Tag: events

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Hyatt Regency Bangkok soft opening ahead of grand opening early next year

The Hyatt Regency Bangkok has had a soft opening and will celebrate a grand opening in January 2019.

Conveniently located on Sukhumvit road with direct access to BTS skytrain Nana Station, the hotel offers full facilities and amenities such as a fitness centre, swimming pool, outdoor spaces and Regency Club Lounge to provide energising experiences for guests visiting Bangkok, whether for business or leisure. 

For meeting and event planners, the hotel will offer an array of function and meetings spaces totalling 1,359 sqm, with natural lighting and the latest AV technology featuring in all meeting rooms. The biggest space is on the fifth floor, where a pillarless ballroom has been designed to accommodate up to 1,000 guests. The room can also be divided into four separate venues.

Hyatt Regency Bangkok Ballroom

Providing comfort and communal space for working or socialising, the event lounge, featuring a cluster seating area for four-to-eight persons, is ideal for small meetings. 

Located on the 6th floor, their outdoor freeform pool is surrounded by lush vegetation with an outdoor whirlpool, shade/no shade pool chairs, a pool bar, lockers, sauna and steam room.

Hyatt Regency Bangkok Pool

The 277 sq m. (2,981 sq ft.) lounge on the 27th floor offers stunning views of the city through its floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with 66 comfortable seats both indoor and outdoor. Boardroom space for 12, with exclusive F&B offerings through the on-site kitchen, is also available.

The indoor and outdoor spaces of the hotel include a U-shaped bar and an all-day dining concept, including a multi-purpose venue and tapas bar on the 29th floor. 

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The Changing Role of Venues

Photo of Louise Goalen
by Louise Goalen,
HBAA Chair

Working within the MICE industry for over 20 years, we have really seen the role of venues change when it comes to event planning and the relationships they hold with agencies and clients.

Traditionally the venue would provide a conference space, catering and accommodation based on the needs of the client. However, as event agencies look for new and exciting ways to help bring their message to life and create memorable experiences for their delegates, venues are stepping up and becoming important parts of the overall planning process.

HBAA Forum success

A recent and fantastic example of this new way of working can be taken from the HBAA’s Annual Forum, held recently at the Crowne Plaza in Stratford-upon-Avon. While the venue provided a great blank canvas for our event, it meant we had to be extra creative on how to bring our festival theme to life, which was really important in creating an experience for our members.

Attendees at the HBAA annual forum

While the HBAA events committee managed the agenda, registrations and the overall logistics of the event, they worked really closely with the team at the venue who supported us every step of the way and went above and beyond to help create our chosen festival theme.

The venue team embraced our vision in the planning stages, doing everything from sourcing local florist suppliers for our table centrepieces and creating a bespoke outside bar to enhance our theme to providing impressive bell tents for welcome and registration. Responding to our request for street food carts for the dinner, the venue knew this wasn’t its area of expertise, but instead of saying ‘no’ to the idea, venue staff went the extra mile and brought in external caterers to make our vision a reality.

In previous experiences, venues have been limited in flexibility in this type of offering, being relatively strict on catering and inflexible on many client requests that were not in line with their traditional room offering. The extent the venue team went to was a great experience for the HBAA and provided us with a real collaborative and flexible way of working.

In summary…

It’s good to witness venues going over and above their traditional role and starting to work as an extension of the events team. In my opinion this is a huge step forward in the industry and something we should and will start seeing more of in the future.

For more information, please visit www.hbaa.org.uk