BEST EVENTS TEAM
Africa Oil Week – Hyve Group
AOW has run in Cape Town for 26 years but with South Africa facing a horrid time due to Covid-19, the teams hope and determination to deliver a face-to-face event in 2021 was looking more and more unlikely.
AOW is an international event, attracting attendees from over 70 countries and we asked ourselves how can we re-connect our industry face-to-face again? We made the bold move to relocate the event to another continent. The facts, stats and data led us to Dubai but this was not without a combined team effort.
To be able to deliver a conference in 2021 was in itself a huge team achievement but to have delivered one of our best editions to date was unthinkable. Commercial goals exceeded by over a £1million, a 104% increase in NPS score and a 93% rebook. To move an established event of 26 years to a brand new continent, not knowing if any delegates or sponsors would follow with you, host it at a venue with suppliers you’d never before worked with and to achieve all this in under eight months is an incredible achievement and shows the dynamism, passion and dedication of an outstanding team.
ALM Awards Team
This cross-Atlantic awards team has been in existence for only a few short years but has already achieved a great deal. Covering over 30 awards in 4 continents we are truly global. Whilst we aim for a standardised approach, we take into account local nuances to ensure that our markets are well catered for. The pandemic allowed us the opportunity to showcase our events in different ways and created new opportunities for our clients to promote their achievements. We remained active in almost all of our markets whilst our competitors shut up shop. This allowed us to gain market share and enhanced our brands value proposition with our clients.
DRPG
The DRPG Live team is a team of 164 full-time employees, made up of Project Directors, Producers, Project Managers, Logistic Managers, Production Managers, Project Co-ordinators, Technicians, Venue Finders, Set and Scenic Teams, and warehouse operations. This team continues to grow and develop. We have a broad range of disciplines and experience and are very much one family working together to support each other in delivering industry leading events. The team have united by sharing knowledge, experience and bringing positive challenge so that we all continue to grow regardless of their position within the team or business, from team members on apprenticeship programmes through to industry leading experts.
Since March 2020 to present day the team have delivered over 1,000 virtual and hybrid events, and whilst there have been many challenges along the way, what they have achieved is remarkable. We have established a new virtual solutions service line that is here to stay and will very much be part of the future of event solutions. As the world moves back to live experiences, the DRPG team are in a prime position to offer expert advice and draw on a vast knowledge and offering to create world class experiences.
Foundry
The Foundry (formally IDG Communications) Western European and META events team consists of only three people: Ellis Richardson, Romy Tuin, and Tomas Benjamin. This is also a new team. Tom joined Ellis remotely in January 2021 and Romy joined shortly after in April. Together, they executed 30 events in 2021, succeeding event revenue targets by 108% and helping to grow the event portfolio in terms of revenue by 145%. As a result of their incredible work ethic, they achieved an 85% increase in 2021 registrations vs 2020, including a 64% increase in realised attendees. The sponsor renewal rate for 2021-2022 is currently at 66% with an increased sponsor deal value. The diversity of speakers across all events also improved. 48% of the speakers throughout the year were female and 33% represented ethnic minority groups. Their continuous ‘review and renew’ approach kept the portfolio fresh and reflective of the changing landscapes, bringing success after success. Because of this, the event teams at Foundry in the UK were the biggest growing team in terms of revenue across the globe in 2021.
Incisive Media Marketing Team
Incisive Media’s marketing team had a phenomenally successful 2021 in which they delivered over 240+ events including 33 award ceremonies across three core portfolios. We innovated to support entry growth and deliver new experiences to our clients which they benefited from before, during and after each awards ceremony. We market webinars, online & live conferences, roundtables, festivals and awards ceremonies.
Informa Pharma Intelligence Awards Team
2021 saw a challenging year for the Pharma Intelligence Awards team, navigating a range of internal structural changes, redundancies and uncertainty with key stakeholders, whilst battling and accommodating the ever-changing COVID-19 travel restrictions and venue rules. This team of two successfully delivered five Awards in four weeks, in the UK and abroad, exceeding revenue targets by 30%. They ran two lots of back-to-back events despite significant budget cuts and limited event assistance. Their complementing skills make them a team that is highly regarded within the division and are often referred to as ‘the dream team’!
Inside Government
Since the pandemic, the Inside Government team – including management, programme, operations and marketing – pulled together to deliver the events our consumers needed, in a way that still delivered everything they expected from us. Following the first lockdown, we knew we had to adapt, and we couldn’t simply transfer our traditional face-to-face format over to Zoom. We had to ensure that while participating virtually, our consumers could still interact with other delegates, ask questions, network, etc. By working more closely than ever before, the team redefined how they formatted events and created programmes, and implemented a sophisticated virtual events platform that facilitated the most interactive and engaging event features – Q&As, breakouts, streams, workshops, networking, roundtables, polls, etc. The team became more creative and innovative with their marketing to drive engagement and sign-ups, carefully analysing data to make informed business decisions. Finally, all these elements would come together to allow the team to deliver an exceptional experience for those delegates missing live events (from capped training forums to large interactive conferences). Using this model, the Inside Government team ran over 80 events during the past 12 months.
The Assembly
he Assembly launched as a live events business two months prior to the pandemic, so The Assembly’s first year went anything but to plan!
However, during 2021, they held four events each in a different format.
Two of their own new event brands in the physical live event space, a consumer exhibition and a consumer conference. A hybrid event and a virtual event working in partnership with companies forming an extension of their team. Plus working alongside a software developer The Assembly created their own virtual events platform.
To activate these events, without premises due to the challenges of the pandemic, they hand-picked a team for each event, pulling together like-minded experts in their specific fields, to deliver exceptional events, and drawing on skill sets that traditionally did not sit in the exhibition space. A key appointment was Jane Galpin, whose breadth of experience in live events and TV production gave The Assembly an edge. This unique team’s combined skills offered broad strategic thinking, creativity and design, along with experience in TV production, technology, bespoke software and live events.
Wilmington Events, EMEA
The Health Service Journal (HSJ) Events Team delivers events to the NHS and wider healthcare sector. Their events unite high-level decision makers from clinical and non-clinical backgrounds on a platform that enables discussions, influences change and positively impacts healthcare delivery through carefully designed programmes and invaluable networking opportunities.
In July 2020, their audience was at the heart of the pandemic response which posed additional challenges for the team when they began to pivot events to virtual.
The journey the team embarked on was one of highs and lows, rescheduling, reinventing, and reimagining the events, but the one constant they had was their ability to work together at times of extreme pressure and deliver on results.
Consistently meeting and exceeding revenue, attendee and feedback targets they rose to every challenge to ensure that the customers always had a great experience whether joining an event virtually or in-person
