Last Tuesday we took the high road to Edinburgh for the fourth in the series of the University of Sunderland’s ‘Delivering the New PR’ conferences which took place the next day.
It was great to meet up with the gang again and everyone was on particularly good form at the obligatory conference eve meal which was held at the city’s Bar Roma. The Scargilled lamb cutlets were excellent!
Sadly none of us had the time to take in the sights however I did manage a glimpse of the floodlit castle on an enforced outdoor smoking break with the inimitable Neville Hobson.
The conference opened with a welcome from CIPR Scotland Vice Chair Adrian Mahoney whose presence was greatly appreciated especially as he's in the middle of fighting a campaign to save his local museum.
As always with this event, the delegate list was a virtual who’s who of PR agencies and major players from the public and private sector all keen to learn more about this social media thing. Everyone was genuinely attentive and I guess we’ll be leaving behind yet another trail of 'New PR' inspiration.
Scotland’s a beautiful country and you never know, we might soon be seeing a blog and podcast from our Visit Scotland delegates. It was also good to meet Christine McMillan from Scottish Screen, Jim Sproat from Community People and the Press Officers from RAF Lossiemouth and the region’s MOD.
Particular mention must go to the Sea Fish Industry’s William Ancell who hosts the innovative Captain’s blog which details Jimmy Buchan’s life at sea and is receiving hits from trawler men worldwide. As well as playing a Fender Jaguar – probably the coolest guitar ever made - he is also planning to extend his interest in sound recording into a ‘codcast’ as a means to give us all an insight into the people who toil to put the fish with our chips.
The event took place at The Holiday Inn North’s Academy conference centre which is situated on the 5th floor of the building and provides stunning views of the nearby hills. We used the Macallan & Glenfiddich suites which were combined to provide a 120 capacity theatre style room. Our only issue here was that the required rear projection we’d previously discussed with the venue was not possible without losing a large percentage of our space. Thankfully the ever reliable LAS event production team of Chris and Darren set up a corner stage area to overcome the dilemma.
From a logistics point of view it’s also worth noting that there is no service lift and as parts of our stage were too large for the normal elevators they had to be carried up by hand. An observant text from Chris succinctly highlighted the issue as ’96 steps’! This is a major oversight but to be fair, the Holiday Inn’s conference host Janis Lee was particularly helpful throughout the day and did offer to provide some of the hotel’s staff to help.
The Academy’s panoramic business lounge area was used for our refreshment breaks with the added bonus of unlimited tea and Starbucks coffee built into the day delegate rate. An excellent lunch was also served in the hotel’s restaurant.
The Holiday Inn North is ideal if like us you have to fly in speakers as the airport is only 4 miles from the venue. We also had a number of delegates taking advantage of some really good internal flight deals to travel from London, the Midlands and Cardiff. As an added bonus the hotel also provides ample free parking and is next door to Edinburgh Zoo.
All in all it was a great day and I also got to use my Fuji S9500 for the first time at an event. The results are scattered throughout this post.
We even had some pre publicity in the Sunday Herald thanks to Media Correspondent Steven Vass. It's an interesting piece with plenty of examples courtesy of interviews with Stuart Bruce and Neville Hobson.Thanks Guys.
Sadly, we can now announce that the final ‘Delivering the New PR’ conference will be held in London on 10 November however, on a brighter note, we’re pleased to be in discussion with the University of Sunderland and our speakers to put together an essential sequel event which we intend to tour next year. Watch this space!