Author: Katharine Jordan

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The Hilton Munich City completes refurbishment

Hilton Munich City is completing refurbishment of the public areas, guest rooms, fitness centre, bar, restaurant and meeting facilities which will transform this 4* hotel.

The location of this hotel is in the city centre, in 10-minutes walking distance of the major attractions. It is above the Rosenheimer Platz S-Bahn station with a lift to the Lobby, which has a direct connection to the airport, convention centre and main railway station. The airport transfer takes about 30 minutes (35km).

There are nine meeting rooms. The largest is the ballroom which has capacity for 300 in theatre-style with a large foyer and courtyard, as well as seven seven multi-purpose rooms and a boardroom. All meeting rooms are located on the ground floor.

The Hilton Munich City has 483 bedrooms and suites and there is an Executive Lounge with terrace. In addition, facilities include a 24-hour gym, the Juliet Rose Bar and Mona Restaurant.

This hotel was awarded Germany’s Leading City Hotel 2019 at the World Travel Awards Europe 2019.

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Expoforum welcomes €700,000 subvention fund to support St Petersburg’s international growth

St Petersburg is doubling its subvention fund to 50 million Roubles (approximately €700,000) for 2019 as part of its ongoing strategy to attract major international congresses to the city.

Although the fund is available for use across all the city’s venues, it will have a significant, positive impact on Expoforum, which the city’s primary congress venue, capable of hosting up to 4,000 delegates in its main conference halls in addition to its 50,000m2 of indoor exhibition space.

The fund, which is controlled by St Petersburg Government and the St Petersburg Committee for Tourism Development will be available to socially oriented non-profit organisations, which are stimulating business tourism and events in St Petersburg.

Subvention support will be granted as part of a competitive process, which will reimburse up to 50% of the costs of an event (up to 10 million Roubles). Key criteria to achieve subvention support include:

  • Number of international participants
  • Event duration
  • Event dates
  • Potential for domestic and international media reach
  • Alignment of the event with the development priorities in the St Petersburg Strategy for Economic and Social Development

“Expoforum is growing its presence internationally, with a variety of major events confirmed over the coming five years,” comments Maria Tsedeviyn, International Development Director at Expoforum. “However, this comprehensive subvention strategy ensures we are competitive on the global stage. With upcoming enhancements to the city’s ambassador programme and plans to simplify the visa process we are looking forward to significant growth in events from a wide variety of sectors. Whilst the fund will benefit St Petersburg as a whole, the Expoforum team are particularly looking forward to the impact it will have on us in our position as the city’s primary venue for major events.”

Andrey Matsarin, Head of St Petersburg Convention Bureau adds: “St Petersburg has firmly established its presence in the global congress market. Our rich history and cultural offering blend perfectly with top universities, research centres and sector leading companies to make our city the perfect host for a wide variety of association events. Our accessibility is superb as is our ability to deliver major events – as demonstrated by our work around the FIFA World Cup and the St Petersburg International Economic Forum at Expoforum, which welcomes tens of thousands of delegates to the city each year.”

The subvention application process has also been simplified with support available from the Convention Bureau as well as local consultants to ensure associations maximise their chances of financial support.

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Hôtel du Louvre, Paris opened in June 2019

The newly renovated Hôtel du Louvre has recently opened and joined Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, alongside Great Scotland Yard in London, the Hotel Martinez, Cannes and the Hotel Sofia in Barcelona.

The hotel, which originally dates from 1855 has been redesigned in a traditional Parisian style, with inspiration from some famous previous guests such as Victor Hugo and Sigmund Freud.

It is located in the Palais-Royal district, close to the Palais Royal, Comédie-Française and Musée du Louvre. The distance from Gare du Nord (Eurostar terminal) is 3km and Charles de Gaulle Airport 28km.

Some of the 106 bedrooms and 58 suites have balconies with views over these buildings.

The hotel has eight meeting rooms, designed like studios, ranging in capacity from 110 in theatre-style and smaller. They are themed according to people who stayed at the hotel such as Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, Matisse, Degas and Cezanne.

The Brasserie du Louvre is a traditional French restaurant with a terrace overlooking the Place du Palais-Royal and the Louvre. L’Officine du Louvre Bar is situated under the hotel’s glass roof and serves herbal-based cocktails celebrating Napoleon III’s love of botany.

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Opening of the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Shanghai Pudong

Marriott has opened the 5* JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Shanghai Pudong, it’s first Marquis branded hotel in China.

The hotel is located in a glass, 39-floor tower which has views over the city and Huangpu River. It is three miles from the World Expo Exhibition Centre, 13 miles from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and 24 miles from Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

The hotel has meeting space for large events, with capacity in the main ballroom of 1,800 in theatre style. This pillarless room can be divided in to five smaller rooms. In total there are 16 meeting rooms, but the quantity can be increased by making them in to smaller sections. All the meeting space is located on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors and is equipped with the latest audio-visual equipment. One of the features of the meeting space is a culinary kitchen, with live cooking and demonstrations which can be incorporated in to an event.

The JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Shanghai Pudong has 515 bedrooms with views of the city or the river. They are equipped with amenities from from Dyson, Samsung, Nespresso, Bvlgari and Aroma Therapy Associates. There are six restaurants, a rooftop bar as well as private dining and karaoke. Leisure facilities include a spa, indoor infinity pool and fitness centre.

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Do you make it easy for attendees with sensory issues to attend your events?

Some disabilities are obvious and some not. When choosing a venue for a conference or meeting, we can check whether the building has wheelchair access to all meeting rooms, catering and social areas, has purpose-built accessible toilets, a hearing loop system and allows guide dogs.

But not all meeting attendees’ issues are obvious. People with sensory issues, such as to light and noise will find large events difficult because of the volume of people in the room, loud music and flashing lights when the keynote speaker arrives. This can include people with ADHD, autism, Downs syndrome, early-onset dementia and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Here are some ideas that you can implement to help event attendees who might find the environment challenging:

  • Allocate a ‘quiet room’, so that anyone who needs some peace has a comfortable place to take a break away from the busy conference or exhibition environment.
  • Take some noise cancelling headphones that you can lend to attendees to help them cross loud areas, such as the exhibition floor or areas where lunch and breaks are being served.
  • Offer stress balls, that attendees can play with to keep their hands occupied and stop fidgeting.
  • Give non-verbal attendees a visual thermometer. It’s just a card they can use to ask for help and to indicate how they are feeling, if they are confused or lost.
  • Issue a slightly different lanyard to indicate to event staff attendees who may require sensory help, but don’t make it different enough to stand out from other attendees.
  • Provide some weighted lap pads to help attendees sit still during long presentations and speeches. This replicates deep-touch pressure therapy, which has a calming effect.

All these items can be cleaned with disinfectant and used at multiple events. Some venues are putting together a bag which includes the items above, or an organsier can put the tools together themselves and take them onsite.

The American organisation Kulturecity runs training courses for staff at venues to understand the problems and help organisers run events which include attendees who find it difficult to participate because of sensory challenges.

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The Drumsheds, a new blank canvass space in London

The Drumsheds is a new multi-purpose venue in London for large events. It opened in June 2019 and is most suitable to host product launches, large parties, automotive, music and cultural events or as a film set. The launch event was a 2-day music festival on 7-8 June.

The venue is a black canvass space of four huge, linked warehouses which have capacity for up to 10,000 people and there are 10 acres of outside space.

The site was previously a gasworks, which operated between the 1930s and 1970s and has not been used since then. The Drumsheds is located at Tottenham Marshes and the closest station is Meridian Water which is on the Lea Valley line and has trains from Liverpool Street and Stratford stations.

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Booking accommodation – do you get the best rates?

When booking a large event, where attendees are paying themselves, it is standard practice to book a block of rooms at the hotel the event is taking place, or if it is a venue that doesn’t have bedrooms, then take some rooms at nearby hotels for attendees to use.

As an organiser, we expect that these rooms will be cheaper than the advertised rates because of the volume of bedrooms we are booking and if the event is in the same hotel, there is the overall benefit to them of profitability from the meeting space, food and beverage and additional attendee spend.

Taking a room block is a substantial undertaking for an event organiser. They will probably have to guarantee a minimum number of bedrooms, there will be a cut-off date and attrition. Bookings need to be closely monitored to avoid penalties.

Transparency is essential from the hotel. It’s quick for an attendee to look online, at the hotel’s website or a 3rd party accommodation booking site and if the rooms are offered more cheaply then they will book elsewhere and there will be a complaint. Also, it’s easy to compare rates with hotels nearby. Increasingly event attendees are looking elsewhere for accommodation to obtain better value for money, particularly in cities where Airbnb has plenty of options of a comparable standard. So, what can you do to secure accommodation at the best rate and make sure attendees use it?

  • A large event or an event on less popular days of the week or in low season will get better rates than a small event at a peak time. The hotel will need the booking more if it fits in well with their other bookings (business and leisure) Using the hotel for multiple events will improve your ability to negotiate
  • Ask for a guaranteed, better-negotiated rates and make sure this is in the contract
  • If your event is at a Congress Centre, then they can help, particularly if there are several hotels involved
  • Similarly, for a city-wide event the Convention Bureau will be able to help
  • Monitor the bookings closely to make sure you achieve the required numbers
  • Keep checking the hotel rates offered on their website and through 3rd party sites to make sure they rates haven’t been reduced lower than your agreement
  • Be aware that nearby hotels can and will offer discounted rates on the date of your event

Of course, there will always be delegates who want to book the hotel where the event is being held, particularly if there is a dinner and drinking. Securing and holding accommodation is less of a problem to the event organiser in a large city, where there are more hotels in walking distance or a quick taxi ride from the event venue.

If you would like help or EDGEvenues to book accommodation on your behalf, please call 01780 484051 or email enquiries@edgevenues.com.

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Using video to promote an event, have you tried it yet?

Videos on social media are users’ favourite content and are twice as popular as photos and four times more popular than text posts. A report from the US video company Animoto has revealed that video content has the best return on investment for marketers on social media. 88% of people surveyed were pleased with the ROI of their video marketing efforts and 93% percent said that they gained a new customer or client thanks to a video on social media.

Many event organisers still haven’t tried video, but it’s a good idea to build it in to the marketing strategy, in the following ways:

  • Launch video: this will drive awareness and create excitement – let everyone know what is happening and when.
  • Run-up to the event: share details of speakers, the programme, exhibitors and any additions to the event
  • About the event: answer the key basics – what time is the event starting, where is it and how to get there, what they should expect, things to remember or bring
  • Afterwards: relive the excitement and successes for attendees and let people who didn’t attend know that they missed out. Invite people back next year and thank everyone involved.

Video formats

In social media feeds, square videos are most popular as they take up to 78% more space in a mobile feed than horizontal shots. Instagram stories uses a vertical format of Instagram Stories and as a result vertical video is growing. So, make your news feed videos are square to get the most screen coverage. Also look at Instagram Stories for tips. Instagram is deisgned to be instant and personal, so it’s not necessary to have expensive, professional videos and content filmed on a phone works fine.

Video is getting shorter and shorter, because of the power of Instagram Stories which encourages stories to be told in moments. By making a video short, viewers are most likely to watch all of it. Between 10-30 seconds is ideal, using 2 second clips to get the message across quickly. There’s only a second or two to capture a viewer’s attention as they are scrolling down a page.

Check for news about your event, industry information, the speakers, attendees and react to it quickly. Use anything relevant in a video summary to keep promoting your messages.

Use a mobile phone to collect quick clips immediately and try to get the right shots, some of the ones you’ll need are:

Close-up shots that capture emotion — people having fun, cheering, concentrating, networking
Crowd shots – showing the volume of people, as well as the venue and what’s happening
Shots of performers, speakers, presenters on stage — try to capture questions, applause or laughter from the audience
Testimonials and soundbites from attendees sharing what they get out of your event
Shots from the stage, showing the audience from the presenter’s view
Use a drone to capture aerial shots of the entire event, but make sure you are insured if you are flying over people.
Product and merchandise clips, which can be used to set the scene

Create the video

You can either use a template or create the video from scratch. Firstly, decide the order of the clips, but don’t use a logo at the beginning. Use the first few seconds to capture the viewer’s attention with something exciting and stop them scrolling further.

Tests show that text at the top of the video clip work best on opening clips. Think about asking a question to keep people watching. Put your call to action in the middle of the video, as well as other places, in case viewers don’t get to the end.

Build your video promotion strategy

Facebook and Instagram prioritise video in their algorithm, which means that your organic posts will reach a greater audience. If you are paying for ads it should result in more sales.

Facebook

There are more than 1.47 billion daily users of Facebook and can be used successfully if you:

  • Target a defined market
  • Have a Facebook Events page
  • Use Facebook’s targeted advertising options
  • Avoid a hard sell because Facebook is a personal space for friends, conversation, not sales pitches
  • Create square videos, which appear bigger in the news feed
  • Make videos that work without sound, because 85% of viewers scroll through their feeds with sound disabled

Instagram

This site is about images and stunning visuals to build your brand. It’s good if:

  • Your audience is young and your event imagery visually enticing
  • You can work with influencers who have a big following on this platform and can help you cross-promote
  • You have more than 10,000 followers, which means that you can use the “swipe up” function of Instagram Stories to connect to your registration page
  • Include a call to action button to convert interest to sales.

As well as the social media platforms, videos can be used elsewhere too …

  • On email: if you use the word “video” in a subject line it will increase open rates.
  • Website: make sure the latest video is embedded on your Home Page.
  • YouTube: it’s the world’s second-largest search engine (after Google), so posting a video there increases your chances of being seen with little effort.
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Schlosshotel Berlin has joined Preferred Hotels and Resorts

Schlosshotel Berlin by Patrick Hellmann is situated in what was West Berlin, about 25 minutes from Tegel Airport and 30 minutes from Schoenfeld Airport. It is an old mansion on a leafy street and surrounded by woodland.

This is a luxury boutique hotel with stylish interiors in a historic building, combining the glitz and glamour of the last century with contemporary guestrooms. The ‘Stadtpalais’ was built in 1914 and quickly became a favourite destination for the international bohemian set: Josephine Baker stayed here; Hildegard Knef wrote music here; Romy Schneider got married here and Jogi Löw and the German national football team stayed in 2006.

There are 53 contemporary guestrooms and a spa, gym and indoor swimming pool with a view of the pine forest.

The hotel has seven meeting rooms, the largest has capacity for 70 people in theatre style. The remaining rooms take between 12 and 30 people. All are suitable for private dining and the restaurant can be privatised for a group of 60 people.

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Under, an underwater dining experienced in Norway

Situated at the most southerly point of Norway, a restaurant 5 metres underwater, opened earlier this year. The restaurant was built on a barge before being submerged and bolted to a concrete slab anchored to the bedrock beneath the sea bed and it’s the world’s largest and Europe’s first underwater restaurant.

Under is designed to look like a rock formation above the ground. The entrance is above the water, clad in oak and guests descend to a mezzanine level where the bar area is situated and there’s a vertical window where guests have a split level view of air and sea. The dining area is down further with a huge window to look at the seabed, which changes in colour throughout the day and seasons, from sapphire blue on a cold Winter’s day, to emerald green in the Summer. Depending on the season the fish species that can be seen are pollack, cod, colourful wrasse, urchins, crabs, lobsters, spiny dogfish and kelp.

The plan is for the structure to integrate with the marine environment over time. Its half-metre-thick concrete walls are built to withstand pressure and shock from the sea conditions, while the rough shell will function as an artificial reef for marina flora and fauna. The restaurant collaborated with the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomic Research to create optimal conditions on the surrounding seabed so that fish and shellfish can thrive.

Under has seating capacity for 100 guests, but on normal nights it will serve 40 guests. The menu includes fish and seafood and also the option of tasting seabirds and wild sheep from the surrounding area.