Showcase event for NI events industry!

THOSE involved in the events industry had the opportunity to meet the star players on their own stage -  instead of being involved in planning someone else’s big day.

‘In Any Event’ was held at the Europa Hotel, Belfast, on October 6. The event showcased, demonstrating that NI now has the services, venues and expertise to compete for top international conferences, exhibitions and other events.

Now in its second year, the innovative ‘In Any Event’ conference and exhibition is the brainchild of Michael Jeffrey of Lisburn event branding company, Expand a Sign, with the aim to showcase services and promote excellence in all aspects of event marketing and communications.

“This year’s ‘In Any Event’ was bigger and better and allowed events people to meet up with each other and also with those who supply goods and services to the industry,” said Michael. “It is being run on a not-for-profit basis, and is an opportunity for everyone in the business to gain more information, contacts, clients, suppliers and business leads.”

New for this year was a series of practical master classes with hands-on hot tips from the professionals – including David McCavery of Serious PR and premier outside caterer Simon Dougan of The Yellow Door – as well as a ‘Performance Artists’ Exposé where emerging young artists showed us what they can do.

Keynote speeches on the theme ‘success on the world stage’ where delivered during the day by top event organisers who have already demonstrated that Ireland is more than capable of hosting top international events.

They included Maria Moynihan Lee, Volvo Ocean Race Galway Stopover 2009 Festival Director whose targets for the event were to generate €43m for the local economy and attract some 140,000 visitors to Galway.  Mr  Gerry Copeland, Events Manager at Belfast City Council who played a key role in the recent Tall Ships visit to Belfast and Alistair McGowan who led the team which secured the World Police and Fire Games for Belfast in 2013, the third largest multisports event in the world which will attract around 12,000 competitors from 100 countries gave keynote speeches on the day.

“The world of events is huge,” said Michael. “Within the UK alone, some 17m people visit events each year and in 2005 the industry contributed £9.3b and 137,000 jobs to the UK economy – and that’s just the exhibition sector.

“More and more brands are choosing events and waking up to the unique marketing power of live media. We believe ‘In Any Event’ will further establish Northern Ireland as a destination of choice in the UK, Ireland and international events marketplace, not only to attract events, but to promote local companies to those in the industry elsewhere.”

To find out more about In Any Event contact Michael Jeffrey at info@in-anyevent.co.uk