A Conference with a Voice

Brief

The Employee Ownership Association is known as the ‘go to’ place for employee ownership in the UK - the purpose of the Employee Ownership Association is to unlock the potential of people, business and the economy through employee ownership.

The event aimed to deliver a thought-provoking, learning and networking conference for delegates, complementing the EOA’s 2023 calendar of digital and face to face events, which included a mixture of plenary sessions, breakouts, exhibition and an awards evening across 2 days.

Response

The EOA came to us to deliver ‘the best conference yet’. This meant enhancing everything from the set, lighting, session set ups, presentation and agenda design, venue management and catering requirements.

We needed to deliver an experience that allowed the EO community to thrive and learn but deliver good value for money.

One of our key principles was to bring like-minded people together. Some of the greatest conversations came from peer-to-peer networking during breaks or lunch. We made allowances for these by creating open spaces to improve delegate flow and allow for greater dwell time, for those that did want to continue more informal discussions. More formal discussions were picked up within dedicated breakouts which included various seating formats, mixed content for prospective EO businesses and long standing EO businesses. Hero case studies from John Lewis were shared with the ability for audience participation. We created sponsorship opportunities through silent theatres within the exhibition. This allowed for extra revenue but increased the attendee experience giving them the opportunity to attend the theatre drop-in sessions across breaks and lunch.

Supporting with the content we initiated a conversation with a key member of the EOA Community. Our in-house video production team filmed teaser videos explaining the benefits of the conference and how it has had a positive impact on their business. These videos alone boosted ticket sales within a pivotal part of the production timeline.

We used a flat panel set with limited branding to ensure it could later be removed and recycled for future use. For the evening, we used a simple star cloth to cover the conference set, an in-house purchase that again was reused for other events. The evening was an opportunity to celebrate those who had won awards for best EO practise.

We designed and created each exhibition in collaboration with the client, we worked to finalise the agenda across each of the days that delivered against their objectives. We ran the delegate management and registration, logistics management, show running, presenter coaching, content creation and content capture.