The 2023 Gateshead Quays arena, conference and exhibition centre has passed a major milestone with Gateshead Council’s development partner Ask:PATRIZIA submitting a planning application for the venue. The £260 million build is hoped to add over 1,000 jobs and £29 million GVA to the regional economy every year. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
The Iceberg is sorely missing a wide range of cancelled industry events. We’re also sorely missing the cheery Martin Sirk selfie posted from all of them. Fortunately, the International Advisor of our partner the Global Association Hubs Partnership has recorded a podcast. From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
Trade associations have a vital role to play in helping the industry and wider world to recover as pandemic lockdowns end. So there is real and pressing work now for them to do. The association champion Jennifer Jenkins is PCO Lead and Director at the British agency Worldspan. From Association Meetings International…
“The new normal” is an irritating phrase that has entered common parlance since lockdown measures began to contain further spread of COVID-19. While the transition to virtual events is a “new normal” we can take seriously, not much else of the “new normal” is “normal” at all. From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
Adapt, survive, thrive. Not a choice, but a necessity in the future. So says Smyle Founder and Group Executive Director Rick Stainton, here offering a long-range view on assessing the current economic conditions, lower delegate appetite for business travel, and the role in the mix of virtual and hybrid. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
As the COVID-19 crisis has persisted, so has came the slow realisation that its impact will linger a very long time indeed. What does this mean for the exhibition sector in the future? Reed Exhibition’s former Chairman and CEO Mike Rusbridge, and former Commercial Director Nick Forster, offer thoughts. From UFI…
As the world’s population grows, the percentage of people living in cities is rising steadily. The future success of humanity is therefore more and more tied to, and even defined by, the future success of the city as a model. In that, of course, business events have a critical role to play. Professor Greg Clark has…
Australia’s business events landscape is surveyed here in a rich collection of articles. BESydney’s Lyn Lewis-Smith, ICC Sydney’s Geoff Donaghy, ACC’s Simon Burgess, MCEC’s Peter King, Brisbane Marketing’s Juliet Alabaster, plus the team behind JMIC’s (the Joint Meetings Industry Council’s) case studies, all offer up viewpoints. From Meetings International…
When President Nelson Mandela opened the Durban ICC in 1997, it was South Africa’s first international convention centre. It has since then been voted “Africa’s Leading Meetings and Conference Centre” by the World Travel Awards no fewer than seventeen times. But some of the venue’s greatest legacies lie in environmental sustainability. From Boardroom…
In the weeks since the coronavirus outbreak has ravaged the industry, event professionals right across the globe have been uniting in the fight against the pandemic. Competitors have grouped together to provide expertise where most needed, like Live for Life and Go LIVE Together in the US, and also Events4Covid19 in Portugal. From EventMB…
Expo 2020 Dubai’s postponement will allow time to reflect on how to improve people’s lives after current COVID-19 challenges subside. So says Dimitri Kerkentzes, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), which has in principle agreed to postponing the event until 2021. An official vote will complete on May 29th. From Meetings International…
Following the use of UK convention centres as hospitals, Twickenham and AMEX Stadiums have become coronavirus drive-through testing facilities for healthcare and essential workers. Both arenas are significant event venues. The UK government is rapidly scaling up testing capacity. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
The conscription of venues as field hospitals can be seen as one of the grimmer aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, but can also foster optimism and hope. Ana Carrazon, Congress Sales and Logistics Expert at IFEMA Feria de Madrid, has been working as a volunteer at the IFEMA Hospital. From Association Meetings International…
COVID-19 has made virtual events necessary, acceptable and habitual. The crisis will change the industry beyond recognition in that meeting face-to-face will not take place for a while at anything like the usual scale and frequency. In the mid to longer term, social distancing and hygiene protocols will also transform. From SoolNua’s Pádraic Gilligan at Padraicino…
When life gives you lemons, there’s only one thing to do with them. The massive economic disruption aside, meetings professionals, venues and organisations have still found ways to support both each other and their communities. These include Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID), help in housing healthcare workers and donating food. From Associations Now…
Hillary Rodham Clinton chose the Javits Center for her election night party in 2016, but in the end didn’t shatter its glass ceiling. Leadership gender equality within the meetings industry was discussed at a Cvent CONNECT Europe panel in October hosted by BBC Director of Creative Diversity June Sarpong (pictured). From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
From feeding workers on the front line, to making sure that food from cancelled events goes to the hungry and not to landfill, here’s a roundup of how organisations from across the business events industry have offered help during the pandemic, like the Los Angeles Convention Center and Levy Restaurant (pictured). From PCMA…
Luxembourg has a new convention bureau aiming to punch above its weight in business events. The CVB is prioritising green meetings, so wants to register with Iceberg partner the Global Destination Sustainability Index. As not only a city, Luxembourg will be registered as a country, the first to be benchmarked in the index. From Boardroom…
This AIPC and UFI guidance aims to help convention and exhibition centres prepare for and perform in an exceptional role they were not designed for but are increasingly being asked or forced to perform: as temporary emergency facilities. The immediate worldwide concern and context for this guidance is the COVID-19 pandemic. Convention and Exhibition Centres…
During education sessions of the suddenly virtual Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID), leaders from Meeting Professionals International, IMEX and other sector organisations advised fellow professionals to focus on long-term recovery and to work together to help the industry come back stronger than before. From Northstar Meetings Group…
About 60 percent of the UK event industry’s supplier base faces ruin unless the government offers more support, according to a survey just published. Around six percent of businesses polled said they were unlikely to survive until the end of April. Some 1,490 companies took part from all across the UK. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
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