What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 10 April 2017

Welcome to another week and we're pleased to report that a good time was had by all at last weeks CHS Event in Leeds. It was great catching up with all of the suppliers we use on a regular basis as well as meeting new ones, and lots of new potential venues.

Increasing your event industry knowledge is an ongoing and important part of our business and with so many new venues and changes in ownership, keeping up to date is sometimes a difficult task!

However, we are keen on education here at Cloud 9 Towers, as we think the more knowledge we have, the better informed we can be for clients so the team here and our Ambassadors are always researching, meeting and looking for the best options available.

From venues in Birmingham, Berlin, Bolivia or Brazil, you name it, we're on the case!

In other news this week, we're pleased to announce that last week we started a new partnership with the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, the largest Chamber outside of London. 

As part of this new initiative, we're offering Chamber members in the East Midlands a complimentary health check on any event activity.

What this entail is really a one to one personal session where we can look at what you are spending on events and whether we can do better for you in terms of venue and supplier negotiation.

We'll also review whether you are getting a good ROI on your events and seeing how you evaluate them from both your own and delegates perspective. 

Lastly, we'll be looking at your social media usage when it comes to events and providing some useful tools and tips to help improve delegate engagement and awareness. 

If you are not a Chamber member, but would still like to see just how your events are performing, do please get in touch and either one of the team here at Cloud 9 or one of our regional Ambassadors would be delighted to make an appointment with you.

It's all free and you never know we could save you lots of money, and lots of time, which let's be fair, in today's world amounts to the same thing!

It's a short week this week with Easter, so we wish you an abundance of Chocolate Easter Eggs and a great few days over the Easter Holidays.

If you are feeling particularly flush, you might want to splash out this weekend on a rather pricey egg for your nearest and dearest! We can’t imagine many people are prepared to spend £1000 on an Easter egg but if you decide to be decadent then an epic creation should be right up your street.

The giant Easter Atelier Egg from Godiva is a whopping 66cm tall and weighs 14 kg. Taking four hours to decorate with layers of white, milk and dark chocolate used to create a lace like effect, its pretty stunning but here at Cloud 9 we'd be afraid to crack it, which is half the fun of an Easter Egg!

Have a great week! 

 

 

What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 20 February 2017

Welcome to another week and with the recent BAFTA's, The Brit Awards on Wednesday and the Oscars looming, Awards Season is well and truly upon us. 

We like a good Awards do here at Cloud 9 Towers and we've run hundreds of them in our time, and one of the ones we are actively involved with at present is the CHS Awards. 

The awards provide hotels and venues with a unique opportunity to showcase their facilities to the events industry at large, compete in each of the carefully chosen categories and be recognised at a glittering Awards Ceremony on the 11th May 2017 at The Royal Armouries in Leeds.

With guaranteed exposure to a receptive audience of hosted buyers, an industry seal of approval for a job well done, a great platform for promotional marketing and first rate networking, the Awards are open to any hotel or venue within the UK.

Judged in two key stages by leading industry professionals and then by agency decision makers, these Awards, which will be fun, fair and credible, will also offer the perfect environment for entertaining clients and customers alike in a fun setting.

 There are many benefits of entering awards, from PR exposure and increased credibility to improved team morale and celebrating success.

Not only that, the CHS Awards give your hotel or venue the opportunity to get in front of over 70 venue finding agents from across the UK who judge the awards for us.

Mega MacBraidy, General Manager of Horizon Leeds who won the Chairman's Award last year said "Entering the CHS Awards is a brilliant way to promote your venue. The judges are all prestigious industry names, so getting our venue in front of them really helped increase our profile, and then winning increased it even further. These are the only industry awards to offer venues the opportunity to showcase a room or a part of their service – so smaller venues can compete with larger ones. We won four awards in 2016 and the impact of winning has been amazing – and very good for our business. We have used the logo in our marketing, on our emails and the awards are on the wall in reception for everyone to see. Being an award winning venue has helped put Horizon Leeds on the map, and I’m very much looking forward to entering this year and hoping to retain our crown!"

The Awards are free to enter and the deadline is Friday 3 March 2017. 

Whilst we are on the subject of Awards, we attended Love Business last week at Donnington Park, in conjunction with the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, to mark the launch of their 2017 Business Awards.

Part of our contribution to the event was to prepare a crib sheet with tips and advice for entering the Awards and just in case you need a reminder why awards matter, we thought we would share it with you.

1.      Awards are a great way to demonstrate that you believe passionately in what you do as a business, as well as motivating your team as it underlines your commitment to their work or productivity. 

2.      Awards offer a great opportunity for you to take a step back from the day to day running of your business and appraise your activities - so even if you don’t win a trophy, your business will still benefit from your own review. 

3.      Be clear about your objectives and your story when applying. You might know your business inside out and back to front, but the judges don’t, so make sure you communicate clearly and concisely.

 4.      Ask for collaboration or invite stakeholders to support your application with an endorsement or even just a review of your Awards application. From typos to testimonials, an outside opinion might make all the difference to your chances of success. 

5.      Awards offer an excellent opportunity to undertake some free marketing, so if you are shortlisted, make sure the whole world knows about it. Add a button or banner to all of your literature and online platforms and PR your achievements traditionally and via social media. It’s time to embrace your success. 

6.      Awards enable you to benchmark your business and see how you are performing against your peers and competitors. What are they doing differently and what ideas can you adopt for your own business.

 7.      Awards open doors and allow you to engage in new conversations with potential customers. They offer new opportunities to increase the credibility of your business and differentiate you from the competition so make most of the awards at all stages.

 8.      Awards enable you to attract new talent to your business, as potential employees are more likely to be attracted to your company, especially as you have already shown a commitment to your current staff or team. 

9.      Awards provide a great networking opportunity on the night of the ceremony. Even if you don’t win an actual award, you can still win new business, new contacts and new potential opportunities so you will never leave empty handed. Make the most of the experience at each and every stage

 10.  Celebrate your success (or attendance) and extend the longevity of your win with as many photographs and images as you can, as we live in a digital world where content matters – so collect as much as you can at every stage.

To find out more about The Chamber Business Awards this year please see the website!  

Have a great week and remember to think Awards!