How to win events business during London 2012

The London 2012 Olympic Games will bring some 100 private sector sponsors, 26 international federations, 205 competing nations, 560 domestic sporting bodies and the world’s media to the UK capital. Not to mention a host of consumer brands looking for an unofficial association with ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ plus a range of local businesses, all eager to harness some of that Olympic spirit to motivate staff and win new business contracts.

With just over 300 days remaining until the Opening Ceremony, a number of venues and agencies have already secured events and hospitality contracts. However, there are many others who still strive for their opportunity to work with an Olympic related client.

Zanine Adams, head of sales and Event Solutions at London & Partners is keen to stress to those who are still searching for London 2012 business opportunities that they should remain focused and proactive.

“Venues should be looking at the bigger picture and away from simply marketing themselves as potential hospitality houses for National Olympic Committees," she says. "We believe there will only be around 60 of these NOC hubs as many countries have decided to adopt a national presence in London and form part of an International House, West African House, Latin American House or Oceania House for example. Agencies and venues need to assess all activation opportunities and be aware that deals will continue to be done right until the last few days of the countdown to the Games.”

To help events businesses consider the full range of opportunities available to them, I have worked with Zanine to compile the following advice:

1) Inspire
Do you have a clear London 2012 business message? Is there a dedicated area on your website providing details of Olympic packages? Ensure you have available itineraries, sensible rates and packages and that they are being marketed to their full capacity both online and offline.

2) Look closer to home
Have you consulted your regular client-base or local businesses? It’s likely that many companies are only starting to consider their Olympic action plan now. Discuss ways in which you can help to entertain their guests or motivate internal staff with or without access to tickets.

3) Partner Up
Is there an associated business which would strengthen your offer? Consider partnering up with a hotel, meetings venue or restaurant or team building company, agency or entertainment supplier and go to market with a complete package.

4) Set your sights
Many international sponsors are planning Wave Programmes that will see them fly guests into the UK capital on three-day rotations. Agencies are therefore in need of incentive and itinerary ideas. Can you offer reception space, dining amenities or transport?

5) Think laterally
Does your venue’s roof terrace provide a stunning media backdrop? Maybe, your out-of-town location would provide a good stop-off lunch point for airport transfers? Just because your venue space has always been used in a particular way, why not do something different and transform that courtyard into a pop-up restaurant or offer a brand gallery space where once sat meetings space.

6) 2012 lasts longer than a fortnight
There are so many fantastic events taking place throughout next year including the Cultural Olympiad, Charles Dickens’ 200th anniversary, the Shakespeare Festival and the four-day Diamond Jubilee. Do you have offers and packages aimed at driving business around these Olympic alternatives?

7) Don’t forget about the Paralympics
What can you offer those brands, sponsors, media and athletes involved with the Paralympic Games? Do you have dedicated Paralympic packages and rates in place? How are you marketing your offer? The Paralympic Games will afford a large amount of business opportunities, some of which will require specialist packages and bespoke offers.

8) Communicate
If you’re not using social media channels to build relationships and promote your offer, you can guarantee that your competitors will be. Now is the time to speak to your supplier network and industry peers. Share knowledge, discuss ideas and form partnerships wherever possible.

9) Stay focused
Lead times have grown shorter and the Olympic Games has always traditionally turned into somewhat of a sprint towards the summer. Now is the time to focus on helping clients to make decisions through consultation and keeping yourselves visible. If decisions are to be left until the last minute, those companies will need to remember you and your offer in a positive light.

10) Keep abreast of developments
There are a number of conferences, exhibitions, websites and magazines whose remit is to help you make the most of the Olympic opportunity. Engage and embrace them all. London & Partners has teamed up with The International Special Events Society and Unique Venues of London to host one such event on 19 September at the BFI IMAX cinema where we shall be discussing London 2012 and Beyond.

Keeping Britain Talking

Keep Britain Talking is the awareness campaign run by VisitBritain to encourage business in the UK to keep communicating through meetings and events, and also to support the UK meetings industry by holding those events in the UK.

I played my part this week by jumping on a double-decker routemaster bus with the Business Tourism and Event Solutions teams from Visit London.

The purpose of our extreme bus ride was to have a lengthy meeting, lasting from Paddington station to the Birmingham NEC, whilst promoting the new Visit London business branding along the way.

The Global Radio Big Events Bus also served to remind those pointing and taking photos of us as we navigated our way out of London, that there's a host of quirky meeting spaces available to event planners in the capital.

Keep Britain Talking is the campaign theme for National Meetings Week, which runs from 21-27 September. It coincides with the NEC exhibition Event UK so, the bus has another role to fulfill this week as it turns into Visit London's exhibition stand.

During National Meetings Week, key partners and supporters will be getting across the message that the meetings and events industry in Britain is worth more than £22billion. Around 80 million people attend 1.5 million conferences held annually in the UK and business visits and events account for some 5.3million jobs either indirectly or directly.

Check out the video embedded below for more information or go to the Keep Britain Talking website.

Visit London Awards: Deadline 20 August

London’s tourism businesses have less than two weeks left to complete their entries, which close on 20 August. The awards, which are free to enter, have 14 categories to showcase innovation in marketing, new product development and excellence in customer care, or action taken to reduce carbon footprint.

The awards span a whole range of industry services including: accommodation providers, restaurants, events organisers and attractions. The deadline for the awards is 5pm on 20 August.

The Visit London Awards, are running in association with the Enjoy England Awards for Excellence and are the highlight of the tourism calendar which recognise and reward excellence in London tourism.

The 2008 awards include categories such as Best Business Venue and Best Business Event of the Year. There are also more tourism-related awards such as Best Budget Accommodation, Best Tourism Experience and the highly coveted Visitor Attraction of the Year award. Businesses can enter as many categories as they feel relevant.

A large panel of London experts have been invited to judge the awards (I was a judge last year - still waiting for the call!) with each entry having up to three awards per category: Gold, Silver or Bronze. A complete list of award categories and entry requirements can be found on Visit London's website.

The winners will be announced at an Awards Ceremony taking place on Thursday 27 November at one of London’s most iconic venues the Royal Albert Hall.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm the contributing editor for Visit London's new Event organisers website.

Look back at 2007Le Tour de France comes to London

When people question London’s ability to stage a successful Olympics in 2012, one date will now form the case for the defence and send the doubters on their bikes. On 7 July 2007, two years to the day since the terrorist atrocities on the capital’s transport system, around three million people from all over the world swarmed into the city for a weekend of events that included the Live Earth concert, the Wimbledon tennis finals and the Tower of London Music Festival. At its epicentre was the world’s biggest annual sporting event and without a doubt the biggest sporting test for the capital in advance of 2012.

Staging the Tour de France’s Grand Départ cost in the region of £6.8m, with the Mayor predicting a return on that investment of around £115m in additional tourism. It comprised a 7.9km prologue time trial that took place around Westminster, Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace on the Saturday and determined the first wearer of the race leader’s yellow jersey. The following day, the 189 cyclists departed for the first stage proper – a 126-mile route through Greenwich and into Kent.

Opening ceremony
Before each stage the tour ‘caravan’ (200 sponsors’ vehicles dispensing free gifts) drove the length of each route. Hyde Park was transformed into a ‘people’s village’ – a free event with interactive cycling displays – and every day a bicycle ballet took place outside the National Theatre. At Excel London in docklands, around 2,500 press and media registered at a hi-tech 8,000sqm media centre and in Trafalgar Square, an opening ceremony kicked off the extravaganza on 6 July.
Transport for London (TfL), the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency had been planning this weekend for four years. In August 2006, following a tender involving around 100 companies, TfL engaged agency Innovision to help turn its plans into reality. The team was lead by managing director Will Glendinning, who helped to plan the event meticulously with TfL, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation, the Tour’s owners), the Metropolitan Police, Westminster Council, the Royal Parks, the Greater London Authority, Kent County Council, Canterbury City Council and more than 250 other stakeholders for more than a year.
Glendinning says: “From the outset, I was confident we had the talent and experience in our team to deliver a truly memorable event. However, I really wanted the event to recapture the public’s excitement and imagination of what a unique location London is and the potential available in the city. To stage an event of this scale, all our contractors needed to realise how much discussion and paperwork would be involved and logistically we pulled off one of the biggest road closure schemes London has seen for a long while.”
Substantial road closures and diversions to bus routes enabled 6,000 staff, crew and personnel to build the route infrastructure, which included 19 big screen viewing areas. At Excel London the world’s media were gathering and the cycling teams were milling around the surrounding hotels.
Excel’s services director Steve Melrose helped to oversee a five-day build of the media centre that comprised around 500 work stations, 100 analogue phone lines, two 8Mb broadband connections, 20 ISDN lines and three press conference rooms that around 500 media people a day passed through during the weekend. He says: “As a venue we’re used to dealing with international show requirements so it wasn’t a problem. At first, however, we were dealing with BT as our telecommunication provider, but very late in the day it changed and we had to deal direct with France Telecom. That was really the only slight issue we had to react to and quickly.”

Security plan
TfL had even bigger concerns. As a key player in bringing the Tour to the capital, it had cancelled engineering work on the Tube in central London and provided an extra 11,000 parking spaces for bikes. But it was the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on London and a week earlier a car bombing had been foiled near Piccadilly Circus. On the Central Line, a derailed underground train sat blocking Mile End’s westbound platform.
According to TfL’s head of special projects, Mick Hickford, the infrastructure was ready to cope with anything. “Regarding the Central Line derailment, we laid on additional bus services but in fact the line was reopened by Saturday morning,” he says. “An additional security plan for London’s transport was put in place but the area that held the prologue is the most secure in the country anyhow as the cyclists were passing the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street. London’s public transport moves on average more than one million people a day so we were confident it would withstand all the activity in London, but it was extremely good practice for 2012 and we have learnt a huge amount.”

Well-wishers
Throughout the planning of the Grand Départ, Innovision was contracted by TfL to coordinate and deliver the creative and technical aspects of the event while TfL oversaw the planning, marketing and PR aspects. Hickford admits that part of the marketing campaign was an attempt to prolong European visits while also promoting the benefits of cycling. “I think two million people in central London over the weekend, plus huge public interest, has shown there is a great audience for cycling in London,” he says. “And I’m sure that such a great weekend for both sport and music ensured that visitors either stayed longer or left with a fantastic impression of London’s ability to host major events.”
On Sunday 8 July, 21 teams of nine riders left the Mall at 10.25am, crossed bridges and paraded past the London Eye and St Paul’s Cathedral before heading for Greenwich via Tower Bridge. The race officially started opposite the Maritime Museum at 11am as the cyclists set off for Canterbury. From there, well-wishers and doping scandals followed them through Belgium and Spain.
After 21 stages and 2,206 miles, the world’s most gruelling sporting challenge reached its climax in Paris on 29 July – but whatever impressions it left overall, there’s no doubt that London’s handling of the opening days was a triumph that will stay in people’s memories for at least the next five years.