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UK call to action: #Eventprofs urged to join email campaign
Event professionals from all across the UK are being urged to join in a mass email send on Tuesday 17 November. In an attempt to put more pressure on the UK Government to allow events to run safely under its own Covid-secure guidance once the national lockdown comes to an end, the entire UK events industry is asked to send the below template to several national news programmes between 7.30-9am GMT...
A guide to virtual events: lights, camera, action
Sofie Sinoo shares some important factors to get right when hosting digital events. There are various moving parts that need to be considered when organising an event, particularly in a Covid-19 world where digital events have boomed. Virtual events are here to stay – research agency Gartner expects that by 2024 only a quarter of all business events will take place offline, compared to 60% in 2019...
The three Rs for destination marketing: Research, Relevance & Relationships
By Sarah Fleming. Virtual and hybrid meetings have been a creative way to keep the meetings industry alive this year, and there seems no doubt that ‘hybrid’ is here to stay – so hotels, venues and destination marketing organisations will need to find ways to influence the ratio of virtual versus in-person participants at meetings to increase the latter in the future. Although we can all agree that...
CVB shares its Copenhagen Legacy Lab processes
While it has received much attention, there is little knowledge of how to work strategically and systematically with congress legacy. Hoping to change this, Copenhagen CVB has been sharing insights from its Copenhagen Legacy Lab initiative with the ICCA community and the wider global meetings industry. Congresses of the future need to have a long-lasting, positive impact at heart, not solely as a ...
Playing the long game
Spencer Green believes physical events will not return until 2022. In 2019, 80% of our company’s revenue came from the 60 executive summits we hosted around the world. But like most other events companies, the coronavirus lockdown forced us to cancel everything in person from March 2020 onwards. At this point we asked ourselves; can we digitally transform the business to deliver the same ou...
Mash Media nominated for three UK awards
Mash Media has been nominated in three categories in the UK’s 2020 Professional Publisher Awards. In what has been a turbulent year for most, the events industry has been hit disproportionately hard and Mash Media has not shied away from standing up to Government and to advocate for the sector to national and regional press. Mash Media in a nominee for Independent Publishing Company of the Y...
A matter of confidence
Paul Cook finds that many planners are in the business of reassurance and working to overcome apprehension. Covid-19 paralysed the in-person events sector in a way that has never been seen before. The challenge facing planners today is one of instilling confidence. Surely, the events sector just needs to prove itself with the safe running of small events; then it can easily move on to the second s...
Soak up a slice of Australia from your couch
While travel restrictions are still in place, Tourism Australia offers six ways for event planners soak up Australia from the comfort of their own homes. Managing director of Tourism Australia, Phillipa Harrison, said: “Storytelling is embedded in Australian culture. Thanks to our brilliant creative industry, there are many different means of soaking up our rich culture – even from the comfo...
What can the UK learn from other countries?
The International Viewpoint: what can the UK learn as countries begin to open up for international business? As part of Hire Space’s digital event series, Conference & Meetings World and Exhibition World editor Paul Colston was joined by two representatives who share insights into the current situation in both Germany and China. What the guidance is for the events sectors locally, how it...
You can take the boy out of the Stone Age…
Duncan Custerson – International Confex Event Director comments on Virtual and Hybrid Events as Mash Media announces its support for EVOLVE – The virtual event for event planners. Covid-19 has undoubtedly expedited the speed of evolution to virtual and hybrid events. There is an arguably, naïve fear from some organisers that virtual is a threat to physical events, but the simple fact is; we as hum...
Blackstone’s Q1 profit rises but coronavirus weighs
NEC owner Blackstone Group, the world’s largest manager of alternative assets such as private equity and real estate, reported a 4% rise in first-quarter distributable earnings on Thursday, driven by a surge in management fees, even as its funds took a hit in the coronavirus-induced downturn. Blackstone, whose shares were up 5.3% at US$48.78 in early afternoon, posted a 16% rise in managemen...
Facebook enters video conference platform market
Facebook has introduced a new video conference tool and expanded its live streaming features in an update rolled out 24 April. The video conference tool, Messenger Rooms, will enable as many as 50 people to participate in a call, the company said in a statement. It will display a tiled layout of participant videos, up to 16 on desktop and 8 on mobile, resembling the design offered by competitor Zo...