Event Industry News Podcast

Host James Dickson attended the AEV (Association of Event Venues) Conference at the Business Design Centre (BDC) last month, a fertile ground for podcast content. In these four rapid-fire Q&A sets, James talks to management from some key locations, north and south. We kick off with Kate Simpson, marketing and comms director at the BDC, together with Paddy Lynn, head of events management at P&J Live, a conference and events venue in Scotland. Both venues have served as vaccination centres and the focus here is, post ‘freedom day’’/pre-Omicron, on getting the event needle back on the record - dealing with diaries, delays and postponements, managing turnarounds, the sanitising everything process, concessions from organisers, branding and beyond. Max Ball, executive director at the Business Design Centre, is in the second podcast with Sean Hinds, Manchester Central ‘s chief exec, and Simon Mill, chief commercial officer at Excel.  Beyond the AEV 2021 success story, they discuss their lockdown learning