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Awards

Showslice brings the sharing economy to live events

Back in October I attended the London Lifestyle Awards as a guest of of Showslice. That was their first “sliced” event and was honour to be part of it. Showslice brings the sharing economy to the events industry by offering event organisers to share their production costs with another event(s). On this occasion, Woman of the Future Awards took place on Tuesday the 27th October followed by the London Lifestyle Awards on Wednesday the 28th October at Hilton London Park Lane. The London Lifestyle Awards were created in 2010 by Jason Gale to celebrate the businesses, the people and the places that make London a world class city and it was a very exciting and entertaining event to attend. Shortlisted business included restaurants, bars, nightclubs, sports clubs and other venues, hair stylists and more.

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The highlight of the evening for me was the performance by London Cabaret Club, it was just WOW! Also the food was very good the service team didn’t know what the dished were so we had to ask the head waiter (I ordered the vegetarian dish). Nevertheless, overall I had a positive experience at the Hilton London Park Lane.

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As you know setting up production for an award night, festival or sporting event is very costly and sometimes setting up and de-rig can take longer than the event itself! So Showslice is a great solution for those who care about the environment and want to save costs. I asked the team at Showslice to tell me more about their innovative concept.

How long Showslice is in operation?

Showslice officaly launched in November 2014 at IBTM Barcelona coming runners up in the innovations zone that year. Having only been operating for 2 weeks this was an achievement and the idea of Showslice was received well by the international community of event operators.

Who is your target audience?

Showslice is able to work with any event owner on a larger scale. To provide the savings and sustainability aspects of what Showslice can offer, each event needs to be sizable in manner i.e. require some form of staging, sound, lighting and production. These can be any events from concerts, gala’s, awards ceremonies to large AGM’s and association dinners. Currently there are over 1000 of these events taking place in London alone each year. Showslice can connect all of these through their platform and network to help organisers reduce logistics, cost, time and waste whilst also providing a collaborative approach to planning. This can create larger and better events for clients whilst still operating within their budget.

It is not just about cost savings but also about growth and guest experiences for our clients and mitigating the risks involved with planning a larger event than the previous year. Providing the X factor if you like without incurring the costs associated with that should you be doing it on your own.  Event owners often have their budgets and are going to spend it. Ok that’s great however by combining your budget with another organiser or several, Showslice can help facilitate much better rates which can then be used for additional equipment which is staying in one location for the week. For example, holographic projection are difficult to set up, expensive and time consuming. But what if organisers could share this technology over a week? What would your guest experience be and media coverage from an event such as that? This is all possible with collaboration through Showslice.

Background of founders

Damian Oracki, Showslice founder, is an event services entrepreneur who has worked on the supplier and temporary infrastructure side of the events industry for just over 10 years including London 2012 and the Rugby World Cup 2015. As a supplier, he has worked with a myriad of production companies, event management agencies and venues where he provided services that included the logistical, venue management & health & safety aspects for some of the largest events in the world.

Damian was often involved in setting up large back-to-back events sharing the same infrastructure at one venue however, as with most event professionals, Damian constantly found himself moving on from one stand-alone event to the next, quite often within the same London mile from each other. Stemming from his frustration in the lack of communication and collaboration between event owners, coupled with the increase in industry budget cuts and the growing awareness of climate change, Damian founded Showslice, an award winning confidential online platform and service that helps event owners connect and collaborate to share infrastructure costs back-to-back.

Jon Gunn, Showslice COO is an experienced project and venue management expert. Having managed several large venues and events over 20 years he played key operational management role in ensuring the success of the Commonwealth Games Manchester 2002 and the Olympic Games London2012. Jon opened and operated some of the UK’s most prestigious venues over a 20 year career such as the Grand Central Pools, Sports City Manchester, Etihad Stadium, National Squash and Athletic Centre.

How did up come up with the idea?

Having worked on events for several years Damian noticed that whilst setting up the infrastructure (Staging, lighting etc.) this took a large amount of time and staffing, then there would be a technical rehearsal, then the show itsself and then the de-rig of equipment. This could take over 2 days depending on the size of event but certainly at least 13 hours per day from start to finish. At the end of the de-rig another company would come in and start putting up almost identical infrastructure. Imagine if these two organisers had communicated between each other, the time, logistics, cost and waste saved. Damian started designing the platform enabling event owns to communicate with each other and a system where Showslice can connect all of the above from venues, suppliers and services in one place reducing the amount of time, equipment staffing and logistics required. Nearing completion of the platform Damian contacted Jon who thought this was a real solution to many of the issues facing organisers, venues and suppliers. Once the platform was completed Damian and Jon started developing a network of clients and logistics needed to pull all of these resources together. Now Showslice are working with some of the largest names in the industry (The London Mayors Office, Centaur Media, NSPCC, Ricoh and the Prince’s Trust) to name but a few growing their network and making valued connections for clients.

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Meetings Industry Marketing Awards in pictures

Now more than ever it is very exciting time to work in the events industry and The Meetings Industry Marketing Awards (MIMA) yesterday demonstrated how talented, creative and hardworking #eventprofs are.

Couple of months ago I published the article “How winning awards can impact your business” where I presented how participating in awards can impact your reputation, increase your credibility and contribute to business success. But that is not all, awards are also great for involving clients and recognising your team for their hard work throughout the year and that team spirit was clearly present on all tables and made the night very exciting!

The MIMA took place at the QEII Centre and I had the pleasure to attend as a guest of Event Marketing Association. It started with a networking reception, followed by seated dinner for starter and main course and desserts and coffee were served buffet style with an open bar to facilitate more networking.

On the night over £5,000 were raised for the Meetings Industry Meeting Needs (MIMN) charity founded by leading industry professionals to raise funds for causes relevant to the events industry and need external support.

There were 14 categories this year and I was happy to see that six of the categories covered online which is increasingly important in our industry and I am glad to see that destinations and agencies are shifting their marketing activities to digital. Below you can see the full list of categories.

– Best Print Advertising Campaign

– Best Online Marketing Campaign

– Best Web Site

– Best Brochure

– Best Direct Mail Campaign

– Best Use of Video Marketing

– Best Use of Budget

– Best Live Marketing Event

– Best Brand Marketing Campaign

– Best Integrated Marketing Campaign

– Best Email Marketing Campaign

– Best Social Media Campaign

– Best Mobile Marketing Campaign (including Apps)

– Marketing Team of the Year!

The winners were chosen based on five criteria: Clarity of objective, clarity of strategy, creativity, measurement and evaluation and lastly return on investment.

Without further talking, I am happy to share with you yesterday’s highlights in pictures where you can also see some of the shortlisted candidates and the winners.

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How winning awards can impact your business

Awards season is fast approaching. In the following moths some of the major industry awards (at least in the UK) will take place: Meeting Industry Marketing Awards, C & IT Awards, London Venue Awards, Event Tech Awards, to mention a few.

Back in July at The Meetings Show I attended a session by Patrick Delaney, Managing Partner at SoolNua and Steen Møller, Head of Business Events at Visit Denmark about “How Winning Awards can Impact Your Business” and in this post want to share with you major takeaways.

If you participated in awards yourself, you know how demanding it can be preparing your entry and the stress and excitement about it, not to mention financial investment. But how do you decide which awards to apply for and does it really impact your business?

I participated in awards myself, some included very detailed submission with references and presentations, others required just few short paragraphs. Looking back it was a rewarding experience and some brought to career advancement. But applying for the award was more of a spontaneous decision “let’s try it, I have nothing to lose” so I was curious to know if there is more to it and how to leverage such awards.

The importance of reputation

We know already that in the events industry is all about reputation and who do you know (or who knows you). Reputation can be gained through awards and there are three types of awards: won, granted and academic.

While it can be positive or negative, positive reputation can help you increase your credibility and in turn can contribute to your business success.

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Benefits of applying for awards

The speakers suggested that awards are about measurements and focusing on your own work. If you are to invest time and effort in the application process you need to know what your ROI is and what you are measuring – more business, become a key opinion leader etc.

Key points to keep in mind:

  • Clients love to be associated with the awards and involving them and projects you did for them is good way to bring them on board
  • Awards can help you develop your brand, aligning with brands who applied for the award and won in the past
  • Benefits don’t become immediately obvious
  • Leverage awards for building relationships with your team and recognise them. The prize is not the most important motivation.

Reputation alone doesn’t build trust and an Award is a tool for building trust. For example the BeeSustain campaign by Copenhagen CVB cost less than £2,000 and generated great buzz on social media and contributed to positioning Copenhagen as a sustainable destination.

Building reputation

There are over 100 industry awards, so who decides which ones are credible?

Because you apply for awards to build credibility, the speakers advised to “find the audience you want to win the awards towards” and that “winning awards that are important for the target audience can also serve as a marketing tool”.

But…

What kind of information is available out there to build your reputation? Different groups of people think different things about you and how well do you know what your reputation is?

So..

  • Know your target audience.
  • Know your value proposition.
  • Choose your tools.
  • Be consistent.

Here we had a discussion in the audience about how to build reputation and we came up with the following suggestions:

  • Keep your integrity, such as people should be able to rely on you and you keeping your word.
  • Consistency: you get reputation from the beginning and you need to keep it.
  • Reliability: delivering results on time and doing what you promised to to.
  • Thought leadership: can be gained through speaking at conferences and can be earned only.

Challenges

We know that the events industry is constantly evolving and new trends and awards are created, so how to keep the temptation of jumping on the latest trends?

Steen suggested it is “good to test new trends but underpin everything you do under strategic decisions”.

Great advice was given at the session and lots of points to consider for the future!