A Wee Chat With... Jill Wadge, Team Manager for Conferences & Exhibitions

For us, collaborative working with our clients has always been a point of pride. Our incredible event management team knows this more than most, working as an extension of our clients’ teams day in day out to deliver events that keep the hugely diverse range of audiences in Scotland flocking back to the SEC’s halls.

We caught up with Team Manager - Event Management and Chair of the Association for Event Venues Event Managers’ Working Group Jill Wadge, to get her five key topics to consider for a successful event. 

With over two decades of industry experience to draw from, when Jill speaks, we listen.  

Here’s what she had to say… 

Plan, plan and plan some more:

The foundation of any good event is a good plan. In fact, effective planning can make or break an event. We assign a dedicated event manager to every show, so our team is there every step of the way to ensure the process runs smoothly end to end. 

We provide our clients with an event delivery tracker, listing out all the key milestones we’ll need to hit from planning through to post event , which is a super useful way of making sure everything is in order. There can be a lot to do, from the always crucial floor plan through to risk assessments, CDM requirements, visitor flow, security, medical, catering and cleaning, so it’s essential everything is managed efficiently to ensure a safe, enjoyable and profitable event. 

Choose your contractors wisely:

Most events require external contractor support to one degree or another, whether that’s a stand builder, electrical contractor or logistical support to ensure everything you need to create the show turns up. So, it’s important to work with trusted and experienced partners who’ll give you the peace of mind that everything will be handled. It’s not uncommon for our clients to lean on us for this too, working with our partners to deliver core elements of their show. A good contractor can be worth their weight in gold. 

Communicate with the venue:

We’re not just here to sell you space, we’re here to help you deliver the best possible experience for your visitors and it’s incredible how many points of stress can be relieved through a quick chat with the team. 

We’ve got so much resource for you to tap into from planning your customer journey all the way to marketing your event and maximising visibility on site, so we’d always encourage our clients to make as much use of our team as they possibly can. 

This is particularly true for new events, where so much energy goes into delivery and the experience, it can be a real weight off having our team consult on optimising the customer journey, which starts as soon as the potential visitor has begun thinking about attending. 

Food for example is huge, and has to be tailored to the type of audience you’re looking to attract. The SEC Food team has experience in feeding audiences from Comic Con to Cop26, and are very happy to consult on all things food whether it’s canapes or a fleet of food trucks that’ll excite your audience.

Hyrox has been one of our recent communication and collaboration success stories as Eddie Dier, HYROX UK Brand Manager, explains: 

We launched HYROX at the SEC for the first time in 2023. For any new venue we deliver our event at, it’s imperative we work hand in hand with the in-house team to produce the best experience possible for our visitors given the scale of what we need to achieve.  

Our needs are by all accounts pretty unique, as we essentially transform every venue into the world of HYROX. The build is such a huge part of delivering the event, and the guidance and flexibility from the venue meant we were able to do everything we wanted to, delivering the full experience to the nearly 5,000 athletes who joined us on the day. From the minute you walked in the door, you entered our world, and that's exactly how we need it to be.

The SEC were there to assist us every step of the way, consulting on all of the key elements of our event which ensured a smooth planning, build, delivery and wash up process. 

Once you’ve got the visitors, you need to keep them!

Creating elements of your event that increase dwell time and help keep visitors engaged is also super important. Running workshops with guest speakers for example can be a great way to ensure your visitors will be inspired to stay at the event over its course. If there’s a way to get the consumer involved too, even better.

To be effective, however, they must be properly signposted. How are we directing people to them? We’ve got lots of digital signage that can help do this, and marketing support across social media, digital and PR that can all play a part. 

Don’t neglect the post event wash up:

Good events deliver an amazing show, great events deliver an amazing show and learn how to do it better the next time. With this in mind, it’s absolutely key that the post event wash up isn’t overlooked. We’d usually suggest doing three of these minimum. One should be internal, and another with our team directly so we can learn from each other and see where we can elevate the experience next time around. Then of course you should be speaking with your exhibitors to get their feedback.

Evolution is so important in our industry, and the best long standing clients we have are the ones who’ve tweaked their offer where required to keep those exhibitors and visitors coming back every time.