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Wales on the World Stage: How Collaboration Drives Events Success · Event Industry News Podcast

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Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast with me, James Dixon.
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Wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon, or evening, whenever or wherever you
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tune into today's podcast from. And as you will no doubt notice at the start
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of today's podcast recording, I'm not in my usual surroundings. I'm not
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in my living room at home in South Yorkshire, sat at an upright piano,
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usually with a dog asleep on the sofa behind me when I record these via
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video link. I'm in the beautiful and great setting of the ICC
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Wales, part of the Celtic Collection, who are very,
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very kindly hosting Event Industry News here today to
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record some episodes of our podcast. From their amazing facilities. Thank you very much
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to all the team at the Celtic Collection for looking after us.
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We came down yesterday, we had the luxurious
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surroundings of the Ty Newport Hotel to stay over last night,
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a lovely meal. We've been really well looked after, so thank you very much
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to the ICC Wales and to the Celtic Collection team for facilitating
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the Event Industry News podcast here today. And as you
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will also see, I'm joined not by one guest, two guests,
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three guests, but four guests today, which is the first time this
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has happened on the podcast in quite a while that I've had sort of a
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panel this extensive with this much sort
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of experience. So once I've done my preamble on today's recording,
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you probably won't hear much from me, which I'm sure everybody is delighted at.
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Let's meet our guests today. First of all, Rachel Phillips, Regional Sales Director
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at the Celtic Collection. Rachel, thanks very much for joining the podcast. We've got Rebecca
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Edwards-Simmons, CEO of Commonwealth Games Wales.
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Lovely to meet you. And Katrina Cookson and Sian Morse,
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co-founders of Hospitality and Event Network Wales. Thank you
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very much to both of you for joining us. We're going to be talking on
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the podcast today about what it takes for a destination to stand
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out in an increasingly competitive events
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marketplace, and very much sort of the collaboration that goes
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on amongst various stakeholders— venues, organizations,
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and from different backgrounds— sports, entertainment— what it takes
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to actually really work on a collaborative basis in order to make events tick and
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to bring certain destinations actually to the forefront of
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what is a huge industry. I'm going to start by
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asking each of our guests today to just introduce themselves and give us a bit
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of context as to who they are and where they're from. So Rachel, let's go
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over to you first of all. Tell us who you are and what your role
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is here at the Celtic Collection. So I'm Regional Sales
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Director at the Celtic Collection, as you said, so my job is to look after
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all of the hotels within the collection that run from
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Te Meiga right down to Te Milford along the South Wales
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coast. So it's my job to sell and promote all of
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our venues both locally and internationally with a great team of
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sales managers and events professionals within my team and really promote
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Wales as a destination for business events and for people to travel to when they
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need accommodation. Fabulous, and just for clarity, how many venues
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now in the collection? So we have 10 venues altogether now at the
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Celtic Collection, a range of venues, whether it be our
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T Newport brand. We've got 3 Ts now,
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Maegor, Newport, and one in Milford.
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And that's really a great option for somebody that's traveling
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into the destination, maybe needs 1 or 2 nights. It gives you everything that
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you need but nothing that you don't, right up to our Celtic Manor Resort
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5-star property. There's actually 26 years now that we've been
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going, and Parkgate Hotel in Cardiff,
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which is right in the city centre, great location, great transport
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links. And if you're going to any events,
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whether that be rugby or any music events, a great location for people
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to stay overnight. And you've corrected me already because I said Tyne Newport. You did.
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I didn't want to say anything. Sorry. No, say it.
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If you've got something, throw it at me, plonk me around the head.
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It's been— it's only 2 letters, but so many people say it
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in so many different things, but it actually means home in Welsh. So I think
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that is actually quite synonymous with what we actually provide at the hotels.
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It's a home from home. Excellent, thank you very much. And Rebecca,
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CEO of Commonwealth Games Wales, I mean, I looked at that job title,
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I thought, oh crikey, I'm well out of my depth today. Tell us
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a little bit about who you are and your role. Yeah, of course. So Rebecca,
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obviously Chief Exec of Team Wales. It's a grand old role when
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you talk about it in terms of Commonwealth Games Wales. So just to put it
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into context, we put the team together to go out to compete at
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the Commonwealth Games against all of the nations across the Commonwealth.
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So the Games are once every 4 years for our main Games, and then there's
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a Youth Games then that follows that. So we've just finished the Games
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in Glasgow, been a really busy but really successful summer.
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But now everybody thinks I do nothing for 4 years and
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prep the team. But obviously we launched the Team Wales
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Business Club 3 years ago because we wanted to make
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our brand relevant every day. And now we're prepping for
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the Youth Games in Malta in 2027.
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Tiny team, 3 people, just to put it into context.
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So we're a tiny organisation day in, day out, but then
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we ramp up with volunteers then in the build-up to the Games.
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So about a year before the Games, then we actually take an HQ
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team up to Glasgow, between 40 and 50 volunteers,
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so professional doctors taking unpaid leave to actually contribute
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to Wales representing on the international stage in
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such an important competition. Okay, fabulous, thank you very much and welcome
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along today. Sian, tell us a little bit about yourself first of all.
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I'll let you sort of introduce Hospitality and Events Network, because then Katrina
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will come to you as well to expand on that. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm Sian
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Morse. We, Katrina and I, co-founded Hospitality and Events
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Network Wales just last year, but it's been a very full-on,
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very successful year so far. So we are a free-to-attend
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networking organisation, currently over
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350 people in our membership, and we
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run quarterly networking events We
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also did a Wales Week London event,
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and so what we feel is we've brought the industry together under
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this banner. Catriona can expand on that. Please, yeah, Catriona, welcome along.
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Hi, thank you, James. So yeah, just to touch
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on what Sian said, our Wales Week in London event was our chance
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to put Wales' hospitality and events sector on the map. So we
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took a group of our key ambassadors really up
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to London, um, for a panel discussion, of which Rachel
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was one of our panelists. And we had some really
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influential people on that panel who were talking
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about all what Wales has to offer and why we stand
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out, why we're distinctive in the market, which is obviously a busy market.
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Everyone's competing to try and put their, their area
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on the map, but what makes Wales distinctive? How can we sell it? How can
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we grow a hospitality and events sector? Um, so yeah,
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that's what we're all about. So Sian and I have been in hospitality
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and events for, well, well over 20 years each, um,
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and we have day jobs, but the Hospitality and Event Network
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Wales is our chance to bring, bring our industry sector together.
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Um, so my day job is working for the University of South Wales.
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I'm the head of events. So I try and sell the university
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spaces when they're not being used for learning and teaching. Absolutely important,
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and we've had that conversation on the podcast before about educational institutions and
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universities and what events can represent to them because of those periods of
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time where the facilities are available and the types
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of facilities are on campuses. That's a whole other conversation, but certainly no
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doubt a big role. Rebecca, if I can come to you first of all.
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And reference this summer's Commonwealth Games and
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really what an opportunity that
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represented. Obviously, you're going there with sporting targets, and you will have,
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as an organisation of your own, sporting targets that you want
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to achieve while going there. But how important and how close on
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your— how firmly on your radar was it that there was an opportunity to really
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promote Wales as a destination, as an event destination, both for sport
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and other types of event? So, so important. So because the Commonwealth
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Games is the only time where we represent Cymru on
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the world stage, and it's the most inclusive multi-sport
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games competition, so you've got disabled athletes and able-bodied athletes
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in one team, so it's not like the Paralympics and the Olympics separate.
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Obviously we had a new government in place earlier on this
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year, so we really looked to maximize on
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being just up the road in Scotland, which sounds crazy when
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people say up the road, but it was a lot people drove to Scotland.
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So we took over a destination, we actually took over
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a hotel for the whole time we were there. I should say,
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yeah, which weirdly links up with
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yours. So it was actually called Tea Cymru, so Wales
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is Home. Wow. But the Celtic Collection are our partners
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in Wales, so we then actually— Rachel came up as well.
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Oh, bless you. So, and I remember the first conversation we had about
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this collaboration because we have these opportunities, we travel all over
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the world with the Commonwealth Games, but people need to understand the culture,
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and cultures are so important, and the destinations of where we all come from.
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And the first thing I wanted to do was to actually showcase our venues in
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Wales. So we took the opportunity in Glasgow and we built an
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events schedule around the sporting competition
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of 16 events in Te Cymru.
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Welsh Government came up for the whole duration, co-branded all
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of our space there, but we actually used the opportunity
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to promote our brands from Wales. So the Celtic
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Collection was everywhere in the hotel, and we took some food
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and beverage people that came up as well. So it was great, even though we
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were in Scotland, you walked into the room where these food
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producers were there and it felt like that you weren't in Scotland, you just felt
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you were in another destination in Wales. So And for us to be able to
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experience that, which Rebecca and the team had put on,
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really made it that full circle moment, I think, for people coming up from Wales.
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It was like we picked up Wales. Yeah, it was. And we dropped it in
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for 2 weeks. The music as well we had, wasn't it? So music,
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food, emotional at times. But can I just ask, did you
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feel that historically Wales has been underrepresented,
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under-recognised on an international level when you compare
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something like Scotland, for example, you know,
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American tourists will sort of eat that, they know sort of a
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certain amount of Scottish culture and tradition and things like that. Is there a level
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of underrepresentation? We really find that when we go to
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our international trade shows. So every year we'll go to Frankfurt,
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Barcelona, Vegas as well. So these
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are international trade shows where Wales goes to represent,
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and sometimes our area might be a little bit
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smaller than perhaps Scotland and Ireland, who are really well
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represented. And I think sometimes that can be a bit of a struggle for
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Wales, is because the people that are there need to shout really loud to shout
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above some of the Scottish and the Irish, who obviously
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do a fantastic job to promote their destinations. But I think Wales
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could probably do a little bit better in that respect on a more of a
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European and international stage. Because I think clients,
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delegates, event organisers, they're looking for something new. A lot
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of them have, you know, been to a lot of the key major cities and
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destinations, and I really think Wales can fill that gap.
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But I think we need to do that together, and when we're all going to
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go, we all go, and we try to represent
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Wales and really showcase what it can offer, because I think there is so much
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that people don't know what we can offer, but we need to do that together.
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So I think where we talked to Katrina and Sian, and obviously
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Beck, you know, when we went up to Scotland, we need to do it together.
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Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, when you look
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at trade associations that represent within the events industry as
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a whole, you know, they're designed, aren't they, to create a collaborative approach to working,
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and that by, you know, collectively getting together, you will
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end up with a stronger outcome for everybody. So I guess it's
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obvious in some respects why you would look to create a network like yours,
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Sian, that presents that opportunity to the region.
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Yeah, and I think we were really conscious when we set the network up
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that we didn't want it just to be solely
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focused on just as a destination. Obviously that's really important,
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but what we wanted to do is to bring in voices that are not necessarily
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heard that much. So we actively went out to nighttime
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industry, nightclubs, pubs, restaurants to really
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say, come and join our network because you know, the destination
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as a whole is great, but it's the individuals that make up that destination,
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and we need to make sure that there's a voice heard for everybody.
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And so we were really conscious when we set the network up of not just
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saying this is just for hotels or just for venues. We wanted it
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to be a fair shot for everybody. Well, it's all contributing, isn't it,
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economically? You know, even the smallest of events,
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you know, whether that be a live music event in a pub or a club
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somewhere in a city centre, is contributing to the economy, and it's attracting people here,
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and isn't it? So it's really important that the whole spectrum is represented.
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Absolutely. I think that the small freelance event
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organizer or the audiovisual company bringing
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those voices into the mix as well is important. And we noticed that
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significantly during the pandemic where everyone
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stopped in Wales, you know, obviously all over, but in Wales
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we were hit quite hard because we were shut for longer than England.
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And I was on an industry panel
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lobbying government ministers to try and reopen and to showcase
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that we could open for business events safely and
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how different it was to major sporting events.
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Yeah, I think the key here is how all these
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different people come together and they're all part of that sector,
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and we only think of— often we think of events
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the big sporting events, the big music events, but it's these— I
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say smaller, but 200, 300 people,
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um, business events or conferences which are keeping the
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industry going. But because they just happen in venues all across,
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um, the, the, the region, um,
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and they happen, and some of these are just not shouted about as
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much as you would a big concert. Sure. And no one really knows. Probably that's
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where Wales could do a little bit better as well, is we need to celebrate
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our successes more. Yes, that when we do have a great event,
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whether that be one for 200, 300, or whether that's for 1,000,
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we don't shout about it. Sure, we're quite shy in perhaps sometimes saying
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how well we've done. I think it's our culture as well, the Welsh. We,
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we don't— we're not overly confident, we're not show-offy,
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we're very understated, and we've got a lot to give, but we
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don't, don't show it. And I think that was when we did our Wales Week
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London panel event, one of our panellists said exactly
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that, you know, like she goes out into the world and talks
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about Wales, but Wales doesn't shout about it enough.
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So, you know, she's saying we're doing all these great things and people are like,
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well, I've never heard of this. So it's back when you were in— when
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we were in Glasgow, a lot of people fed back how great the
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Team Wales house was, and there was other countries saying, oh, we want to go
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to Team Wales house, you know, because they'd heard how great it was.
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Yeah, and I think the people that you brought together then that was up there
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really lent itself to spread that word a little bit further.
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It was a risk, you know, it was a risk at the time. It's a
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huge financial risk, yeah, to, you know, when we're taking a team of 113
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athletes in the way, you know, it ended over 10 sports.
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It was okay, I could allow everybody to book their accommodation as
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they wanted to, and, but I thought, no, let's, let's actually control this
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environment. Let's let's bring everybody together that cares passionately
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about Wales, and to actually take that financial risk
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on booking out a hotel nearly, you know, as one for
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us for a duration of 2 weeks for a tiny organisation, as I've already
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explained. But I saw it as so much of an opportunity because
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with Glasgow, there are so many similarities between
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Scotland and Wales. And as I said,
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I genuinely believe that all of the events
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would end up with a benefit to Wales and our destination of being able to
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do this in Wales. And it started, I think, a real collaboration.
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You know, all of us sat here today are all working with each other in
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one way or another, even though I've never actually met you in person before,
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we've been speaking together. And I think it's because we are
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a small but mighty nation. I don't think necessarily we have to
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shout about what we're doing. And I think that when
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you look at, you know, the landscape of other countries,
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then I genuinely think that that is our strength, is that
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we are constantly there. And do we actually need to shout and rave
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about what we're doing? Because I genuinely believe we're making it,
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we're starting to make a huge difference in the events landscape
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because none of us cross over. I think everybody respects, I think, in other areas,
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You know, we don't see each other as competition. No, no, it's all about collaboration.
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And I think that's what your network, our network,
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are doing. It's showcasing that we can all drive
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business and get more business into Wales through
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collaborating. And one of the speakers at our networking
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event in London said that, said that's one of our strengths again,
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was, well, 2: warm Welsh welcome which we want more
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people to realise. I can attest to that. I can attest to that
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from when we arrived yesterday. Particularly warm. Yeah.
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And the second thing is the network of contacts that
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Wales people have. Exactly what you said, mighty nation but small,
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and everyone knows each other, or if you don't, you know someone who will
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know that person. So for an event person coming into
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Wales Oh, how do I— how would I make this happen?
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Who do I speak to about this? We will all know someone who can put
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us in touch with each other, and that's great for an event organiser.
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And from a hospitality point of view, you know, running an event or being
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a venue, you know, if you get an enquiry to the Collection
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from an event organiser and it just turns out actually maybe they need— their
19:24
requirements are something that maybe you can't fulfil, having that network
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of contacts and that collaborative approach I guess if you can't
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maybe translate into the business, into business directly for the collection,
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but you can recommend another venue or a supplier
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that they might be able to speak to, that's still having a benefit to everybody,
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isn't it? And I think when we have our inquiries,
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particularly when they might not be from Wales or the UK,
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we have to be able to promote Wales because people want to live like a
19:52
local. So for example, we had
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an inquiry from a Scandinavian company when we were in Barcelona,
20:01
and they really wanted to immerse themselves in the culture. So they were really
20:04
looking for those opportunities to perhaps taste local produce.
20:07
Obviously, we can do that at the Celtic Collection, but, you know, we talked to
20:11
Newport Market, you know, a local destination for us, which is they can get real
20:14
authentic experience, not just through, you know, the culinary, but through,
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you know, language and culture and singing and those kinds of things. So,
20:22
you know, male voice choirs, even though everybody wants a male
20:25
voice choir when they come to Wales, Land of
20:29
Song. But I think we can promote our
20:33
friends, if you like, and that's what we become, you know, is that we become
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friends. If you can't do it, then I can, and vice versa. And I
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think that will always go a long way, even if it's 1 or 2
20:43
years' time, that somebody says, oh, Rachel called me about that,
20:46
I've got this one, I'll phone her back. And people don't forget that. Yeah,
20:50
and I've been on some of those international trade events as well, and sometimes
20:53
it's just a bit of an education piece, isn't it? It's really educating people
20:58
about who Wales are and what we do here. And I think once people come
21:01
to Wales, you've got them. Yeah, you know, like you've
21:04
hooked them in. But sometimes it can be a bit of an education piece
21:08
around— and I think we find that when we go to the trade shows,
21:11
you can't go once. You can't go once and then come away. You have to
21:15
continuously be able to be there to be able to really deliver
21:19
that message that Wales is a destination, because the
21:23
countries that we've already mentioned, they are there year in, year out. And if
21:26
we're not there and that same person comes to find us Yeah, they're just
21:30
going to go to the other location. So you can't invest for the short term,
21:34
you've got to invest for the long term. And you've not started the network that
21:37
you started for, you know, any sort of short, quick gains. You know, the whole
21:41
point of starting networks like that is that there will be no doubt some short
21:45
and medium-term goals, but it's for the long-term benefit of everybody involved.
21:49
So as Rachel says, you can't go to something like that and think, oh,
21:52
we'll go for one year and then we'll get a load of business out of
21:55
that. Yeah, I think we started it because we recognized there were lots
21:59
of people in the sector doing great things, but were they all talking to each
22:03
other? And after pandemic, again, people had changed jobs
22:06
and we, we wanted to grow our connections so that we could help
22:11
support clients who came to us. Um,
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so that was intrinsically the basics of why
22:18
we set it up, as well as giving a voice to lots
22:22
of people working in the sector. It's helped
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us no end in our day-to-day jobs as well,
22:29
but yeah, it's been really helpful and we're
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only just starting to see the value of what this could do. And I think
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we're hoping that the people that join our events,
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they're using that opportunity to network with each other and to see that there
22:44
is collaboration available. I know certainly that I've spoken to people
22:48
and they've said, oh, you know, I don't know who to go to about this,
22:50
and it's like, now hopefully they've got that connection that they
22:54
can make and then they can go, right, I know who I need to go
22:57
to about this. I think that was what was missing certainly in our
23:01
individual networks until we started the network.
23:05
It was that kind of, that missing piece of the puzzle was people were doing
23:08
things in silos and not really communicating, and now
23:11
hopefully we've made a step forward on that. I can absolutely— sorry,
23:16
I can absolutely agree with that. So because we're
23:21
Commonwealth Games Wales, we're a member-led organisation, so our
23:25
members are all of the sporting bodies in Wales. Everybody has
23:29
their own objectives, and all of the sports
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in effect are kind of competing with each other, right? Because number one,
23:37
they all have restricted funding, but also they're all trying to
23:41
attract our young people and our next generations to their sport.
23:44
So Commonwealth Games Wales, when we were obviously appearing once every 4 years,
23:48
we also had a time where we looked at ourselves and looked to say,
23:52
okay, what about generating alternative revenue streams to
23:56
our organisation? And I saw this huge opportunity
23:59
where, because we had that no bias to one sport and
24:03
we had access to all of our business network and our partners like Rachel at
24:07
the Celtic, you know, why shouldn't we set up this business club
24:12
where we can actually benefit all of our members So
24:16
all of the sports have invites to our business club. We don't just
24:19
talk about sport, we actually talk about how sport
24:24
can work with other sectors to make us more fruitful,
24:26
and everybody cares passionately about sport in Wales.
24:30
And then with our partnerships with venues, we're able to
24:34
actually then bring people into their venues that they're trying to target. So we
24:37
started to create this little ecosystem, and it's— I didn't realize how
24:41
big it was going to be. As you said, it was, you know, we need
24:45
to have a go at this because we can see an opening, but it's grown
24:48
from strength to strength, and I think it's just realised that sometimes you just need
24:53
to take an opportunity. Yeah, and we've certainly seen the benefit as a partner that's
24:57
attended the business networks. We've seen collaboration
25:01
then with the sports where they've actually held their award ceremonies with us,
25:05
or when people were coming over to the
25:08
UK before travelling to Glasgow, we were the location
25:12
for some of the training that was going on from some of the international
25:16
teams that were coming over and using the facilities locally.
25:19
So I partnered and spoke to Bike Cymru,
25:23
you know, for them to be able to use the cycling track,
25:26
which is in Newport Velodrome. They stayed with us, trained there,
25:30
and then travelled up to Glasgow. And I think then being able to
25:35
attend the business networks again, it's like what we were saying
25:38
earlier, you build those collaborations to be able to pull on them in the
25:42
future, but then also from, you know, a selfish perspective, I suppose,
25:45
is we've got so many venues that can offer dinners
25:49
and conferences, we've actually, you know, won business
25:52
through it. And I suppose, you know, that's what it's there for.
25:56
One thing that I remind myself of regularly is
26:00
that as a landmass,
26:05
Geographically, we're fairly small, and I think when we're looking to target
26:09
international business particularly, one of our major strengths as a landmass is that
26:13
geographically you can actually move around the British Isles
26:17
fairly easily and fairly quickly, which is perhaps a message
26:20
that's not been utilized heavily enough when you go to some of the international
26:24
events that you've spoken about when promoting Wales as a destination,
26:28
is that, you know, it might be that people want to come here and then
26:32
bolt that on to something else or go somewhere else,
26:35
bolt it onto their trip here. And I don't know what you think about that,
26:38
but certainly when I had the experience a few years ago for the first time
26:42
of working in America and talking to people in the events industry over in the
26:45
USA, and when they realize what you can drive
26:49
from one end to the other in sort of 7 or 8 hours, and they're
26:51
like, well, that's a daily commute to work for me. I think sometimes we underutilize
26:56
geographically how small we actually are, how close we are. Yeah,
26:59
yeah. And I think it's really important that we do look
27:03
outside our borders as well as looking inward.
27:06
We don't want to be constantly just looking inward because, A, that doesn't
27:10
benefit anybody, um, but we want to be looking outside and
27:15
we want to be making sure that we're working with people around the world
27:19
internationally, but also people on our doorstep that might not be in Wales.
27:22
So, you know, the Celtic collection venues,
27:26
certainly here, are very close to the border, and, you know, it's quite
27:29
easy just to jump over to England. What we've
27:33
got in Wales is brilliant, and, you know, and we can offer
27:37
a lot, but we also need to be aware that people will be travelling elsewhere,
27:41
or could be travelling elsewhere, and so we want to make sure that we've got
27:44
those relationships outside of our borders. When you look at the tour,
27:48
So you've talked about Bike Cymru, and they've got an incredibly exciting
27:53
time ahead with the Tour, you know, reaching so many
27:56
parts of our country and being able to showcase that
28:00
on the international stage. So the conversations that have been taking place
28:04
over the last 18 months to prepare for that,
28:07
you know, it's been incredible to start,
28:10
but actually the best thing is that those conversations are
28:15
And I think, and what we can do to actually be able to showcase
28:20
Wales is a beautiful country, you know, from the
28:24
hilltops to the beautiful, you know, seas that we can access,
28:28
you know, within tens of minutes. And then you've got the cities of Cardiff,
28:32
and you can go over to the border. You know, I'm from West Wales,
28:36
and when you can come up in an hour and a half and be able
28:39
to travel those distances, I think that event in particular with the Tour
28:43
is going to drive incredible opportunity for Wales.
28:47
We're talking about the Tour de France?
28:49
Absolutely. I get it because I've
28:54
lived in Yorkshire. I'm from West London originally. I've lived in Yorkshire for 28 years,
28:58
and Yorkshire had the Grand Depart over
29:02
a decade ago now, but that led to so much out of it.
29:06
It was a huge thing at the time. I remember it really,
29:09
really well. In the little town that I live in, Barnsley, in South Yorkshire,
29:12
you know, it was on the route, and it had
29:16
such a positive impact on the town, on people who embraced
29:20
it. But it did have a much longer knock-on effect,
29:24
you know. It led to sort of annual cycle races being organised in
29:27
the region. It led to an increase in tourism, all those things that you
29:31
would associate with something like that, I saw firsthand
29:35
the benefits of it. There was an uptake in cycling, you know, suddenly cycle
29:39
shops were opening, bike repair shops were opening, people were digging them out the back
29:42
of their garages and going, all right, well, I'll do that. I think it's the
29:45
legacy, yeah, exactly, that Ryder Cup
29:49
legacy. Obviously, we've still got people that are coming to play our
29:53
2010 course, even though, you know, that was nearly 16 years ago now,
29:57
people still have that as a bucket list course. And then it'll be the same
30:01
with the Tour de France as well, you know, is that people will want to
30:03
come and cycle in the tracks that, you know,
30:06
these— the greats have done through Wales. And to have that,
30:10
you know, with the Ryder Cup still 16 years later, we're hoping that the Tour
30:14
is going to do the same thing. But then I think the venues and the
30:17
destinations need to be ready for that and be prepared. That's it, oh,
30:20
the Tour's over now, what are we going to do? Is to be prepared
30:24
now to be able to have everything ready to go, that once they've finished and
30:27
they've all packed up and gone, is that you have packages and things like
30:31
that ready to be able to promote to everybody. Yeah, and it's tapping into that
30:34
aspirational element of event organizers,
30:37
isn't it? Because you would hope that they see things on TV
30:41
or on coverage on social media and go, wouldn't it be great
30:45
if... You know, I guess, you know,
30:48
provoking event organizers to go, oh, wouldn't it be good if
30:52
we could XYZ? And there's huge opportunity available,
30:56
isn't there, with this? Going back to the whole nature of today's conversation, the collaborative
30:58
approach. Is creating this overall picture for
31:03
event organisers of any description— music, sport, business,
31:06
convention, trade show— to go, wouldn't it be great if we
31:11
could replicate that? Yeah, on a smaller scale, those sorts of things. I think,
31:14
you know, that what I said earlier about there's lots of small things happening and
31:19
we're not shouting about them, but it's some of those bigger events, the big
31:23
music, the big sporting events that grab the attention, and then
31:27
it's maximising the opportunities off the back of those. If I could, on a day-to-day
31:30
basis, how is the collaborative approach manifesting
31:34
itself? So let's say, you know, at the Celtic Collection you have—
31:38
you've got a communications team, marketing, you've got the resources to communicate,
31:42
but if we look at some smaller organisers, smaller events,
31:45
people who are part of the network who are working on a smaller basis,
31:48
how are they able to maybe get some messaging out there and utilise
31:52
the network? How is it manifesting itself?
31:56
Oh, um, I'm going to give you an example of something
32:00
that happened to me last— what day is it? Tuesday.
32:05
Last week. So, um, this just explains
32:09
how we all collaborate with each other. So I— one
32:13
of my venues at the university, I was due
32:17
to have an event for 80 people, um, and 4:30
32:21
the night before my venue had to close because
32:25
water supply completely gone to the building.
32:29
So at 4:30, I was using all my contacts to secure
32:33
a totally new venue, ICC Wales, ring up coach
32:37
companies to get all my delegates
32:41
who were already staying overnight next to my university
32:45
campus to bus them to here. Organise audiovisual
32:50
supplies to be reset up, and I managed to do that so that
32:54
by 10:30— so from between 4:30 and 10:30,
32:57
I had completely changed the location of my venue of
33:01
the conference for 9 o'clock the next morning.
33:05
Without the power of that collaboration and the contacts and the networks,
33:08
that wouldn't be possible, but in Wales it is possible.
33:12
And as someone who works my day job, day to day, I'm working as
33:16
a freelancer working on a lot of small business
33:19
events, you know, 100 people in and out of smaller venues,
33:23
and I can relate to, you know,
33:28
not being able to do something like that in a short period of time if
33:31
that was to happen to me or to one of my clients, you know,
33:33
if they were, you know, up in— I was up in the northeast in Durham
33:37
last week, and if there'd have been a problem with that venue there, the likelihood
33:40
is that they'd have just had to pull the plug and say, we're really sorry,
33:43
there's been a catastrophic issue in the venue and we can't run this. To be
33:47
able to pivot that quickly and do that, you know, it is— and it
33:51
comes down to just, I suppose, something as simple as having the right contacts,
33:56
the right phone number, the right email address. How many times have you gone to
33:58
contact somebody in an emergency, like, they're not answering their phone, haven't we got the
34:02
right number? And that's not just because I've been doing this for a long
34:05
time. I truly believe it's the value of the contacts and the connections that we
34:09
have in Wales but also from networks like this that are set
34:13
up. And nobody wants anybody's event to drop,
34:17
and I think that because we realize that there's a knock-on effect
34:21
of that happening, and I genuinely believe that whilst everybody has their own
34:25
objectives, you know, that everybody wants the greater good for what we're
34:29
doing collectively, and in sport for sure, that, you know, there have been so
34:34
many circumstances. You were let down by Australia. Oh, they don't, I know.
34:38
They collect them. So I started in the role in 2022
34:42
in December, started the Team Wales Business Club, onboarded the
34:46
first 10 partners, and then wake up one morning, I'm an early bird,
34:50
5 AM, look at my phone, it's going on fire. I'm like, what's going
34:53
on? To have a message of Australia have pulled out of
34:56
hosting the Commonwealth Games. Of course, yeah. Of which
35:00
that moment sat there and I thought, oh my goodness, we turned
35:04
ourselves into an events business. And we ramped up the Team Wales Business Club.
35:08
I phoned Rach and a few others and went, right, we need to up the
35:12
events, to up the exposure, keep morale high, because I know somebody's going
35:16
to step in. Obviously my team were incredibly under pressure. They'd already done
35:19
recces in Australia, spent thousands on going over to
35:23
Australia to set up what we were going to be doing there, and we
35:27
literally turned around events, what, monthly, to keep morale high,
35:32
you know, having rooms of 250, 300 businesses.
35:35
Um, across Wales hoping that somebody was going to step
35:39
forward. And there were times that I sat there thinking,
35:42
oh goodness, is this going to happen? But deep down I knew that somebody
35:46
would save such an important moment for, for so many nations.
35:51
Um, but without that galvanizing belief
35:56
that we were going to be okay and that we would all stand together and
36:00
we would make a solution, you know, I even look to see if we could
36:04
do something in Wales. Sadly, our facilities couldn't do it,
36:08
do the main games. We could explore
36:11
youth games in Wales in the future, and the Cabinet
36:16
Minister for Sport was questioned on that last week,
36:19
you know, would Wales look to do that? But what we
36:23
were able to do in such a short— it's such an awful moment of
36:27
time and such a challenging moment of time for so many
36:31
athletes sitting there looking forward, you know, we were
36:35
able to just roll out this whole new side of the business and then,
36:38
thank God, you know, we have Glasgow step forward saying,
36:42
it's okay, we've got you and we'll host it.
36:46
So yeah, so that was a challenge for us too.
36:49
And that just shows the power of the network, that people still carried on supporting
36:52
you when you were unsure. It was going ahead, you know. And I suppose that's
36:56
what we're, you know, that's what we really want to all benefit from, isn't it?
37:00
That kind of powerful networks that we've got.
37:03
Definitely. I was gonna— part
37:07
of me was thinking that before today's recording, that at the end I would say,
37:10
oh, what does success look like? But I get the feeling that it's
37:14
going to manifest itself in so many different ways that it's going to be a
37:18
foolish thing to ask and one that we probably wouldn't get any sort
37:21
of clear answer to. It's certainly something that, as I said, you know, from a
37:24
long-term longevity point of view, this is going to continue. And it'd be
37:28
interesting really to see over time how these conversations evolve, how the networks grow,
37:33
how just the contacts that people have on a day-to-day basis can grow.
37:37
What I'm more inclined to do before we wrap up today is to just ask
37:41
each of you to maybe give a shout-out or let the people
37:45
who are listening or watching today's podcast know where they can go to find
37:48
out more about your respective organisations, maybe do a little bit of their own research
37:52
into it. Let's start with you at the end, Rachel, and work our way down.
37:55
I think just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
37:59
I think LinkedIn is a great opportunity if you don't have an email address or
38:03
a telephone number to somebody. Just message me on LinkedIn and say,
38:07
hey Rach, I listened to your podcast thinking about Wales.
38:10
And, you know, but the best thing is just come and call us and come
38:14
down and visit. Give us a call, 01633 413000.
38:18
Brilliant.
38:23
Just give us a call and say, we want to come and have a look.
38:26
You know, you don't have to come with an agenda to say, I want to
38:29
do this, this, and this. Just come and have a look, have a look around,
38:32
and you'll be looked after by the sales managers who will be able to show
38:35
you everything that we have to offer. You might go away and think, I'll put
38:38
that in my pocket and that'll be for next year or the year after,
38:42
but I think just, just have a look at our website. It's got
38:45
lots of great imagery, lots of great case studies of people that
38:49
have had their events with us, and they'll be able to really see how you
38:53
can have events not just at Celtic Manor Resort but all of our properties.
38:56
Fabulous. And Rebecca,
38:59
I've no doubt there'll be people who've listened or watched this today
39:03
and gone, I've never, never come across the CEO of a Commonwealth Games
39:07
organization before. Where do they go to find out a little bit more about what
39:10
you guys are up to? Yes, I'm very accessible, the same as Rach
39:15
said, in terms of LinkedIn, Rebecca Edwards-Simmons on there.
39:18
Our website is teamwales.cymru.
39:21
Thank you very much.
39:24
And yeah, by all means, get in contact with us. We've got an incredibly
39:27
exciting 4 years now building up to Malta,
39:31
and the next Games will be in India. So very different
39:35
Games hosts and completely different challenges in comparison with
39:39
Glasgow up the road. Fabulous. And I'll come to you, Sharon, if I may,
39:42
on behalf of you both, just to ask, how do people listening today
39:47
find out about Hospitality and Events Network Wales? We've got a LinkedIn page,
39:50
so like Rachel, very much that's our kind of bread and butter.
39:54
We've also got an Instagram page. Because we are so new and our
39:57
network is growing, we're hoping that we can have
40:01
a website set up soon, but at the moment you can find us on LinkedIn.
40:04
We've got all of our events listed on there. And then you can see
40:08
what our future plans are shortly. And in terms of building a network,
40:12
what a great space to do it because it is so easy to connect and
40:16
build that network and see other people who are part of that network in a,
40:20
in a very short space of time. Yes, we'll be looking to do
40:24
another Wales Week in London event, so next February/March.
40:29
So if anyone's interested in getting involved or collaborating with
40:32
us or attending that from the London market, we'd be really
40:36
interested to have them come along. Fabulous.
40:40
Thank you very much to all of you for your time today. It's been great
40:42
talking to you. We are recording today's podcast from the
40:46
ICC Wales, part of the Celtic Collection. We're very, very grateful
40:50
to all the team here, Rachel, for looking after us and giving us such a
40:53
great surround to record the podcast in.
40:56
I really genuinely, I get excited when I get to set
41:00
all this up and, and come along and actually chat to people in person rather
41:03
than just through a computer screen. It does make the conversation so
41:07
much more enjoyable, so much more relaxing. I do think you— we get so much
41:10
out of it by being able to come to places like this and, and talk
41:13
to people. Um, thank you very much for watching today's podcast.
41:16
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41:27
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41:46
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41:50
Thank you very much to all of my guests today. Thank you very much again
41:52
the ICC Wales and the Celtic Collection for hosting us, and we'll see you on
41:56
the next edition of the Event Industry News Podcast. Goodbye,