1 DAY AGO - Seoul Convention Bureau is organising an interactive hub, HUB SEOUL, as part of its participation in the 59th ICCA Congress 2020. The congress will be in hybrid format for the first time in the industry association’s history. ICCA will take on a hub-and-spoke system and Seoul will be one of six hubs, along with Cape Town, Kuching, Luxembourg, Malaga, and Riyadh. There will also be two virtual hubs for Latin America and North America. HUB SEOUL will showcase the interactive programmes from the main event host Kaohsiung, and will also broadcast successful case studies of Seoul in digitalisation, and attracting and hosting international conferences during the Covid-19 pandemic. HUB SEOUL will be open from 2-3 November 2020. Look out also for our special Korea feature in November’s edition of CMW magazine. The post HUB SEOUL ready for interactivity at ICCA Congress 2020 appeared first on CMW. Collapse

2 DAYS AGO - Adelaide recently hosted Connect South Australia, the State’s largest business event since pre-Covid. With South Australia (SA) described as “one of the most Covid-Safe destinations in the world”, business events are again operating in Adelaide. With an advance Covid-Safe sign off from Health SA, the Adelaide Convention Bureau (ACB) organised and delivered Connect SA. The conference was held at the Adelaide Convention Centre and the event’s main guest panel included Penny Lion from Business Events Australia. The panel spoke on “the value of face to face reconnection and the invaluable knowledge transfer such events provide”. ACB chief executive, Damien Kitto, said: “Connect SA adds another success for the ACB on behalf of the State because we already bested the nation by achieving an 85% success in postponing booked 2020 business events into 2021 and 2022.” The ACB’s SAFE end to end Covid-safe promise campaign which was launched in June to attract Collapse

2 DAYS AGO - Australia-based events industry staging and AV specialist, AV 24/7, has announced the formation of a new group of companies which, it says, aims to “service the changing needs of the events industry”.  Co-owner and general manager, Libbie Ray said: “As soon as the events industry was shut down in March, we challenged ourselves to think differently about what our clients needed most and in their times of greatest need. “We did not stop and wait for the world to go back to ‘normal’. With our talented team we evolved, we innovated, we embraced “disruption” and turned it into an opportunity.  “With 20 years’ experience running AV 24/7 in the face-to-face events world – and now with a deep understanding of virtual and hybrid challenges – we have brought all our expertise, people and services together in Connected Event Group.” The company has created four separate brands under the Connected Event Group. The group comprises of AV 24/7, for traditional AV Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - Copenhagen puts sustainability and digital development strong suits back on the events catwalk. In recent weeks, the Danish capital city’s convention bureau, DMO Wonderful Copenhagen, has pushed forward a number of campaigns to help kickstart tourism in the city. One of these is a multiple market meetings and incentives campaign on LinkedIn, with the key message that Copenhagen is ready to meet again and to host meetings and events in safe surroundings. The bureau is also working on a wider 2021 business tourism strategy for Copenhagen, together with more than 140 partners across the industry. The new strategy follows on from the 2017-2020 campaign, ‘Copenhagen means business’. The bureau says it will continue the effort in the field of sustainable development, and to pursue the goal of becoming the world’s first Co2 neutral capital by 2025. Developing digital solutions within the business events sector is another focus. Safe to visit The focus on creating a safe city environment is Collapse

4 DAYS AGO - The UK’s leading event industry exhibition, International Confex, has announced its decision to secure new dates for the 2021 show which was due to take place at ExCeL in March. The post International Confex secures new dates with ExCeL London appeared first on CMW. Collapse

4 DAYS AGO - Reed Travel Exhibitions’ IBTM has announced first details of hosted buyer and exhibitor sign-ups for its IBTM World Virtual 2020 event. Major exhibitors confirmed include Luxembourg Convention Bureau, Melbourne Convention Bureau, Latvia Convention Bureau, Visit Finland, Switzerland Convention and Incentive Bureau, Hungarian Convention Bureau, Arabella Hospitality Munich, Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau, Barceló Gestion Hotelera S.L., Hankyu Travel DMC Japan, San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Desert Islands Resort & Spa by Anantara. Organisers say that almost a quarter of hosted buyers signed up to date are completely new to IBTM World. Buyers confirmed include representatives from associations including the European Society of Urology, the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP), World Confederation for Physical Therapy, The International Ecotourism Society, International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy, and Collapse

5 DAYS AGO - The International Congress and Convention Association rallied its global network for the ICCA Congress Broadcast on 22 October. The online event came a month after the launch event for this year’s hybrid ICCA Congress and is part of a strategy of extending the life of the Congress. Recent weeks have been an opportunity for ICCA members to connect and reconnect, and be part of a huge knowledge exchange across a Storytelling week, a Crowd-sourced topic week and the Kaohsiung Protocol strategy week. ICCA, which has acknowledged it has not always been quick to move with the changing trends and requirements, has realised it has now had to be brave and take risks in the knowledge that the congress could not be business as usual. ICCA CEO, Senthil Gopinath, said: “This year’s ICCA Congress is a platform which showcases member engagement, adaptability, networking and more importantly the need to understand the future of the association meetings industry. The Congress is a perfect opportunity Collapse

23/10/2020 - The Virtual Events Institute and The World Indigenous Forum (WIF), the largest indigenous-focused conference and tradefair, have announced a strategic partnership to help deliver training and certification in virtual events to a cohort of indigenous business owners and marketing agencies globally. WIF links indigenous leaders, politicians and indigenous rights advocates together with local indigenous business owners and leading investors to create partnerships that promote, protect and/or preserve indigenous prosperity, autonomy and economic justice. The event will be running its annual conference virtually 18– 19 November. There are 476 million indigenous people across 90 nations globally, representing a major business community and trading partner. The WIF works to regenerate indigenous economies on the indigenous population’s terms. Speaking of the partnership, World Indigenous Forum, CEO Kevin Jackson said: “We exist to support indigenous business owners globally – and to connect Collapse

23/10/2020 - Singapore is introducing, this month, a pilot scheme of pre-event testing idesigned to identify the best model for implementing to enable large-scale events to resume safely. The island state’s minister for health Gan Kim Yong announced the plan, which will see event participants tested either at directly the event venue or at a separate testing facility. Only those who have tested negative will be allowed to attend the event. The health ministry said it would work with event organisers to keep the pre-testing process discreet, possibly carrying it out in a function room on the side of a wedding or business event. The test is valid for 24 hours, so multi testing would be required for multi-day attendance. Pre-event antigen rapid tests (ARTS) are expected to be piloted at Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), 26-30 October. Such tests can return “fairly accurate” results within about half an hour, according to the health ministry. The tests are also more comfortable to endure, Collapse