Partner Article

Events and the economy

I have just driven to an event in York. The news on the car radio was dominated by talk of new predictions of a double dip recession for the UK. Tremendous!

I am not an economist. I am an optimistic event specialist. But it strikes me that this talk is based solely on prediction. It’s speculation, conjecture and in some cases fiction. And as a fairly senior economist said at a presentation I staged recently, “It really is all guess work.”

I may not know much about economics although I have run a small business for 20 years. I can tell things aren’t great right now but is it really so bad? I do know a bit about communication. I know that the media seem to love bad news. And I know that it is much harder to get good news published.

The business of events has suffered during the last few years but the basic principle that people like to interact with other people has prevailed. Businesses and organisations continue to bring their staff, customers and stakeholders together to enable interaction, education and sharing of information. The good businesses reap huge benefits from well thought through events which have clear objectives, giving them an important competitive edge.

Events don’t have to cost a fortune. Suppliers like R&B Group have become experts at delivering top quality events with professional equipment and people, with a watchful eye on the client’s budget. Nobody wants to appear overtly “flash” in these days of austerity, but equally the event has to meet its objectives, and spending nothing on it is a fairly good way to ensure failure.

In the last quarter I have been involved in dozens and dozens of exciting events for clients throughout the UK, with the next quarter looking equally positive. There are countless success stories out there, quietly getting on with it – you just have to want to find them. As the media inevitably continue to hype up the latest doom and gloom I urge leaders of all organisations to remind themselves of what their latest event achieved for them. Now is the time to focus on using events as a platform to build, rather than reading yourselves into two consecutive quarters of negative growth!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by R&B Group .