Interview
September 2021 has been an incredibly busy and exciting month for the Nineteen Group . From running The Emergency Services Show at the NEC Birmingham to the International Cyber Expo and International Security Show at Olympia London , the return to live has never felt so good . To find out more about the shows , we spoke to Alison Jackson , managing director of Nineteen Group . Louisa Daley : How does it feel to be back running live shows ? Alison Jackson : It ’ s a huge relief and we are so proud of our markets and our team . While our business planning was based on an 18-month wait , no one knew what the return to live would look like and plenty of individuals thought the B2B trade show market would not recover . During the pandemic , we were brave , took risks and kept the team together . We didn ’ t buy into the ‘ pivot
Getting back to business
to digital ’ story completely and decided to stick to our knitting , not make redundancies and try to trade through the pandemic . This approach could have been viewed as risky , but it paid off as the Safety and Security Series doubled in size and the Emergency Services Show grew by over 20 %. The audiences also grew significantly , and we had a record-breaking rebook . Deep down , given the characteristics of face-toface events and the need for people to come together , we felt confident that once we received the green light , we could deliver for our markets that had waited patiently . Several customers referred
Alison Jackson , managing director of Nineteen Group , tells Louisa Daley about how it feels to be running live shows once again
Alison Jackson , managing director of Nineteen Group
to our shows as an ‘ out of body ’ experience . What ’ s clear is that this success story is common across lots of other markets , just look at how many successful shows ran in September this year .
LD : Tell me about your marketing strategy for the shows , considering the backdrop of Covid-19 .
AJ : We are lucky as the markets we serve remained active during the pandemic .
This is because many were key workers and so the vast majority were supportive of the need to get back to the NEC as soon as possible . We had to postpone our events three times and over 93 % of customers rolled forward to 2021 and to 2022 . Our approach was to keep the team intact and stay close to the market . We introduced a lead generation service , called Connect +, to say thank you for staying with us and delivered leads through a variety of virtual experiences . Once we knew we could run the events , we focused on highlighting the level of innovation , the new products available and the need to reunite the industries in a safe environment .
LD : Tell me about your visitor and exhibitor feedback .
AJ : The feedback from both exhibitors and visitors has been so positive . Even three months before the shows , there was still some doubt around if they were going to take place and if so , what restrictions would be put in place to impact them . Once it was clear the shows were going ahead , it was a challenging time for contractors , the venue , customers and us , as it felt like we did three months of work in three weeks . However , once the doors opened , it
28 — Autumn