Roundtable
Events and has worked on wedding to design
shows, said: “The relationship between
organiser and venue is one of the most
important ones. If it’s a good relationship, then
there’s someone there to bounce ideas off. It
can be very combative quite often, if you don’t
have the right venue or relationship and can
have up to 14 arguments a day about toilet
paper and security.”
Mike Seaman, CEO at Raccoon Events, who
runs the National Running Show explains that
it is often new organisers that lose out: “There
is a high level of professionalism and things
have moved on over the past 15 years. It’s quite
tough when you’re a new organiser trying to
break into a market. The new entrants probably
get hit the hardest by venue because they don’t
have a relationship with a venue, but they are
the people that need to grow.”
Mike Mikunda, event director on Mortgage
Business Expo Shows at Clarion explains
venues in smaller towns and cities could help
more: “When we tried to launch in Bristol, we
used two different venues there and it was very
much a case of get on with it. Clarion knows
the larger city markets well, but we are reliant,
to some degree, on local knowledge and smaller
regional venues could really help here.”
Communicate better
EN hosts a roundtable
with Farnborough
International on how
organisers and venues
can work better
together to improve
event outcomes?
V
enues and event organisers in Europe are
forging stronger partnerships to improve
and grow existing events and create the
optimum environment for launches to succeed.
Messe Frankfurt is an excellent example of
this, where the venue contributes significantly
towards research, marketing, build and
organisation.
Farnborough is another good example of
how a venue has gone the extra mile by offering
marketing and operational support to event
organisers. However, it’s clear that there is a
deep blue sea between venues on mainland
Europe and the UK.
How has it worked up until now?
Miriam Sigler, who runs Ways and Means
All things equal
Seaman explained that there is a significant
disparity between some of the bigger and more
established venues and the smaller ones. BDC,
The NEC and ExCeL are ‘pretty good’ at an
operational level, he says, adding that venues,
particularly those that are over commercialised
and often purchased by private equity, work
to tight targets and have to make more money.
As a result, this creates unnecessary tension
between organiser and venue.
James Cooke-Priest, managing director at
PTSS and who was at Brand Events launching
Taste festivals and Top Gear Live. “We’ve
found over the years, there are some that are
operating at such capacities there is a bit of
arrogance, almost a take it or leave it attitude
and that filters down and it is detrimental to
launching new shows, because they are the
most vulnerable and need the most support.
Quite often the journey of a new show means
you have to change, adapt and mould them and
you need to be able to work with a venue that
can understand the issues and rather
November — 55