What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 24 February 2014

Welcome to another week and we cannot believe how quickly the time is flying by - it doesn't seem two minutes since Christmas!

With the various events we have on the go, and lots of venue visits for client activity, the team are all a little like ships that pass in the night and never more so than last week.

Half of the team were at the BNC Show which is an exciting exhibition based in the heart of the City of London. The Show is designed to bring top event planners together with leading UK and international event suppliers in a refreshingly relaxed environment. 

As an incentive to get visitors along, every guest to the show was offered the choice of a gift which included luxury make-up from MAC, Chanel, Clarins, Clinique and more. 

Or if that was a little bit too girly for them, they had the choice to pick a free bottle of Champagne, restaurant vouchers or luxury products from Jo Malone London.

As well as these amazing registration gifts, they also received a luxury goodie bag from Fortnum & Mason which included luxury Tea Bags, Jam, Biscuits, Chocolate etc. On top of all of this, the team also came back with more business cards, brochures and gifts from exhibitors than they knew what to do with! 

Excluding all of the goodies the team received, they thought it was a truly spectacular event, with interesting, educational seminars and met with some lovely people as well as the cat from Harry Potter!

Meanwhile last week Paula enjoyed the fantastic hospitality of Accor with a Champagne Taster evening at the Sofitel Heathrow Hotel (never one to turn down a free drink!). In addition to lots of bubbly, the event was also a unique meet and greet event for the Sofitel Group as  most of European Hotels all had representatives there. Sofitel remains a real luxury brand within Accor and the service is always excellent with the facililties.

 

For conferences and meetings, it's a really wonderful property and with a walkaway access to Heathrow T5, incredibly useful so if anyone has any international events looming we would recommend it without a doubt.

 

Little touches always make a big different to an event and we couldn't agree more!

 

 

 So the team at Cloud 9 would like to give a huge thank you to the team at BNC, The Brewery, Accor and the Sofitel Heathrow Hotel for a great event and wonderful hospitality!

 

That's all for this week folks, have a great week!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 17 February 2014

Welcome to another week and we hope you're feeling revitalised from this Valentine's Weekend!

Talking of love... a couple of weeks ago we mentioned that we're working on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club and have launched their Midlands Media Awards. With 21 different categories, we're expecting a great standard of entries again this year.

Included within the categories is Public Choice, this is our only category which is not judged by the jury, but by the general public. The public will vote for their favourite media from the region through twitter using the #MidlandsMediaAwards hashtag.

All the entrants have to do, is download a 'Vote for Us' logo and attach it to their emails, website or any promotional activity. Votes from the public will be calculated based on the number of tweets received until 30 April 2014 and the award will be announced on the night. This is their chance to see how much the public love them and how engaged they are with their readers, viewers and listeners. 

You'll find full details on this via www.midlandsmediaawards.co.uk and you'll be able to see who is currently taking part and maybe put in a little vote yourselves!

Of course, The Midlands Media Awards are not the only programme which invites the Public to determine the success in certain awards style events.

Film fans from across Europe can elect their favourite European film. When the European Film Academy invites its members, Europe’s greatest film stars, directors, actors and actresses, to attend the European Film Awards, the People’s Choice Award sheds a spotlight on the people that films are made for, the audience!

Winners in the past have included films like Pedro Almodóvar’s VOLVER, Roberto Benigni’s LA VITA E BELLA, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s AMÉLIE, Fatih Akin’s HEAD-ON, and Danny Boyle’s SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. In 2012, the EFA People's Choice Award went to HASTA LA VISTA by Geoffrey Enthoven from Belgium.

Probably the best well known of all Public Choice voting events outside of the UK though, has to be The People’s Choice Awards in the USA. Aired back in January, honouring excellence in movie, TV and film as determined by the entertainment-loving public.
Big winners included Sandra Bullock, who took away a number of awards, including Favourite Movie Actress, and “Iron Man 3,” which scored Favourite Movie and Favourite Action Movie honours.

Then of course for anyone with a youngster at home there is the Nickleodeon Kids Choice Awards which is reliant on the votes of the viewers. 

So just who is gonna got SLIMED? 

Just about everybody apparently — at the 28th annual Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards where the green goo-fest continues all night long...

In 2014, watch for Kid's Choice Awards nominees to be announced anytime now when fans will have the chance to vote for their favorite stars beginning at Nick.com in addition to a special Facebook application and Twitter custom hash tags. 
Then, get ready for the big night when a brand new edition of the Kid's Choice Awards airs live on Nickelodeon on Saturday, March 29, 2014 beginning at 8PM ET! 

Your host this year? It's none other than action star Mark Wahlberg -- promising the most kick-butt KCAs yet! 

So there, that told you!

We think we’ll stick to the Public Choices for the Midlands Media Awards thank you – and give the slime a miss!

Have a great week, enjoy!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 10 February 2014

Welcome to another week and with Valentines Day ahead, love is in the air...or is it?

According to the last census of the 44.9 million adults usually resident in England & Wales in mid-2010, 48.2 per cent were married, 35.6 per cent were single, 9.3 per cent were divorced and 7.0 per cent were widowed.

But changes in the population by marital status in the year to mid-2010 continue the long term trends seen since mid-1971; the proportions of the adult population who are married and widowed continue to decline and the proportions who are single and divorced continue to rise.

So singles or singletons are a growing trend but just where do they look for love?

Apparently, a third of new relationships begin online and on average, nine million Britons log on to dating sites in their quest to find a significant other, an industry which research firm Mintel estimates will be worth £150 million this coming year.

So when consumers hit the web for romance, what are some of the most common words typed in when searching?

Leading independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight, analysed September search data last year,  to identify the most popular online dating-related keywords consumers used when they went to Google UK to begin their search, and in turn, to discern the most visible online dating sites to them.

The agency’s ‘Online Dating Report – Issue 2’ found there were over 871,000 dating-related searches made online in September 2013. The majority of consumer queries (15%) were for free internet dating sites, the terms ‘free dating sites’, ‘free dating’ and ‘free online dating’ amounting to 132,600 searches in total.

The report also looked in depth at age ranges, nationality, and all sorts of other specifics info about how people search for love, and assuming you might want to register online, we thought we would offer our own little Cloud 9 Event Management guide to Love Online....

Do take the time to get your profile right. Spend some time making sure your profile is as good as possible and that it reflects your personality. Also make sure anything you put online correctly spelt - it could put people off otherwise!
Do make your first message count and make sure it reads like a personal message. Mention things from the person’s profile and interests that caught your eye and made you want to get in touch, whatever the reason. Part two of this is also, don't be afraid to make the first move, it's only a message!

Don’t misrepresent yourself on your profile. You might have looked great in that picture 20 years ago but if you don't still look like that, it's not very honest is it? It's also not a good idea to use a selfie as your profile photo! It looks like you don't have any friends!

Don't let a bad dating experience get to you. Just because the last one was awful it doesn't mean the next one will be.

Do accept dates with people who aren't your “type” and also make sure your first dates are in a public place and always let a friend or family member know where you'll be.

Do make online dating a priority.It's all very well registering but if you never go on the site, you are never going to meet anyone!

 

Don't go for dinner on the first date. Once you're sitting at a table with this stranger, you're trapped until the bill comes – and they could be a very slow eater and dull as ditch water.

Don't be late, its rude and unless its unavoidable, it can set a bad precedent. Also its not a good idea to arrive drunk or come from somewhere else where you've been drinking.

 

And finally, Do actually date. Get out and meet in real life! 

 

So whether you are single, married, loved up or not, we wish you all lots of love for this Valentines Day and a fab week ahead.

 

Cloud 9 towers over and out for this week, see you next....

 

PS. Our new website coming soon! 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 3 February 2014

Welcome to another week and it's a busy and interesting one to say the least!

We're working on behalf of the Birmingham Press Club again this year to launch the Midlands Media Awards, which is their largest and most prestigious annual event attended by over 300 of the regions media professionals and key guests from the business community. 

Entries are now open for the Awards to anyone working within the local media, journalists, broadcasters & online news contributors with 20 categories to choose from, including one which will enable the public to vote for their favourite source of news and information. 

We already have a fantastic line-up of two tier judges including Peter Lowe, Managing Editor of Sky News (Chairman), Peter Brookes, Senior Lecturer in Sports Journalism at Staffordshire University, Television presenter Marverine Cole, former Birmingham Post editor Fiona Alexander and Steve Dann, regional chairman of The Journalists Charity. 

The Awards will take place on the 5 June 2014 at The Holte Suite, Aston Villa Football Club again this year. Please see www.midlandsmediaawards.co.uk for full details.

On top of that, most of the team were down in Bristol for a couple of days last week for the Destination Bristol event. 

Destination Bristol promote the interests and development of the visitor economy, and working in close collaboration with stakeholders to develop and enhance the city centre. Destination Bristol has a first-class track record of delivering projects on behalf of third-party agencies and supporting the emergence of other partnerships by applying its extensive understanding of successful collaborative working, and its experience in delivering client-focused projects.  

For the first time they delivered an interesting and educational FAM trip, aiming to inspire visitors and differentiates the city region from its competitors, exploiting the unique character and its internationally recognised icons. We have to say, they did just that and we at Cloud 9 had a great time! 

Cloud 9 Team

It began with a tour around Bristol on the City Sightseeing Open Top Bus, which was great but we all did regret the decision to sit on the top in the current weather! The company had very kindly provided blankets for us all and after a few minutes there were requests for another blanket! It was a great experience and fantasitc, unique way to view the city. 

 During the trip we had the opportunity to look at some superb venues including The Avon Gorge Hotel, ss Great Britain, The Bristol Hotel, Hotel du vin, At Bristol and many more! As a result of this we were lucky enough to see a variety of unique conference and events spaces and release our inner child like behaviour. You may think how is being a big kid got anything to do with an educational FAM trip? Well... during our visit to At Bristol, we had the chance to explore hundreds of hands-on exhibits and their Planetarium! 

We had a fantastic time, they were great hosts, received firstclass, warm hospitality from all of the venues and met some lovely people, so we'd like to thank everyone involved in the trip!

Have a great week and we'll see you next week. Enjoy!