Feature
WITH INTERNATIONAL CONFEX BACK UNDERWAY IN 2021 , SIMON PARKER S P E A K S TO FORMER AND CURRENT DIRECTORS WHO HELPED STEER THE SHOW TOWARDS WHERE IT IS TODAY
veryone has a view on International Confex . As the event for the industry , it elicits a wide range of feelings and reactions from affection , connections made and great content through to more hazy recollections of last night ’ s parties and vodka shots . As anyone associated with our world will know , the individuals running our events have a special place in their development , they are custodians of the brand and have in many cases imprinted their personalities on the shows that they run . This is absolutely the case when you look at Confex ’ s long and illustrious history . I have managed to track down some of the personalities that have stood at the helm of this good ship from the early days when it was run by Blenheim to the incumbent at its most recent home here at Mash Media .
To introduce the cast we have Anita Howard , an early pioneer at Blenheim , Tanya Cohen and Georgie Clapton-Hall , who ran the show from 1990 for five years . Then there is Andy Lane , who ran it in the late 90s and more recent event directors Jonny Sullens , Alison Willis and Duncan Reid . Finally , we have Duncan Custerson who is the incumbent director and who has exciting plans for this June ’ s event .
I start with by asking our Confex Allstars their earliest memories .
THERE ’ S ALWAYS A PARTY
Anita doesn ’ t need much prompting . “ Mine is the snow . Madeleine Heimer and I came up with the idea of going around the National Hall at Olympia with a trolley full of mulled wine to distract the exhibitors from the fact that there were no visitors . I also remember an MD coming up with the idea that we send potential VIPs half of a five-pound note which would be matched with the corresponding piece when they turned up … we didn ’ t run with that .”
Georgie talks about the early days with great affection . “ Neil Jones was the divisional director when I first started , he was fairly tough on us , he was definitely the ‘ work hard , play hard ’ kind of boss . I worked with Tanya Cohen , who was the sales manager at the time . We were the dream team and are still the best of friends today .”
For those of you who know Duncan Reid , his response wasn ’ t a great surprise given that it involved late night shenanigans . “ I was working on the re-book . We ended up staying up all night with exhibitors and didn ’ t go to bed on the first night , or the second , and still made it in every day for the scheduled morning rebook meeting . That ’ s probably when I fell in love with the show and I ’ ve been pretty much every year since , even flying back from New York over the last few years .”
Alison Willis builds on a theme that is fairly consistent across all our interviewees , Confex likes to party . “ I have so many memories . I remember an ambulance being called to Earls Court to help a lady who had had too much fun in the floating bar and had just forgotten how to walk . The after-show parties at Café de Paris were legendary . And the year we overlapped tenancy with The Brit Awards , meaning we got to have some of their very cool features and also attending the Brits and mingling with Amy Winehouse and Kylie Minogue . Oh , and James Bissett creating a speaker badge in brail also stays with me .”
Jonny has memories of the same night although goes on to recall another story : “ I also remember another evening when Paul Kennedy hosted an event at the Commonwealth Centre the night before Confex . I was sat next to some buyers from Knight Frank
June — 13