Event Organisers Update ISSUE 85 July/August 2011

HOTELIER’S DEATH ON TV Hotelier Peter Smedley, 71, who owned Ston Easton Park in Somerset and who suffered from motor neurone disease, chose to have his assisted…

IT’S NOW THE LAW The new Bribery Act came into force on July 1 and is continuing to focus corporate thinking on corporate hospitality…

OLYMPIAN DISRUPTION Up to 3 months of chaos on London’s roads is predicted for the period late June to mid September 2012 owing to traffic restrictions imposed for …

TRUMPED Sad to see that the rich Donald Trump’s plans to expand his £1 billion golf course in Aberdeenshire are being held up by someone who has lived on the coast…

GOLIATH FALLS OVER. DAVID WINS. Meanwhile, further south in Glasgow, plans for a luxury, £125 million, “six-star” hotel operated by Dubai’s Jumeirah Group have …

CHECK OUT BIRMINGHAM A Meet Birmingham Showcase takes place Nov 10/11. Organisers are offered complimentary accommodation, meals and entertainment…

MEET AT LONDON BRIDGE The four-star 138-bedroom London Bridge Hotel offers one meetings room for 80, divisible into two, three rooms for 15/18/35 and a …

LONDON ROSE GARDEN AT LANGHAM The Langham Hotel, Portland Place has launched its Rose Garden, an outdoor area suitable for receptions for 100+ and rare …

ONE NEAR KINGS CROSS Kings Place offers a 420 seat concert hall, an auditorium for 120, a room for 220. and a number of break out areas. The venue is located in …

OUTDOOR EVENT EVENT The Showmans Show exhibition of products and services for outdoor events takes place at Newbury Showground, October 19/20…

IT’S US WOT DUN IT

Politicians are lining up to crow that Rupert Murdoch and his poodles are bending to the will of Parliament, when in fact it was public disgust and revulsion at the targets for phone hacking that sent a very clear message to MPs, and Murdoch’s advertisers, that any support would be a Very Bad Career Move.

As our press, politicians and police get a long-overdue ethical check and clean-up it is reassuring to note that people-power can still be an agent for much-needed change.

Keep up the good work, everyone.

LIFE GETS TOUGHER, FOR MOST

The disposable income of families continues to fall as costs of energy and fuel continue to rise, something that consumers are powerless to stop.

According to finance officers at Asda and Sainsburys consumer confidence is at a low ebb and not expected to recover in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile the Spanish chairman of Scottish Power, Ignacio Galan, had his pay package doubled to £10.5 million just before his company raised gas bills for 2.4 million British households by £175 a year.

CELEBRITY IN MARKETING A GOOD REASON NOT TO BUY?

Marketeers using celebrities such as Esther Rantzen, June Whitfield, Cilla Black and Gloria Hunniford have come under fire recently.

Rantzen fronts ads for the Accident Advice Helpline, which benefits from unsolicited and illegal spam texts to mobile phones, according to an investigation of ambulance chasing by the Sunday Telegraph.

And Whitfield, Black and Hunniford have backed insurance policies that have turned out to be very bad buys for some.

Consumers need to ask themselves whether the use of a trusted name is to hide an untrustworthy company, or bad product.

STAY IN UK TREND GROWING

More than one third of Britons will be shunning overseas travel and will holiday in the UK this year, a figure up by 10% on 2010.

This is one of the findings of a survey of 5,000 adults by hotel operator Travelodge, which also found that while expenditure on holidays, and travel and accommodation, would be down, expenditure on visiting attractions would be up.

Financial difficulties are thought to be the main reason for the growth of the “staycation”, and for the very late bookings of it.

Meanwhile research by ING Direct indicates that 17 million people in the UK are opting for a “nocation” and not taking a summer holiday at all.

GOURMET GRUB AT OLYMPICS

Good to note that the organisers of our 2012 Olympics are promoting to the world our growing reputation for top quality cuisine in their choice of main caterer for the Olympic Park, gourmet food specialists McDonalds.

Sadly this carefully considered choice, rightly based independently on the large sum of money the firm put up for sponsorship, has not gone down well with some who claim that the association of McD’s healthy cordon bleu cooking with sport is, er, unhealthy and sends the wrong message to our children.

As if.

BUYING THE DREAM IN JAPAN

Marketeers at Japanese confectionery firm Ezaki Glico have been forced to admit that the new 16-year-old member of very young girl band AKB 48 they depicted to sell their chocolate was a computer-generated fake, with features and singing voice cobbled together from six live band members.

Teenaged girl fans of the band became suspicious of the fake female, named Aimi Eguchi, when they noticed her striking similarity to other band members.

EVERYONE DOES IT?

Do the management of Iceland stores know the difference between “half price” and “buy two get one free”?

We ask because their Norwich store was recently promoting a three-pack of cans of beer (one of the original four had been taken) at “half price”, actually half the price of the four pack so really a “buy two get one free” offer.

When the misleading labelling was pointed out to store staff their response was that they were acting on instructions from their head office marketing department, and that “Everybody does it”.

Wonder if this is the same silly tosh they give trading standards officers?

CHAMPAGNE, CAVA, PROSECCO OR MERRET?

A campaign to name British dry sparkling wines “Merret” has launched to recognise the claim that what drinkers of champagne (French), Cava (Spanish) and Prosecco (Italian) enjoy was first brought to the world by an English doctor, Christopher Merret.

Reportedly Merret gave details of a “second fermentation process” – very similar to the “methode champenoise” – in 1662, 22 years before a French monk, Dom Pierre Perignon claimed to have invented what the French call “champagne”. Continue reading