Feature
Kimberley Barnes, Clarion
Events
Emily Challis, Fresh Montgomery
Meena Chander, Events
Together Ltd
David Chapple, Northstar Travel
Group
Verity Chynoweth, FinTech
Connect
Nicola Heath, Messe Frankfurt
Chloe Hyland, Messe Frankfurt
Adam Jones, Freeman
Paul Lewis, CEVA Showfreight
Chelsea Law, Reed Exhibitions
Nicola Macdonald, Exhibition
News
Jamie Pearson, Afrocet
Montgomery
Becky Pinner, Raccoon Events
Ed Scutt, Freeman
Dean Wale, CEVA Showfreight
Hannah Ware, Reed Exhibitions
Loren Wilson, Aspect
Jamie Wilkinson, Eljays44
name.
“Ten content tracks are going down to
six, which was a bold decision, and we’ll
be streamlining the whole event. There
are a lot of events out there, and we are
currently the lead event but it’s about how
we maintain that position.”
Meena Chander, founder of events
management business Events Together,
points out that with events that have been
running for many years, organisers can
often be wary of taking big risks with how
they are run.
“That’s a challenge in the events
industry,” she continues. “People are very
cost-conscious and hammer you down on
rates, so we in turn have to hammer down
suppliers on rates. It’s about trying to
change the perspective of organisers and
say, ‘you’re quite stale now, you need to
think about different sponsorship packages
and take that risk and be bold’.”
One area commonly repeated year-on-
year is an event floorplan and Freeman’s
Adam Jones points out that ideally floorplan
layouts should be refreshed every two years.
“Otherwise you fall into this ‘grandfather
rights’ floorplan where it’s almost the
customer dictating the size of the space,” he
says. “By changing it and making it known
to the customer that it will change every
two years it allows you to reset, get your
yield back up, shrink things down and have
more control of the space.
“Often if it’s not that busy compressing
the aisles and increasing what appears to be
the footfall is a really good tactic.”
Jamie Pearson of Afrocet Montgomery,
which runs events in West Africa, adds: “In
Nigeria, you have to just hire the whole hall,
so if we’re not quite filling what we need to
instead of having aisles front to back we cut
things up, so you only see 10m ahead not
30m. It looks a lot busier.”
Emily Challis, portfolio event manager
at Fresh Montgomery, describes having the
opposite problem – being wall-bound in a
venue – with the Independent Hotel Show
UK.
“This year we’ve been squeezed to try
and reduce our aisle widths,” she says.
“For us, that’s a reverse concern because
we’re worried that it’ll feel crowded. In
Amsterdam when we launched a show there
[Independent Hotel Show Amsterdam] we
were in a much bigger venue and were able
to have big, open aisles and a lot of self-
build stands. It felt refreshing and open, and
we’re nervous about it in the UK because
we’re cramping and haven’t done that
before.”
Jones advises having a larger aisle where
footfall is heavy (i.e. the entrance) and
reducing width where it is less so.
“We did that this year,” agrees Hyland.
“We stayed a similar size and reduced the
aisles except for one main central highway
and themed it like a road because the show’s
automotive. We had a real focus on the
visitor journey – looking at signage etc. –
and exhibitors were happy, and it felt very
busy and buzzy.”
Ease of communication
The conversation turns to the challenges
of communication between organisers,
exhibitors and suppliers, and how to avoid
that moment every organiser wants to
avoid: exhibitors wandering round a show
floor, frustrated, between people who are
unable to answer their query.
Nicola Heath, who joined Messe
Frankfurt in October 2018 as account
manager, says she acts as a single point of
contact for all exhibitors, managing
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