Partner Article

Utility Week™ Live incorporating IWEX reports successful launch  

Show organiser Faversham House has reported a successful launch for new show Utility Week™ Live incorporating IWEX, which debuted at the NEC last week.

The show is the UK’s first and only event dedicated to the business, operational and technical needs of the UK’s water, electricity and gas utilities. The exhibition incorporated the long running IWEX exhibition with great success and achieved a 27% increase in visitor numbers compared to IWEX 2014 (unaudited).

Amanda Barnes, publisher of Utility Week™ magazine and chief executive of show organiser Faversham House, said: “We have been exceptionally pleased with the visitor, exhibitor and broader industry response to this new show.

“We set out to create an event that draws upon the heritage, insight and success of our leading brands for the water and utilities sector: IWEX, WWT, WET News and Utility Week™. The results have been extremely positive, proving that the UK market is now ready for a broader pan-utility event.

“The keynote and seminar theatres were packed throughout with standing room only for most of the sessions. If exhibition re-bookings are anything to go by, next year’s event will be even bigger and better,” added Barnes.

The debut event included a range of innovative show features, including the Keynote Theatre, a ticketed, three-day conference which took an “outside-in” approach - drawing on other sectors’ experience in managing key issues such as change, trust and resilience.

Speakers included Professor Steve Cowley, director, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, Andrew McMillan, former head of customer service, John Lewis, Simon Hay, CEO, dunnhumby, Barry Gibbons, former CEO, Burger King and Sir Neville Simms, former CEO, Tarmac.

The keynote sessions were supported by a CPD-certified, free to attend seminar and workshop programme, featuring more than 120 speakers and 40 sessions. The three seminar theatres – Water, Energy and Pan-Utility - included case study based presentations offering real-life learning to help operational and technical staff within utility companies.

Other show features included The Innovation Zone, supported by the Energy Innovation Centre, which showcased eight trailblazing companies and their standout technology, products and services.

The finalist companies, which ranged from natural gas refueling appliances for cars and vans, to new and improved CO monitoring devices, were selected by the Energy Innovation Centre and were showcased at the heart of the exhibition.

The popular National Drilling and Tapping Championship run by the Institute of Water, now in its 27th year, ended with a win for the Northumbrian Water Ladies team, while Anglian Water won the Men’s event for the Talis Trophy.

The busy exhibition space featured more than 135 exhibitors showcasing the latest products and services including Technolog, Atlas Copco, Obart Pumps and National Grid Electricity Distribution.

Companies that showcased new technology included ABB Ltd, Belzona Polymetrics, Brindley Chains, Quantum Engineering Developments, Talis, JDP Solutions and Radio Data Networks.

Ian Finch sales manager of exhibiting brand Intoware said: “The show has been brilliant for us, we’ve met a lot of the right people we were hoping to speak with, not only in the water industry but also people like Jaguar Landrover and Microsoft. We use Microsoft’s cloud - they stopped by our stand and weren’t aware of us, but they’re now keen to form a partnership and will help promote us.”

Show visitor Lindsay Howarth innovations project manager from AMEY said: “Whilst researching for exhibitions and conferences to go to, there were lots of interesting things on the Internet but, everything seemed to feed back to this exhibition, so I thought ‘obviously this is the one to go to.’

My main aim for attending was to pick up some innovations that I can take back to my company and improve our healthy and safety, efficiency and to benefit our operatives. There are a lot of great new products here, many of which are interesting to my company. I will absolutely be back next year.“

Utility Week Live was co-located with the Sustainability Live event, which has rebranded as edie2016.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Utility Week Live .