Spend A Day With…Vue Conferences & Events
For the very first writing of this new feature, I was lucky enough to ‘Spend A Day With…’ the marvelous Rachel Macaulay from Vue Conferences & Events on a fantastic day that took in their fabulous conference facility at their Westfield White City venue, seeing how their conference sales department ran things at their head office in Chiswick before rounding the day off watching the team deliver a star studded film premiere at their Leicester Square site in front of thousands of fans. Wow!
The first thing I’d like to get across is the fantastic things that Vue Conferences and Events have to offer to us event managers. Not only do they have a totally dedicated team of people at their head office to manage the whole process of your event, from the sales enquiry right through to the delivery, but they have the ability to offer you any of their 87 separate venues that range the length and breadth of the country. Quite literally there will be one of their venues not too far away from you. More of this below...
9.00am
Westfield - Seeing a client conference in action
The first part of our day was spent over at the Vue in Westfield White City Shopping Centre who were about to host a large conference of 350 people for one of their clients.
The initial thing that struck me about this particular venue was the large open space that the venue had to host the coffee breaks and lunch. It was huge and full of natural light, being on the top floor of the shopping centre. It could easily take the 350 delegates and then some. It was in this area that registration was handled and it worked really nicely with lots of room for people to grab a coffee before entering the conference.
As the delegates entered the actual auditorium you were able to see why using one of Vue venue’s makes a fantastic option. To put it quite simply the projection screen in this room was absolutely immense, being one of their Xtreme Screens it was of huge proportions over 7m tall x 16m wide - the size of four double decker buses!! Wow!
Presentations were done from the lectern at the front which was viewable by everyone due to the banked position of the seating. The dedicated Vue operations team were also on hand to run microphones for audience questions, hand out water and even…bags of popcorn - love this option!
Their venues are absolutely perfect for a product launch, company briefing, town hall type meeting and much more. Also, once you factor in the super comfortable seats and the mind blowing, top quality audio visual capabilities they have, it really makes a lot of sense to consider them for any theatre style meetings that you might have.
The lunch time buffet was handed really well for such a large number, with the operations team setting up multiple food stations on the semi-private concourse area with the operations team directing people to use all of the stations. The service was super smooth, with lots of serving and waiting staff - all totally professional as you would expect.
One other thing worth considering from Vue is their ability to offer super high quality video conferencing to broadcast and interact to any number of their other venues, with their multi-site fibre streaming solution.
2.00pm
Head Office - the sales team
It was at this point that we headed over to Vue’s head office in Chiswick, which is home to the six strong Conference & Events team.
It’s from here that all sales enquiries are handled, as well as pulling together all the operational requirements for each event. For example, one of the team might take an enquiry from a client, before checking availability with the screen content team (to book out a particular screen), before putting together the quote and running things through from there with the contract and operational requirements / briefing.
For larger events, members of the team even go onsite to oversee the smooth running of everything for their client. Excellent customer service and a really fantastic team, who seem like a real pleasure to work with.
It was interesting to note some of the enquiries that the team were working on such as one request to hire out a number of screens at multiple locations throughout the country, to deliver a conference to large numbers of people at different places. This would be using Vue’s cutting edge multi-site streaming technology (as mentioned above) which enables you to be able to have full, two-way video conferencing - ideal for panel discussions with a number of different venues in real time. A really good thing to be able to offer for clients and one I will definitely keep in mind.
Something else that Vue can offer is private screenings of movies - ideal to use as part of an incentive scheme, as a reward to a team or something nice to do for staff. Once again, this comes with the same opportunities for catering, popcorn, etc.
6.00pm
Jumanji - UK Premiere
In the evening, I was lucky enough to be invited to go with the team to the VERY glamorous UK premiere of the new Jumanji movie at their flagship venue in Leicester Square - wow! The first thing that struck you was how utterly well organised it was. From the masses of liaison that the team had to do with the council and police to cordon off the red (or in this case green) carpet area right through to the refreshments left on every seat for all attendees - everything was fantastic and super slick.
As an event manager myself, I realise the level of detail required to get these things right, especially when you factor in the attendance of A-list Hollywood movie stars (and how flexible and accommodating you have to be) - the event operations team were absolutely spot on!
From 6.30pm onwards it all got very surreal, seeing the superstars arrive: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Nick Jonas, working the crowd and then us walking down the green carpet in front of thousands of people, before watching the movie (which was introduced by the director and two of the stars). I totally recommend doing this if you get the opportunity - at least once in your life anyway!
Summary
To sum it all up, spending a day with Vue Conference & Events was an absolute pleasure - led by Rachel Macaulay, they really are a great team with a fantastic conference offering - one that is definitely worth considering for any theatre style or multi-site event for your clients. Especially when your client asks for something ‘outside the box’.
Seeing the Vue sales team at head office and then the operational teams in action at the premiere as well as at the conference earlier in the day, definitely bodes well for any future conferences you might be able to put their way. But don’t take just my word for it, go and have a site inspection or show round - you’ll really like what you see.
P.S. Please keep your eyes posted in the new year for details of a free private screening event of a top movie, that Vue will be putting on strictly for the Wranglers!!! #exciting
For any enquiries or more information, please contact:
Rachel Macaulay – Head of Conference Sales
Tel: +44 (0) 345 300 2231
Mobile: +44 (0)7880 405130
Email:Rachel.Macaulay@Vuemail.com
Website: conferencing.myvue.com