Academic Events
Bespoke support for small and medium academic events.
With over a 10 years of experience, helping conferences to grow.
About Us
We are able to work with small conferences providing a true partnership delivering our experience when negotiating with venues and suppliers. Supporting your event from 50 to 500 attendees
We can provide:
- Online booking - a dedicate event front end for booking
- Abstract submission - we can take abstracts and you can score them online
- Abstract book design and production - from the raw abstract to the finished abstract book we manage the process
- Ticketing & badges - state of art ticketing and badge technology
- Registration - we can people your registration desk
- Event apps - comprehensive facilities
- Payment processing - online or my post
- Venue finding - hand holding when negotiating
- Site evaluation - we know what works and what doesn't
- Email campaigns - helping you reach your clients
- Certificates of attendance - post meeting certification sent direct to your clients
- invitations to meetings for overseas delegates - assisting overseas clients gain visas
- Event budgeting - helping you reach your financial targets for the event
What makes us different is that we only work with small and medium clients. We do not work for venues or suppliers but for you. We only charge for work commissioned by you and when using a third party to provide facilities we are their customer not their agent. We strongly believe in partnership and truly care that your meeting is the best it can be. We have been budgeting meetings for our customers for a number of years and have built resilient models that optimise the chances of your meeting succeeding financially. Over the years we have developed these tools to ensure that your meeting is surprise free.
If your event is just one stream on one day or a multi-day multi stream event we would like to assist you with it. We understand what it takes to make a great Academic event.
Why not contact us for a brief chat and see what we can do!
Contact
- Bedford, England, United Kingdom
Making an event great
Intelligence:
- Visit venues – no substitute to standing in a conference room and seeing
- Check facilities – look at everything
- Due diligence with previous users – learn the strengths and weaknesses of a venue
- Eat the food - ideally at another conference
- Do not inflate the expectations of the venue and your suppliers - they will be happy that your event is growing not shrinking
- Model your cost base, everything! - know what your break-even point is for the event
- Build in contingency – better to have something spare for surprises
- Check out other events at the same time - this can inflate all of you and your delegates accommodation costs
- Design a communications strategy – spam works or spammers would not do it
- Investigate transport links – your delegates need to know this, buses, trams, trains and taxis
- Produce a provisional production schedule – detail as much as you can, emails, abstract submission etc.
- Produce a provisional programme – this helps you focus on the missing parts (it feels good to fill it up)
- Have some speakers in reserve – people cancel for lots of good reasons be prepared for it
- Let all of your speakers know your expectation and your deadline – they will always be busy give them plenty of time to fulfil their obligations
- Close your abstract submission in a timely fashion - with enough time to produce and edit an abstract book
- Have space for multiple readings of your abstract book – editors miss things, always, minimise this
- Brief your printers on your deadlines – if you are having a hard copy
- Make certain you have spare time in your production cycle – things go wrong buy the time upfront
- Produce your cover early – often the only colour in an abstract book or programme – let the printers produce this in their time
- Ask sponsors for stuff – free pens, sweets, post it notes and notepads all make great bag fillers
- Let your sponsors know the delivery address for their leaflets and stand material – get them to send content for delegate bags to someone different from their stands
- Fill delegate bags the day before – it speeds registration
- Brief your staff – if they don’t know what’s happening they will pester you for simple information
- People your registration desk well on day one – if something is going to happen Morning one is when it will happen
- Keep your registration tidy – it is the first impression of the meeting
- Man each talk with a person to support speakers – nothing delays a conference more than speaker times slipping
- Give delegates a clear schedule of events and their locations – they will help each other reach the correct locations
- Do not be afraid to let delegates with entry problems participate – you can deal with their problem at a break
- Liaise with local staff - make them aware of who are your decision makers so they can get a quick fix to their problems
- Do not drink at any event – you are working and your delegates may need you
- Have a good supply of spares – cables, adaptors, cable ties, blue tack, envelopes anything you can imagine may be needed, in a box
- Prepare the poster boards – number each and place Velcro coins on each
- Stay till the last person leaves – say thank you
- Survey your delegates – there still may be things that did not work that you do not know about
- Send out letters of attendance – some delegates need these to get reimbursed, be quick
- Send letters of thanks to the venue – be honest, highlight individuals who excelled, you may wish to return
- Send expense claims forms to paid speakers – time limit them to encourage fast response
- Restock your bits box – better now than when you are busy doing the next event
- Email your thanks for participation to all delegates - students today may be professors tomorrow, make them feel appreciated
Remember above all what makes a great meeting is the academic content but this memory can be spoiled by a lack of biscuits with a cup of tea.
Good luck with your event said
Julian
