Square Meal digested      Reviews 

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL CANARY WHARF                                 Sam Riches, Sales Manager

We were aiming to increase awareness of Four Seasons Hotel Canary Wharf’s function space and thought the Square Meal exhibition would be a great place to showcase the hotel.

 Our expectations were greatly exceeded as we actually confirmed a piece of business that generated three

times the amount spent on the exhibition, within the first week following the show. The Square Meal event was very well organised and all our needs were catered for.

We will definitely exhibit at Square Meal again next year, but next time, possibly with all three Four Seasons Hotels ; London,  Canary Wharf and Hampshire.

BRITISH AIRWAYS LONDON EYE                                                  Lisa Hatswell, Corporate Sales Manager

British Airways London Eye was delighted to exhibit for the third time at the Square Meal Venues & Events show.
During the two days we received over 300 enquiries from a wide variety of high calibre existing and prospective clients. It was also a fantastic opportunity to showcase our 2008 Christmas packages. 

Not only did we distribute a great number of Christmas brochures but we also hosted a tasting of our mulled wine and Christmas finger food for clients. This was provided by our catering company, Simply Gourmet.

Clients were very pleased to see that we could assist them with bookings from two to  800 plus, demonstrating the London Eye's versatility for all kinds of events. They also saw a selection of hospitality packages on board the London Eye.

TUTANKHAMUN
Alex Immink, Sales Manager, Cavendish Hospitality     
                                    

Square Meal went very well for us. Our intentions were pretty straight
forward; to advertise and promote Tutankhamun to London's leading finance and legal quarters. There was a good attendance and a healthy number came to our stand and expressed genuine interest in our corporate programme.

Aided by the use of a barcode zapping   device we were  able to record visitors' company details while discussing the many corporate event opportunities open to them. We generated over 300 contacts in one day and many of them are now
coming to our exclusive Tutankhamun preview on 12th November.

LAUNCH PAD EVENTS                                                                     David Stringer, MD

Everyone at Launch Pad looks forward to Square Meal with great anticipation. In our opinion it has already become the "must attend" show for the corporate events market.  For 2007 we secured possibly the best location by the central staircase and were able to express our creativity with a space only stand – and the return of our life- size purple and orange flocked cow!

We pre-printed 250 enquiry forms for the show but found ourselves borrowing the venue's photocopier to run off a further 150 ready for the second day. Our main aims for the show were to promote the remaining dates at our Christmas venues and show our wares to new corporate organisers for events throughout the year. Although we were down on the previous year's large Christmas Party enquiries we received a huge amount of interest for shared evenings.

We found the number and quality of visitor to be excellent with several £100K+ enquiries, one of which has already progresses to a final presentation stage. We estimate that the final amount of converted business obtained directly from this year’s show, (and a good deal of following up and creative concept pitching) to be in excess of £300K. Undoubtedly we will return for 2008. 

CONGRESS CENTRE                                                                          Ruby Lyall, Conference & Sales Manager

We decided to exhibit at Square Meal's Venues & Events exhibition again this year because one of our core objectives is to increase awareness of  Congress Centre among event organisers looking for a large central London
conference & events venue.

Congress Centre has been proving a popular choice with an increasing number of blue-chip clients such as Microsoft, Sainsbury's, John Lewis and Barclays since our comprehensive refurbishment
programme was completed, yet it's surprising how many event organisers are still unfamiliar with the venue. This year's exhibition seemed very busy with a large number of high calibre delegates attending.

Our new exhibition stand was well received and over the course of the show we generated a high number of quality new business leads from agencies and corporate clients. We have since followed these up by email and know that
over 60% of them went on to visit the Congress Centre website 
and we have already arranged a number of site visits as a result. We are very pleased with the overall outcome.

ADDISON LEE                                                                                      Fiona Atherton,  Marketing Manager                                                We were overwhelmed by the general interest in Addison Lee and  the positive feedback that we 
received regarding our service.

That service has now revolutionised the private hire industry and today we enjoy an unrivalled reputation for moving people and parcels in London. For the exhibition we arranged for 250 of our people carriers, which carry up to 6 passengers, to transport top business travel decision makers to the event, courtesy of Addison Lee.

Square Meal generated a number of  positives; good, quality sales leads, new accounts, brand awareness and it  informed potential customers of our other services i.e. coach and minibus services.

Overall, the Square Meal event was a great success and all our objectives were achieved. We would definitely consider doing this event again next year.

                              
RK  ______________________________________