New Labour New Success

The team at Conference Torquay are always looking for new ways of attracting conferences to the Bay, so the invitation to attend the annual Labour Party Conference, in Bournemouth this year seemed an irresistible opportunity. It is normally the list of potential visitors that inspires investment in a project of this nature but on this occasion it was the other exhibitors that caused the real excitement. The majority of the exhibitors were leading Associations, Unions, and Charities.

"At exhibitions you would normally see a visitor to your stand just once. As we had a captured audience over 5 days we were able to start building up a long-term relationship." says Nicky Harding, Conference Bureau Manager. Having become very disillusioned with the normal conference industry exhibitions not providing what their pre-publicity professes to, the Conference Torquay team have been desperate to try something new: Nicky continues," this was a chance that came up and one that we will definitely be repeating, we have come home with some great enquiries which we are in the process of following up, it looks really encouraging".

Naturally being at the high profile conference such as this, both Nicky and Mary got to rub shoulders with many familiar faces: Cherie Blair for instance dropped by and chatted with them for well over 15 minutes! Other politicians spotted included John Prescott, Gordon Brown, Clair Short and Estelle Morris. And of course the leading man, Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

So it was not only an exciting event to be a part of but a successful project as well, generating many new contacts which included the National Knitwear Footwear and Apparel Trade Union, the Police Federation of England and Wales, The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Royal College of Nursing, UCAT, AMICUS and NASUWT, all of which we are following up and who have perfect potential conferences!