events

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Summer Eventia 2011 Review

2 days & nights of the best networking & education of the year

The Summer Eventia, one of the events industry's foremost annual events was hosted this year by Cardiff and Co showing delegates the splendour of the Welsh capital.

The Headquarters hotel was the Mercure Holland House Hotel which played host to just under 200 delegates, speakers, media representatives and sponsors who made up the conference community which is in these tough times is a fantastic endorsement of the value placed by delegates on attending the Summer Eventia. Feedback from participants has been universally positive encapsulated in the comments of Julie Cooper, Events Director at Fab who said ‘I really enjoyed the two days, both work-wise and socially. I thought the content was really good across the event and very efficiently run. Location was good and I thought Monday’s night’s entertainment really hit the spot.’

Conference highlights

Delegates interacted at workshops, exchanged ideas and engaged in a range of learning and social activities which put them in touch with top industry leaders, great speakers and colleagues from across the industry spectrum.

Eventia Vice Chairman Simon Hughes, COI, Director, Live Events, said: “We set ourselves some high targets regarding the level of content we felt was required and I’m delighted to say that the delegates responded to our efforts and really engaged with the offering. The 2011 Summer Eventia provided some fascinating insight and gave delegates real food-for-thought and practical advice, with which to return to their daily working lives. Everyone agrees it was a great success and a big thank-you goes to the city of Cardiff for its hospitality and for making us feel so welcome.”

The conference was opened Monday morning by Hamish Pringle, Director General of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Hamish shared his insightful views on where events sit within the overall media flow and how to sell the medium based on its key effectiveness drivers.

Hamish was followed on stage by Cisco Live, Global Marketing Manager, Staci Clark and Active Network Events, Global Strategic Director, Anthony Miller who spoke about using live and digital to create increased interaction between events and their communities.

Break-out seminar sessions across both days of Summer Eventia 2011 focused on the digital channels of social media, mobile and virtual, as well as key industry topics such as sustainability, the Bribery Act and adding value for less budget.

Following on from the successful collaboration in Glasgow last year which saw for the first time six leading global associations coming together to examine the role of industry bodies in the future, Chris Elmitt moderator interviewed trade body representatives from the PCMA, MPI and SITE on the health of the events sector overseas. Deborah Sexton (PCMA) (by video link - in keeping with the technology theme), Didier Scaillet (MPI) and Paul Miller (SITE) shared their economic impact study data, discussed the impact of global events such as the Japanese earthquake and forecast future trends and influencers.

A panel of Olympic sponsors, which included Stephen Vaughan, Managing Director of Thomas Cook's London 2012 Partnership, Ben Atherton, London 2012 Programme Manager for Cisco, Nick Grandvoinet, Vice President Sales at Intercontinental Hotels Group and Steve Girdler, director of London 2012 Partnership for Adecco, discussed their brand activity for London 2012 during the first afternoon of the event.

On the morning of day two, corporate planners, Sharyn Hadfield, Global Head of Events for Linklaters and Emma Nielsen, Deputy Head of Events at Barclays, joined Cisco’s Staci Clark on stage to respond to agency gripes about the pitch process, which had been aired during the final conference session of day one.

Monday’s evening entertainment was a right old sing song. Delegates were taken on a coach tour of Cardiff with the final destination being the city’s new £22.5m Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where a singing workshop run by ‘Only Men Aloud’ created a four part harmony with delegates singing ‘Don’t Stop Believing’. See just how good we were here! After all that hard work delegates were entertained by ‘Only Men Aloud’ over dinner before being taken back to the Mercure Holland House hotel for more live music in the form of Tom Jones (well nearly, a very convincing Tom Jones tribute act). Much fun was had by all with a lot more singing and dancing into the night!

During the conference, delegates raised £1,950, via a charity auction, drop zone and cash collection. This is an amount to which MIMN (Meetings Industry Meeting Needs) has generously agreed to match fund giving a total contribution of £3,900 for local charity Tŷ Hafan. The Charity helps life-limited children, young people and their families make the most of the time they have left together. We are hugely grateful for this commitment from MIMN and for the amazing donations made.

Programme

A copy of the full programme can be viewed here.

Presentations

Some presentations from the event are available here. Please note more are being added all the time.

The Video

A closing video of the event courtesy of DRP group can be viewed here.

Photo Gallery

See Summer Eventia 2011 in pictures by clicking on the gallery link at the bottom of the page..

Main event photography was supplied by Graham Richardson. For more examples of his work and to contact Graham please email: [email protected].

The photo wall photography was supplied by On Location Events. To see more details and contact them, please see www.onlocationevents.co.uk.

Sponsorship

Summer Eventia 2012

In addition to being a great learning and networking experience, The Summer Eventia provides its sponsors with a fantastic opportunity to reach a host of key customer targets and really make an impression over the two days of the conference. The sponsorship opportunities are now available.

The date and location for Summer Eventia 2012 will be announced shortly. We are engaging in member research to ascertain the best time of year for the event to be staged during 2012!

Suppliers who are interested in sponsoring an element of this event: Please contact the event team on +44 (0)1420 593 614 or [email protected].