Twickenham Stadium is underlining the importance of training and education-based events as a key part of the industry’s progression over the next six months. The stadium is reporting an increase in enquiries for training events & programmes, and see’s these events as critical to inject market and delegate confidence in face to face meetings.
The venue saw a 60% increase in training enquiries in the last six months and is expecting this to continue to rise in the first quarter of 2021. Typically, the events are shorter lead time, with the majority of bookings coming between 2 and 6 weeks out. The stadium is also seeing a growth in enquiries around exam and educational events, again underlining the importance of this sector of the market.
“Historically we’ve seen training as one of the earliest types of event to come back after the industry has received a shock,” comments Nils Braude, Managing Director, Twickenham Experience Ltd. “It makes sense; when businesses have received a trauma, the first thing they need as they look to recovery is an investment in their people, and possibly a mass reskilling programme.”
“For our industry though, we need to embrace meetings that are imperatives to business and use them as a way of generating confidence across the meetings and events space,” continues Nils. “If we can get delegates feeling comfortable in small training programmes, then this will have a positive effect on incentives, larger meetings and conferences. In our view, this should be a critical focus for the industry while we’re limited in the capacities we’re allowed to cater for.”
Twickenham Stadium has shown itself to be ideal for this kind of meeting, with Executive Boxes and smaller meeting rooms being used to keep smaller groups in bubbles and with communal areas wide enough to socially distance delegates without the need to overly sanitise the experience. Equally, the large rooms in the stadia are big enough to distance examinations, whilst still providing phased food service and break out time across the venue.
Nils concludes: “We’re lucky in the way our venue is naturally laid out, we have big spaces to allow distance between the larger groups, but we also have lots of smaller spaces in close proximity to their own breakout spaces. This is what we think the next six months will look like. If we can get delegates comfortable with the experience, it will give us a platform for when organisers can plan larger meetings next year.”
For further details please contact the events team conferences&events@rfu.com