The UK’s universities and colleges have continued to invest in major developments to their conference and meeting facilities and in doing so they have proved increasingly able to win new business and events.
Many academic venues offer large numbers of bedrooms in spacious settings compared to some purpose-built conference centres, and it is a conferencing sub-sector that is now a fully-fledged competitor for large association conferences.
Academic venues have been able to shed most of the negative preconceptions that organisers used to have, such as rather dated buildings and basic service standards. Now, the template is a good standard, three-star hotel, with meetings staff providing a modern service at competitive prices.
“Academic venues offer a cost effective alternative for event organisers,” says Marketing Manager at Venuemasters, Jo Mitchell. “They provide a range of facilities from modern, purpose-built centres to buildings with history and character.”
Venuemasters is an academic venue consortium that embraces 82 academic venues under its marketing umbrella across Britain. The organisation promotes the meeting and accommodation services available to hire at member academic venues, and offers a venue finding service from one central point. The organisation has grown over the years and developed its own specialist exhibition, The Academic Venue Show in London.
A survey of 45 academic venues by Venuemasters in 2011 revealed that the annual turnover of the venues was a collective total of £126m.
Mitchell believes the low prices and the high quantity of academic venues gives event organisers great scope when searching for and selecting a suitable venue.
“With such a wide range of facilities at competitive rates, academic venues provide a great value option for event organisers.
“We have venues in over 50 towns and cities across the country, so there is something for everyone,” says Mitchell.
Recent academic venue projects illustrating the investment commitment include the Great Hall at Queen Mary, University of London’s £6.3m refurbishment, The University of Manchester’s £3.4m investment in its city centre Renold Building conferencing facility, and Nottingham Conference Centre’s (NCC) £90m renovation of its Newton and Arkwright buildings at the city campus of Nottingham Trent University.
While academic venues’ primary function is to accommodate their large student intake, most can find room for accommodating delegates, albeit not always during term time.
The academic standard is one increasingly recognised by the wider meetings industry and its quality guardians. NCC was recently awarded the Accredited in Meetings (AIM) Gold standard award from the Meetings Industry Association (mia), a nationwide kite-mark for venues.
The NCC offers 13 conference suites, meeting rooms for six to 200 delegates, and lecture theatres for 450 delegates, as well as catering for up to 300.
However, organisers must still wrestle with calendar dates on some campuses.
“Always avoid term time with academic venues unless you are looking to host an evening type event outside of the hours when students will be milling around the facility,” says Operations Manager Venue Find at event management agency Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), Lianne Judd.
Universities that do offer the full-service conference packages, do so through purpose-built conference centres adjacent to their main university buildings. Often the branding is strikingly different from the more basic student product.
Warwick Conferences forms part of the University of Warwick but has four specialist conference centres set apart: Scarman, Radcliffe, Conference Park and Arden. There are over 1,700 bedrooms available across these sites, each with a catering team.
The teams at such specialist centres, however, are very much part of the meetings industry and include many trained meeting professionals.
“Gone are the days when universities could only offer a classroom with student accommodation,” says Head of Conference and Events at Edinburgh First at the University of Edinburgh, Lyndsay Wilkie. “Academic venues offer various types of accommodation year-round, for example, hotels, B&B or self-catering options, which can provide a special setting for smaller meetings to larger conferences and events.”
Edinburgh First’s conference facilities include its John McIntyre Conference Centre. The venue has a 330-seat plenary room, four large meeting rooms, and two executive boardrooms, with 160 en-suite bedrooms nearby, and an additional 2,000 bedrooms when the students go home for the summer.
The University of South Wales, formed by the merger of the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales in Newport, also has its own purpose-built conference centre at its Pontypridd campus. The centre has a high-tech auditorium for 300 delegates, converted Sports Hall with space for up to 1,000 delegates, and large spaces available for car parking.
And expectations are rising all-round. “Student expectations are particularly high, especially since the introduction of higher tuition fees. The teaching spaces at academic venues are high quality, bright and spacious, equipped with the latest AV equipment, supported by an in-house technical team,” says Conference Services Manager at the University of South Wales, Gemma Savage.
At the University of Loughborough’s specialist conference facility, imago, there is a fully-fledged hotel on site and the team at the conference centre’s Burleigh Court recently retained the VisitBritain Silver Award for the second year running.
Awarded for exceptional standards of hospitality, including customer service, catering, housekeeping and the quality of bedrooms, the Burleigh Court team achieved a rating of 83 per cent. This was a three per cent improvement overall on the previous year; with service up by 18 per cent, and housekeeping up by 16 per cent.
VisitBritain also again presented the ‘Breakfast Award’ to Burleigh Court. The accolade is given to venues that offer a high-quality breakfast, supported by service and hospitality that exceeds the requirements expected of a four-star rating.
“The whole Burleigh team is proud to retain the Silver status,” says Operations Manager Guy Hodge. “We’re particularly pleased to have improved on our previous score and will strive to do the same next year.”
Academic venues that don’t have dedicated conference facilities can still be suitable for association and training events, due to their large teaching spaces, with the caveat that the event booking is out of term time.
Kate Davis, Head of Business Development for Well Met Conferencing at Leeds Metropolitan University, also champions academic venues’ versatile spaces and their ability to facilitate large groups. “Association events tend to be particularly well suited to academic venues because of their ability to deal with high volumes of people, and to provide social space for large numbers, as well as meeting space.”
The Well Met Conferencing brand features a range of facilities across numerous sites in the city, and focuses on pushing an environment friendly ethos. It has been awarded a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment (BREEAM) rating of ‘excellent’ which recognises energy efficiency and use of sustainable building materials at four venues: The Rose Bowl, Carnegie Village, Carnegie Pavillion and Broadcasting Place.
Well Met’s dedicated meeting room spaces can accommodate between nine and 350 delegates.
“Large events requiring high technology capability and bandwidth that can deal with thousands of people tweeting at once are also well suited to academic spaces,” says Davis.
Leeds Met also has one of the largest event management faculties in the country, a useful resource for conference clients looking to tap into industry expertise.
The Space Allocation and Events Manager at the Sa�?�¯d Business School at the University of Oxford, Martin Garside, says the last decade has seen academic venues demonstrate a significant investment in developing world-class conference facilities.
“Academic venues, through their association with universities, are particularly focused on excellent customer service via training programmes and have strong and skilled support facilities in areas such as IT and AV,” says Garside.
Being associated with innovation and research, academic venues can often tap into academic excellence in terms of both equipment and speakers. Aside from recent big investments in academic venues, historic existing infrastructure generally includes catering and car parking for large numbers all in one location.
In today’s fiercely price-conscious market, affordable prices are clearly an important factor for event booking agencies and their clients. Conference Care’s Director, Chris Peacock, says: “The scale of facilities at academic venues tends to suit larger events, and they are usually well appointed with a high standard of services and equipment, and they offer great value for money.”
Whether it’s heritage buildings, or modern purpose-built centres, there is something for everyone.
There is probably a large academic venue not far from any major town in the UK.
This was first published in the October issue of CN. Any comments?
Email conferencenews@mashmedia.net
