Event Tech Live and Event Sustainability Live joined forces offering event planners two information packed shows with one ticket. Emily Stone was there.
Say goodbye to FOMO as we share all the best bits of both Event Tech Live and Event Sustainability Live. Back in November, the two shows shared one hall in ExCel London for the first time. With engaging speakers aplenty and a raft of great exhibitors around the industry’s hot topics, it kept us busy throughout the day.
One of the first sessions of the day on the sustainability side of the room was a talk by Jonathan Berry of Tyler Grange, a last-minute swap from Simon Ursell, who couldn’t make it on the day. Jonathan’s topic focused on the social side of sustainability: ‘Creating more sustainable careers and businesses through reduced hours and shorter working weeks.’ The talk explained how Tyler Grange had improved productivity and staff wellness by switching to a four-day-week, a topic which is still highly debated. Jonathan stated: “So many of us do things in our working life that we never challenge.
Are you working in the most efficient and productive way you can be?”
Over on the tech side, Paul Richardson of VividInk, Richard Belcher of First Sight Media – which streamed the talk – and Neil Thompson from Delegate Wranglers, discussed ‘Hybrid and virtual events, don’t drop the online value in the rush back to in-person events’. Richard said: “I think that there’s an element of virtual in all events.
I think hybrid is a confusing term that we bounce around. If you think about this stage and this show, we’re streaming it. Also how do you register? You do it online. Have you engaged with the app? That’s online. Actually, virtual is a very good chariot for spreading your content as wide and as far as you can.”
Later on, at the sustainability main stage, the topic of sustainable power was under discussion. Among many other options which were explored in the session, Jenny Samuels from Festival Republic offered insight into running outdoor events from National Grid power, as a sustainable solution. As the National Grid moves increasingly into sustainable power sources, getting hooked up to it is one of the best options for reducing your event’s carbon footprint. However, one of the debates around this track is whether it is possible to power everything the event needs on the National Grid. Jenny was ready to explain that this is usually entirely possible: “My initial goal is to start with the main stage, which is the most contentious part of the show, because if that goes down, you don’t have a show. We’ve been investigating it for a while and we’ve found that it is in fact feasible to put a main stage onto the National Grid. They tend to use less power than the people using them think.”
In the final session of the day, panellists came together to discuss how to use tech to give delegates what they really want: in-person meetings. On the subject Richard Barnes, CEO of Worldwide Events, had this to say: “For us, events have always been about meetings. We set out with a mission to produce events which would give people good business relationships. What data does is allow us to find ways to give people better relationships and to form more meaningful connections.”