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Meet & Potato Ltd collaborate with Butlin's to offer the perfect corporate events package for organisation

Live events and communications agency Meet & Potato in collaboration with Butlin’s put on The Greatest Show in Town for Poundland. Meet & Potato brought their creativity, technical production, and audio-visual expertise to Butlin’s, Bognor Regis for Poundland’s annual internal event for 1200+ colleagues that is designed to bring to life the brand strategy ahead of the peak trading season. Butlin’s provided the perfect venue, all accommodation, catering and a dedicated event team.

Poundland is a long-term client of Meet & Potato, and the brand is always looking to improve on the colleague event experience. In 2023, The Greatest Show in Town, inspired by The Greatest Showman movie, was a huge success, complete with a Big Top and a popup Poundland concept store for break-out sessions.? Meet & Potato produced supporting video presentations for Poundland’s leadership team, including a Channel 4 ‘Gogglebox’ style review of stores and customer feedback featuring the senior management team on the sofa in their pyjamas. Butlin’s provided the perfect backdrop with onsite catering, numerous venues, a fun fair, and accommodation, enabling the whole team to stay onsite and fully immerse themselves in the event experience.

The plenary was hosted in Studio 36–a highly versatile conference venue with state-of-the-art AV facilities–which was transformed with drapes depicting bespoke Circus Characters. Studio 36 also hosted the Gala Dinner–with the Butlin’s dedicated events team facilitating the quick turnaround from theatre to gala set up in under 1 hour and 40 minutes. This was the first time Studio 36 was used for a gala dinner, and the first time a gala dinner of more than 1,000 was hosted outside the Skyline Pavilion. One top priority event element was a space to build a Poundland store on site. The resort's Reds venue was where the store was built. This was part of the breakout sessions where the delegates could walk around the new concept store for Poundland. Early access to the venue was arranged pre-event so the team could start building and ensuring everything was in working order ready for the delegates to see the new store in all its glory.

Scottish Event Campus (SEC) Continues Expansion of Conference Sales Team

The Scottish Event Campus has grown the conference sales team further with the appointments of two new experienced sales talents. Hannah Cochrane joins the corporate team as Sales & Business Development Manager and Makenzie Brown boosts the international association sales effort in the role of Association Sales Manager.

The announcements underscore the SEC’s continued commitment to its conference business and to investing in outstanding people to support the venue’s conference clients and their event objectives.

Hannah joins the SEC from a previous role at Dakota Hotels, bringing with her experience from across the meetings and events industry, and served as the Scotland Glasgow Ambassador for SITE Scotland: Society for Incentive Travel Excellence. Makenzie’s background includes roles across the events and sports industries, from Feed the Crew to FirstPoint USA. Hannah and Makenzie join a skilled sales and business development team.

UKEVENTS (Org) shared new research that shows role and value of the UK serviced apartment sector

Tourism Alliance member, ASAP, has published?some new research into the role and value of the serviced apartment sector. In 2022 the sector generated ￡1.7bn in turnover and is crucial for supporting many other important sectors of the economy.

In order to showcase the enormous contribution Serviced Apartments make to the UK economy, ASAP commissioned an independent study highlighting the economic impact of the sector in order to highlight the result of any unintended consequences of changes to planning and regulation.? ?

ASAP commissioned?BONARD, an independent research and advisory firm specialising in global rental asset classes, to define the role and value of serviced apartments in the UK, and their importance for tourism, both business travel as well as blended leisure related. ?

The study by the research and advisory firm Bonard, identifies insights on market dynamics, customer profiles, and the sector’s substantial role in both the UK economy and local communities and is the first in a wider series which will next focus on Europe and then further afield. ?

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