The Business of Events outlines activity for 2023

The Business of Events can announce an outline of its planned activity for 2023, which will see an increase in the number of scheduled events and reports as it works towards building a policy agenda ahead of the next UK General Election.

Supporting the work carried out by UKEVENTS, The Business of Events is an independent Think Tank which works to build a stronger UK events sector and realise it’s economic potential. This is achieved through a combination of Policy, Advocacy, Content and Engagement, bringing together senior leaders from across the business events sector to discuss policy ideas and initiatives and to connect with government, policy makers and influencers, public sector organisations and politicians.

Policy Unit

The independent Think Tank will launch its Policy Unit by hosting a series of online and in-person roundtable discussions and evidence sessions with various sector stakeholder groups, in which policy initiatives will be discussed and explored.

This will lead to the publication of a series of reports, which will be submitted to a newly created Advisory Council for review. The flagship Policy Forum will retain its Autumn slot, where policy initiatives will be openly discussed with representatives from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Events, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, UKEVENTS, VisitBritain and other key stakeholders.

The Policy Unit will be divided into five streams, supported by strategic content partners to ensure wide representation:

• Creative and transactional agency
• Exhibition and trade shows
• Professional conference organisers and associations
• Destinations
• Venues

Advisory Council

A newly formed Advisory Council has been created and will comprise a cross section of leading figures from across the UK events sector who bring expertise, connections and influence. They support The Business of Events in raising awareness of its work, act as brand ambassadors for the industry and use their knowledge to contribute to various discussions around the development of a long-term Policy Agenda for the UK events sector.

These views and opinions are shared with both VisitBritain and DCMS to help shape and develop policies which ultimately maximise the events sectors economic potential.

The group will meet quarterly to review strategic issues facing the sector and review various internal and external policy initiatives.

Content

The Business of Events will support is advocacy and policy work by producing frequent content across its new engagement platform.

In 2023, the TBOE content team will interview key industry figures and those from relevant sectors to explore new policy initiatives and to showcase sentiment across the industry. TBOE is a platform to demonstrate to Government the value of business events and supporting the policy narrative and agenda through either opinion editorials, interviews, or report analysis. Content will relate to policy initiatives.

A series of breakfast briefings is also planned to take place each quarter in which conference and meeting booking trends will be revealed and analysed, and quarterly reports published.

Further industry reports are also scheduled, including the 2023 edition of the Global Destination Report.