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With Covid-passports being made mandatory for visitors to most events in Northern Ireland in November , how are you coping with the restrictions ? SA : Restrictions been changing on and off . But in terms of events we are very much open and able to facilitate events with safety measures in place .
Just before Christmas Northern Ireland introduced the Covid-passport scheme so obviously we ’ re using that and its very welcome in industry .
The organisers are just so pleased there ’ s the opportunity to hold an event , so in a way welcoming this scheme as a way to continue moving forward . It makes everyone ’ s lives a bit easier .
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TM : Guidance is changing on quite a regular basis .
We have found largely that visitors coming to venue are content to follow regulations .
Travel restrictions haven ’ t made a huge difference . Our visitors mainly come from the island of Ireland , but for Balmoral Show we have significant number come from Scotland . From the perspective of organisers coming across from the mainland and following the guidance on coming across the strip of water it has required some navigation .
Is confidence returning to events in Northern Ireland ? TM : It is very difficult to be 100 % confident . I suppose everyone is hopeful and
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pushing forward . We ’ ve spent two years shuffling calendars to accommodate as many events as possible and I suspect over next few months we ’ ll have to do a bit more of that . But everyone is very positive about getting the events back up and running again in as normal a way as possible .
We had such a successful autumn . Then when the new variant came out it could have been easy to feel disheartened . But that hasn ’ t happened . SA : We have been slightly busier because of postponements from last year , but a lot of our events are annual and returning into their normal slots . It ’ s good to return into normal working calendar .
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We had a very successful autumn . We were able to fit some postponements in there but now they should hopefully fit back into their normal calendar dates and this year could be a bit busier than normal but that ’ s very welcome .
We attended a number of events ourselves as well . We were at Confex in September and had a stand at Confex and will be back in March and we ’ ve been to couple of conferences like the AEV Conference . It is just a case of following the regulations and making it work so we haven ’ t missed out too much . TM : It is good to see the confidence coming back and going forward next six to 12 months in the diary . EN
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