Industry  RSVP parties on 

“The immediate feedback from our exhibitors is very positive indeed”, says Tim Etchells, managing director of RSVP organiser, Single Market Events. “Many of the exhibitors have already re-booked for next year, and visitor feedback indicates that they were very impressed with the show layout and content.”

Catering companies are a staple of RSVP and visitors nibbled on the wares of The-Recipe, Zafferano, Saffron House, Kai Catering, Mint and Harem Nights. Mini Melts provided quirky frozen treats for the exhibitor party, held at The Living Room in Islington. "With a 70% re-book we were delighted with the show and felt it was one of our most successful events to date.”says show director, Rachael Hocken.

Veteran PR expert, Lynne Franks, presented an interactive talk on women in business and Paul Samuels of AEG Europe covered Event Sponsorship while the Mask Event Talk programme ran throughout the show. “The wide range of topics this year meant that there really was something for everyone," says organiser, Kate Price.

New for 2008 was Thursday’s conference morning; a complete training package entitled “The Ultimate Insight – Plan your Perfect Event!” The step-by-step guide to the various stages of event planning saw a captive audience of PA’s, event juniors and newcomers to the industry. Representatives from The Rouge Partnership, Vinopolis, Mask Events, Dantastic and Rock Events all spoke about their experiences and imparted their expertise.

"The quality of our talks this year was fantastic," says Alicia Coughlan, Marketing Manager, RSVP. "This is a drawing point for our visitors wanting to learn more about their industry and keep themselves up to date with trends and topics in such a competitive market. RSVP always guarantees the quality visitors that our suppliers are dying to speak to."

What they said...

Tamara Harris, Senior Events Manager, 
Fox Events

"RSVP was a huge success for us this year. We were promoting our Christmas Party Nights 'Fire & Ice' at this year's show from which we gained a lot of positive feedback and enquiries. The number of people
who visited our stand this year was up on last year which makes exhibiting at the show all the more worthwhile. We saw a high volume, and excellent calibre, of visitors to the stand, we are currently following up on a number of leads for events this year and next.


"Our objectives were to sell our Christmas Party Nights, introduce the company to those who were not already aware of us and to get as many leads as possible - I am pleased to say that we met all of those. I can suggest no improvements for next year's show, RSVP gets better and better each year. We achieved everything we set out to achieve and we
look forward to next year."

 

Andrew Birnie, Events and Sales Director, Cafe de Paris 

"Cafe de Paris was absent as an exhibitor from last
year's show as the 2006 show was a disappointment in terms of visitors and quality of  leads. But the decision to come back in 2008 was definitely the right one.

"A vibrant and animated show that attracted quality visitors including  Ernst and Young, Nestlé and Price Waterhouse Cooper. The show maintained good pace for the two days and leads for us from the show have been strong. If there is a criticism it would be that there were too many individuals wandering the show , who were not exhibitors, aggressively promoting their product or services."

Danielle Nay, Events Director, Taylor Herring

"I participated in a workshop which aimed to give newbies to the industry an end-to-end overview of how to organise an event, from brief to budget reconciliation.

"Unfortunately I broke my ribs skiing and missed the pre-meeting, so I got lumbered with the 'contingency, schedules, planning' segment, which sounded as spectacularly unsexy to me as it probably did to the audience.

"I tried to flip this onto its head by prefacing my long collection of  logistics spreadsheets with a few horror stories - namely everything that has ever gone wrong at one of my events. Very brave of me, I thought!

  "This approach was partly designed to demonstrate how scenario planning and staying calm is everything and partly to demonstrate how event planning is actually a total headache and to question why anybody in the audience would ever bother trying to do it themselves when they can hire (and blame!) experts with hundreds of years' worth of experience between them... and save money in the process! Nobody fell asleep. Nobody asked any questions. Nobody confessed to any
horror stories of their own. I hope they found it useful."

Tony Williams, Manager, Bogus Brothers

"One thing I have learned from doing exhibitions is never underestimate the power of a show for promoting your brand, especially a show like RSVP.

"We first started exhibiting several years ago and find that year after year our biggest returns come from this particular show. Once again RSVP surpassed our expectations and numbers were up on previous years.

" The buzz this show creates is unbelievable and a successful show is surely based on attendance. This show delivers and we are now talking with another supplier about doing something much bigger that will fit the new themed event entertainment we launched at this years show. With over 250 leads to follow up, I am confident the Bogus Brothers will be firmly placed in party organisers minds when they are thinking about their event  entertainment after exhibiting at RSVP."

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RK   ___________________________________