS is a social enterprise aimed at raising awareness of mental health issues and encouraging communication. It uses chess as an icebreaker to get people talking. The bus was parked on stand F769, where QEII was exhibiting. It was run by QEII’s director of sales and marketing Diane Waldron, alongside representatives from 5asideCHESS and commercial kitchen cleaning specialists Bright Hygiene. It rallied stakeholders from across the hospitality industry to apply for places in two forthcoming mental health discussions. The discussions – one for industry leaders in hospitality and events and one for frontline staff – will take place on 5asideCHESS’s Battling Suicide Bus outside The QEII Centre in Westminster on Friday 20 March, with those who participate also pledging tangible action for industry-wide solutions to improve mental health. As of the time of publication, the event is still going ahead. Martyn’s Law: Figen Murray urges eventprofs to take ACT Awareness course Martyn’s Law campaigner Figen Murray is calling on event professionals to undertake the government’s ACT Awareness eLearning course. Speaking to a full keynote theatre at International Confex, Murray urged anyone working in the events industry, including those working in venues, as organisers, and at agencies and suppliers, to visit the government’s website and take the short online training course. The course is free and takes approximately 45-minutes to complete. Devised by counter terrorism officers and security experts, the ACT Awareness eLearning package was previously only available to staff working in crowded places like shopping centres and entertainment venues, but is now open to anyone. ACT Awareness eLearning provides nationally recognised corporate counter terrorism guidance to help people better understand, and mitigate against, current terrorist methodology. The average event budget in 2015 was £65,943 91% 91% of organisers judge event success on attendee satisfaction 1/2 1/2 trade shows have a collaborative workshop as part of its programme 30% 30% of event planners are concerned by long work hours 10,000 There are over 10,000 event venues in the UK April — 07