In an impressive commercial performance, the UK Events Summit, due to be held on 15th December at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester virtually sold out their sponsorship inventory in a 5 day sprint.
“You spend your days inviting sponsors to help the industry get back on its feet, then all of a sudden, 5 come along at once!” joked a rather chirpy Andy Rice, COO of event organisers, Major Event International. “Seriously though, this is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by the team. Sponsors join a B2B event if they feel they can make a contribution; if they feel their voice and expertise is relevant; and if there are people in the room that they want to influence or impress. It is very difficult selling sponsorship on a promise, so we needed to gain some significant scale and traction for the event, before inviting sponsors to join us to leverage the event. It all started with the fantastic support of Emirates Old Trafford and their superbly flexible space and team. This allowed us to create a one day event with 18 different panels of content, across 3 separate streams. This generated a number themes such as commercialisation, safety and security and improved event operations which were of importance to the different sponsors.”
This meant that MEI was able to confirm Smyle Group, and their Gaming Division, NJ Live as sponsors of the ‘eSports’ panel: “In what still feels like the relatively new but often misinterpreted space of e-sports and competitive gaming Smyle Group want to provide a platform to openly discuss what the future in this sector might look like for the rights holders, the gamers and the fans. And we want to provide this in the context of live digital and hybrid experiences to understand where the ‘art of the possible’ might take us as this world continues to accelerate and innovate.” Comments James Howitt, Client Development Director at Smyle.
Thridium- promoting their T4S incident management software, stepped up to support the ‘Converting Private Tragedy to Public Safety’ panel featuring Martyn’s Law campaigner, Figen Murray as “we have been working on crowd safety technologies since 2015 and the Manchester events of 2017 strengthened our commitment to help with digitally transforming safety and security and make it a focal point in the design and operation of venues. When MEI informed us of Figen’s participation to the event, we were convinced that hers was the right panel for us to support, as Martyn’s law resonates with our research endeavors. We are looking forward to engaging with everyone at the Summit, share our experiences and help shape safer events” explains CEO Dimitris Vasileiadis.
Nielsen steps up as sponsor of the ‘UK Sports National Governing Bodies’ panel; Let’s Do This was the obvious sponsor of the ‘Secret of Mass Participation Sports’ panel as they provide a platform for such events to maximise sign ups. What 3 Words completes the sponsorship roster by sponsoring the ‘Innovation to survive and then thrive’ linking back to their festival roots.
More details, including registration links for the UK Events Summit are here: www.meisummits.com
To enquire about the 3 remaining panel slots: ‘Diversity- and what it means to you’; ‘National Governing Body briefing panel’ and ‘Looking ahead to the 2022 Event Landscape’, then please email arice@majoreventsint.com