What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 29 October 2018

Welcome to another week and we are looking forward to next weekend already and the My Sight Notts Fireworks, family fun event taking place at Nottingham Racecourse on Sunday 4 November.

November, already! Where has the year gone. We are already booking events not just for 2019 but through into 2020 and in some cases 2021.

For most #eventprofs its been a challenging year and staying on top of all of the changes within hotels and venues is not easy. 

Most of the Q hotels have been sold or are undergoing a rebrand under their new ownership and will emerge as Hilton’s or Marriott’s and Accor are increasing their portfolio with the purchase of Movenpick.

These are just two examples of the ever-changing face of the industry, and it got us thinking about what happens to all of the marketing materials and branded elements when something like this happens.

Whenever we engage with suppliers, in addition to the details about their portfolios or venues, we also usually end up with everything from branded pens to post it notes, notes books and note pads, and stress balls and screen wipes.

In all honesty, some of it is useful but the bulk of it is not, and normally ends up collecting dust in some cupboard or on an inaccessible shelf.

However, whilst we may suffer from a little clutter, what on earth do hotels do with the mountains of branded items they must have when they are no longer synonymous with their brand.

The bulk of hotels have branded menus, notepads, pens, signage an all sorts of uniforms and promotional items so its an awful lot of stuff to simply send to landfill especially when its such a hot topic and sustainability is all the rage.

When a hotel does rebrand, and before any of us have the chance to check in – and check out the refurbishments – there is an awful lot of work to be done. A hotel rebrand goes way beyond a few new dressing gowns and a fresh box of newly branded pens.

The numbers, it turns out, are quite extraordinary. Even at the Melia Desert Palm, which only has 39 rooms and has just undergone a rebrand has had to order 2,000 key cards, 2,000 luggage tags and 1,000 pens. 

While most hotels are able to stay with the same brand for the entirety of its lifetime, 43 percent of hotels change affiliations at least once, according to data collected by the STR Census Database, which tracks hotel affiliations over time. Nearly one-quarter undergo two or more brand changes.

So that’s an awful lot of unwanted post it notes, where do they all go?

Have a great week.

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 22 October 2018

Welcome to another week and we’d like to talk food this week,  as some of the menus we have seen recently from Conference Hotels and Venues really show a dramatic difference from those we were faced with when we first started delivering client events back in 2003.

Stodgy seemed to be the order of the day back in the nineties and early naughties with a range of sandwiches with crisps and chips, and heavy baked goods with the odd token grape or slice of melon in a nod to healthy eating.

Ironically enough, if back then you were presented with anything green you thought you were being offered rabbit food which is the last thing most conference delegate wants to enjoy. However, all this stodgy food just made delegates sleepy and the first session after lunch at many an event became almost like a graveyard shift with no interaction and heavy eyes.

Luckily for us all these days, the majority of Conference venues and hotels have really stepped up their game with imaginative and tasty dishes that appeal to a wide range of diets and accommodate even the strictest diets, even factoring in allergies and the most fussy of delegates.

So what food trends can we look forward to in the future? Well exciting stuff lies ahead for conference delegates where their event planner has enough vision and dedication to embrace change. With food costs rising and the competition amongst chefs at an all time high, then standard conference food could well include bugs – and put there on purpose!

The notion of insects as food might make your skin crawl, but they have been eaten by people for thousands of years and are actively eaten in various parts of the world.
Insects are cheap, nutritious and according to some supporters, they are delicious and with over 2,100 edible insect species, they offer a vast array of options for preparing food items where insets are the main element.

Arguably, Mexico is the country where bug consumption is most popular, and you can find many Mexican delicacies such as candy-covered worms, chocolate-covered locusts, and ant eggs soaked in butter. Brazilians like to collect ants, remove wings and fry and eat them. They also like ants dipped in chocolate and to them, ants simply taste like mint.
Silkworm soup and grasshopper tacos are found in some San Francisco, New York, and Washington D.C. restaurants and whilst not widespread yet, eating bugs is becoming more popular in the U.S. And what is popular over in the States, invariably makes its way to the UK before long. 

The dislike, disgust or fear of much of the trend towards the eating of insects will require a major shift in public perception and we doubt at this stage that many clients will embrace a conference menu where bugs are the main star – but who knows!
Now, where did we leave that chocolate covered ant?

Have a great week and enjoy!

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 15 October 2018

Welcome to another week and we are in major awards mode again this week with Fresh Fashion, Fresh Film, the VR Awards, The International Drone Awards and two new projects which are a little under wraps until early November.

 We're  big on awards here at Cloud 9 Towers and in addition to our free venue finding service, we like to think we're pretty good at them, but they are funny things.

 

Great when you are winning them, but less important if you are not. One of the great things about being involved with awards is the joy of seeing those win and even at the nomination stage, the air of expectation is enjoyable.

Awards themselves and we are taking actual trophies here can cause all sorts of angst amongst event planners. Something expensive and heavy shows a commitment to your brand, something creative and quirky means you are winning something fairly unique and something a little on here cheap side can make it seem as if you are running the event on a shoestring

Arguably, the most famous awards statue is the legendary Oscar Trophy from the Academy Awards and the stories that surround these golden figures are endless and epic but perhaps the most unusual is when they go missing. Once the winners have them, and we see the gritted teeth of the ones that lost, where do these trophies end up? Jodie Foster uses her two as faucets apparently but what happens to some of the others?

Well, a few have vanished or have been stolen, including Frances McDormand’s best actress statuette for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri which was stolen briefly on Oscar night 2018. 

However, around 15 remain unaccounted for to this day and others have been the been the focus of intense legal battles and disputes. However, the vast majority of the 3,048 Oscar statuettes presented from 1929 to 2017 have had a perfectly ordinary post-ceremony life. 

The 13.5in (34.3cm) figure seems perfectly suited to a mantelpiece which is where the likes of actors Joanne Woodward, Anthony Quinn and Donna Reed placed theirs, and some prefer to stick them in the smallest room so they are not seen as show offs!

Several Oscars have simply vanished. Vivien Leigh’s best actress Oscar for A Streetcar Named Desire was stolen when her home was broken into by burglars in the 1950s and Olympia Dukakis’s best supporting actress statuette for Moonstruck was stolen from her home by a thief, who called her and tried to sell it back to her, as if a ransom. Instead, Dukakis decided to pay the Academy $78 for a replacement.

So if you do ever get your hands on a trophy or any sort, do try and look after it and remember that here at Cloud 9, we are pretty good at Awards so shout us for your next event!

Have a great week.