AIPC 2022 Innovation Award winners announced

The International Association of Conference Centres (AIPC) has announced the winner of the 2022 Innovation Award, and the Delegate’s Choice Award. ICC Sydney was the winner of this year’s Innovation Award for Connect Hub, the centre’s end-to-end management platform of virtual and hybrid events. ICC Sydney became the first Australian venue to offer a full end-to-end platform for virtual and hybrid events management. Connect Hub is managed in house by ICC Sydney’s audio-visual services team. The winner of the Delegate’s Choice award was conference and trade show host VIPARIS, for its project La Serre. In 2015, VIPARIS started a renovation in Porte de Versailles which used mostly sustainable and green actions. This included the creation of the Ferme Urbaine, a 14,000sqm rooftop farm. According to AIPC, the Innovation Award was developed with its mission of: “encouraging and recognising excellence in convention centre management.” The award was made for projects that develop new approaches to any aspect of convention centre management, operations, or marketing. Past Innovation Award programs have featured a wide range of creative new systems, procedures, market strategies and organisational structures along these lines. Inclusions have ranged from systems, sales, financial management, sustainability, and others. Although the AIPC Innovation Award program is only open to AIPC members, AIPC has encouraged centres of any size or investment to enter the Innovation Award.