Exhibition News February 2020 | Page 54

Venue Focus Visit Scotland EN explores the venues Scotland has to offer The Scottish Event Campus (SEC) W ith its 5.5m population, over 700 islands and 3,000 castles, Scotland is a country often associated with history, culture and scenery. However, there are many other things that makes Scotland a great option for hosting events, including great venues. Glasgow The SEC sits at the heart of 54 — February Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. The SEC is made up of the SEC Centre, the SSE Hydro and the SEC Armadillo, and has a number of event spaces including three auditoria, 20 breakout/ meeting spaces and five exhibition halls. In 2019, the group saw 46 exhibitions and 89 conferences. The venue’s plans for the future include a continued focus on accessibility and sustainability, making the most of the flexible venue space, to create more unique events experiences - for example, ‘festivalised’ events such as Celtic Festival. Throught 2020, the SEC will see the return of shows that launched there during 2019, including the Gin to My Tonic, Road Expo, Celtic FC, and the Scottish Hair & Beauty Show in addition to long-standing shows like Model Rail Scotland, Country Living Christmas Fair, and the Scottish Wedding Show, among others. The SEC is situated within Finnieston, which was voted the UK’s hippest neighbourhood by The Times, and 67 per cent of Scotland’s population (3.7m people) are within an hour’s journey of the venue. The set-up of the venues