Without a large arena to attract the numbers, do conference and exhibition venues in Leeds suffer from a Cinderella syndrome? Richard Stirling reports.
On a grey, windswept Monday morning, Chris Owen, marketing director for Royal Armouries (International) (RAI), has a date with one of the most colourful characters in Yorkshire.
Across Saviles Hall, and resplendent in a blue spangled tracksuit, red-tinted glasses, fat cigar and more bling than a Batley nightclub, Sir Jimmy Savile has turned up to once again sit in the chair he occupied during 20 years presenting Jim’ll Fix It.
The publicity is priceless for RAI, with national press and TV vying to speak to the star as he sits before a wall depicting some of his finest moments, photographed with Elvis, The Beatles and a host of other stars.
Naming the conference and exhibition space after one of Leeds’ finest sons and creating a tribute to his life has been a stroke of marketing brilliance, according to Owen. In the six weeks after Sir Jimmy launched the venue two years ago, the hall attracted more than £2m of business and Saviles Hall is establishing itself alongside the Royal Armouries name as a prestigious location.
But considering Yorkshire’s rich and diverse infrastructure, the region’s principal commercial city punches well below its weight when it comes to business tourism.
Leeds’ offering is dwarfed by the grandiose conference and exhibition spaces of its neighbours along the M62, Manchester’s GMEX or Liverpool’s King’s Dock, or Magna just down the M1, and this is further confounded by a shameful lack of parking for visitors to the city lucky enough to negotiate its one-way system and not end up heading towards York on the A64.
Although Leeds City Council has stepped in to push along plans for the Arena, the city will still lack the pull of a big venue for a few years to come with no plans to match the NEC on the horizon.
Does Owen feel the city lacks a large venue, and how would Saviles Hall sit alongside it? “As far as we’re concerned a larger venue would be great news,” he says. “We’re reasonably sized, but we’re not a GMEX or ExCel – there’s a lot of demand for the 350 to 700 market and we fit that well. There is a place for us and for a larger venue, too.”
Owen spent the previous week in Glasgow, where he was sizing up events for RAI on as unlikely topics as mobility and surgeons. Does he feel that diversity is the route to success in the current climate?
“The type of event is changing,” he says. “Clients are going from hospitality-based events to the type of events where people want to present their vision. It is a very serious time at the moment in terms of what the venue is being used for, but awards are still very good for us.”
With a change in heart among corporate clients from using events as flamboyant celebrations of success to an altogether more work-motivated attitude, RAI is finding new markets to increase its footfall.
“There are a lot of very exciting things happening and it seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to them,” says Owen. “We have had a lift for the summer with Asian weddings, for example.”
Divisions Apart
Over at Elland Road, Leeds United conference events manager Helen Briden is finding the venue in the same situation. “We’re noticing people want to put on smaller events,” she says. “People are having a meeting with a lunch. We do quite a lot of charity gala dinners, but numbers are down on those this year.”
If the current economic climate has deterred people from attending charitable dinners, it has not kept them indoors altogether, and revenues at Leeds United rose 38 per cent in the year to April.
Like the RAI, the club is finding the market for Asian weddings to be particularly lucrative and Briden explains why this market should suit a middle-sized venue. “These weddings can have up to 3,000 people coming along during the day,” she says. “They will cater for 1,000 or 2,000 people during that time. People will come from all over the country, show their respects, have some food and then leave. We don’t need the capacity to seat them all at one time, but we do need a lot of seating.”
A Business-like Manor
Harewood House might have the majestic splendour that only an English country pile can produce, but chief executive Richard Mansell emphasises that it is in prime position to attract Leeds business, being just a stone’s throw from the city. One year into his post, after serving as chief executive of Leeds Chamber of Commerce, Mansell is in the process of broadening the scope of events hosted by the house.
He says the economic slump has hit the top end of Harewood’s range, with its fine dining facilities showing a 20 per cent drop this year, but believes corporate events will be a growth area and bookings for the marquee have been up by 40 per cent.
Another tack Mansell is taking is to brush up Harewood’s website. “It was an award-winning website six years ago,” he says, “but we’re trying to modernise the business and look at digital marketing as the way to do it.”
Changing clients’ perceptions of existing venues and getting them to think of them as places to hold their corporate events is a big challenge. Leeds United has also had to cope with very limited funds to do this. With a marketing budget limited to 0.5 per cent of its revenue, the club has to pool its resources to promote itself as a conference venue.
Briden says building the club’s reputation has also been a steady process. Certainly, the football team’s defeat to Millwall in the Division 1 playoffs has done little to raise its profile. “If we were a premiership club, we would have got more attention and a lot more prestige,” she says. “But we do have great customers and do what we do here very well.”
The Challenge Ahead
Business venues in Leeds have a lot to overcome if they are to avoid being the poorer sisters to those of Manchester, Liverpool or South Yorkshire and they have to draw on their full resourcefulness to do so. Some, like the RAI, have the budget, the profile and the big-name backing to hit the headlines, while Harewood House has the task of changing traditional attitudes towards the function of a stately home to a business-like way of thinking using modern technology.
But common to all venue managers is the need to be ever more resourceful when facing tightening budgets and changes in their clients’ attitudes and needs – towards small, serious, more focused events. If Leeds lacks a premiership-sized arena to showcase the city with large exhibitions, it must prove that it can drag itself to the top of the conference league.
Also in: June 2009
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Putting People Back in the Picture
When times were good, businesses were too busy keeping their eyes on the balance sheets to take a good long look at clients and make value judgements about them.
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Digitally Remastered
Big plans are afoot that will create super-fast broadband in the South Yorkshire region. Julie Hayes asks how this project will create opportunities for local businesses.
