In a few weeks time we'll be heading in a North Easterly direction to the home of Newcastle United for the sixth CIPR Northern Conference. This event just seems to get better every year and as always is set to be one of the PR conference highlights in our part of the world.

The line up features keynotes from GMTV MD Paul Corley and Frank PR Chairman Graham Goodkind along with a wide selection of optional workshops which offer some excellent learning opportunities. These include sessions on Integrated Campaigns, Healthcare PR, Corporate Social Responsibility, Technology PR, an Arts PR panel discussion and an insight into media relations from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

There are also New Media sessions from the PR blogosphere's very own Likely Lads Stephen Davies and Simon Wakeman who will be respectively examining the impact of Online PR and the UK's first local authority podcast.

The event takes place on Thursday 21 June and a full programme and booking details can be found on the CIPR website.

As we prepare for the seventh University of Sunderland Delivering the New PR event which takes place in London on 5 June I was thinking of how many people the conference series has fired up since its inception in 2005.

Our business blog Eventualities certainly came about as a result of DTNPR and its been a great vehicle for us to talk about what we do as an event management company.

Now most blogs are actually nothing to do with business or PR and I thought I'd point people in the direction of two others I do purely for the fun of it.

Summerseat Views is an ongoing attempt to document the beautiful village we live in with photography and a few facts thrown in too.

Summerseat lies on the River Irwell between the northern towns of Bury and Ramsbottom. Technically it's in Greater Manchester however the county boundary changes in 1974 mean little to those who live in the area and allegiances to Lancashire still hold strong.

The blog has even attracted some ex pat visitors and hopefully it'll build into a long term record of life in and around the village.

The other blog relates to an independent record label I ran in the Eighties. It seems a lifetime ago now but the fact I needed a project for an evening class course on web design led to the Medium Cool website and blog.

The current level of interest in the underground music scene back then never ceases to amaze me nor do the thousands of visitors who have been dropping by from all over the world. If you want to hear what the label's groups sounded like you can visit the jukebox.

As an event management company we’re fortunate to have some great clients and a busy schedule of events across the UK but there was something very special for us about last Friday’s conference in Manchester.

The Don’t Panic Guide to Crisis Communications was our first own branded event and a small step towards realising our dream of building a recognisable brand of high quality, affordable national events.

To this end we wanted a venue which reflected our aspirations and so we opted for the architecturally stunning Bridgewater Hall, home of the world renowned Halle Orchestra. The venue is located in the heart of the city within easy reach of train stations, the Metrolink and acres of parking. Needless to say we were delighted with our choice as were our delegates who gave the venue and catering a unanimous thumbs up in their evaluation forms.

Big thanks go out to Deputy Corporate Events Manager Joanne Langton, in house events technician Ty and all the other staff who made our day so smooth and seamless. Detail is so important in our business and Joanne had prepared the event signage using our typeface and even visited our website to match the room uplighters to the Don’t Panic pink.

If you’re ever considering holding an event in Manchester do check out this venue. It’s fair to say it’s not the cheapest option in the city but I think you’ll be surprised at how reasonable the day delegate rate actually is. More importantly, good service and experience is priceless.

Our conference brought together a dream line up of speakers including Michael Bland – Michael Bland Communication Consultancy; Kevin Bocquet – Kevin Bocquet Media; Stephen Davies – PRblogger.com; Heather Edwards – Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust; Sarah Dean Forrester – Unique Creative Communications; Andy Green – GREEN Communications; Paul Kelly – Trimedia Harrison Cowley; Lucy Laville – Leeds Metropolitan University; Rob Skinner – first direct; Sally Sykes – AstraZeneca and Daniel Zammit – Dacorum Borough Council.

Together they made it such a strong conference and the feedback we received from our delegates was absolutely phenomenal. Everyone seemed to be taking away some real benefit from the advice and insight of our speakers with perhaps the only criticism being how much we’d managed to cram into the day! We’ll certainly take this on board together with the suggestions that we include some interactive sessions in future events.

Thanks go out to all our speakers and our sponsors VMA Group and Media Measurement for sharing our vision and supporting this event. Sponsorship is so important for conferences like this and really does help to keep our entry prices affordable.

We’re also eternally grateful for the way both the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations threw their weight behind us. I think you’ll all agree that CIPR North West Chair Dave Sanders did a fantastic job as MC and it’s interesting to note that many of the kind of events delegates said they’d like to see in future are already provided by regional CIPR groups.

Check back through this blog to see the kind of things we’ve been doing and remember both CIM and CIPR events are open to non members. Keep your eye on the regional events sections of their websites or visit this blog for forthcoming event news.

I’m pleased to say we’re now in discussions to bring a version of the crisis communications conference to London over the summer and we’re also working on the line up for what we think will be the sexiest public relations event ever.

New Wave PR will bring together the mavericks, visionaries and pioneers who are driving the communications industry forward and will feature an inspiring mix of social media, guerrilla marketing and word of mouth alongside speakers who are pushing the boundaries of so called traditional PR.

Thanks to everybody for making last week’s event a success and we hope we’ll see many of you again as speakers or delegates in the future. Please feel free to add any thoughts you might have to this blog.

Well it was last night as over one hundred delegates braved torrential Mancunian rain to attend the CIPR Northern Correspondents event at MMU Business School.

Helen Carter of The Guardian and James Wilson of the Financial Times were due to be joined by Ian Herbert of The Independent but sadly he couldn't be with us as he'd had to fly out to Portugal to cover the missing child case.

Even though we were one down, Helen and James did a fantastic job of providing an insight into their roles as Northern correspondents and how regional stories can make national news.

There's obviously a real demand for meet the media type events and hopefully they promote a better understanding of the constraints journalists work under and how best those in PR can pitch news stories successfully.

Sometimes event's can be a real inspiration and last night's Manchester Digital seminar on Second Life certainly fired up our audience.

Delegates from the region's digital industries were given an insight into the business opportunities of the virtual world and also an exclusive preview of Second Life Manchester, a digital presence for the city which goes live next month.

The virtual Manchester is spread over four islands and in time will feature a variety of landmark spaces from the real city. It's a partnership between Urbis, MDDA and Clicks & Links and representatives from each were on hand to discuss their involvement and aspirations for the pixellated city as a visitor destination and location for some very real enterprise.

Vaughan Allen, Chief Executive of Urbis, opened proceedings with his vision to replicate their exhibitions and associated events programme for visiting avatars including the forthcoming 25th anniversary of the city's legendary Hacienda nightclub. Expect some virtual raving in the near future...

Vaughan was followed by Vin Sumner and Oli Aro of Clicks & Links who discussed the challenges of recreating faithful and fully functioning versions of the city's architectural heritage with a demonstration of the customisable cubes and spheres which form the building blocks of the 3D world. Laplander Oli's avatar was particularly Viking-esque but he's still saving up his Linden Dollars for one of those horned hats!

Interestingly, Vin asked for a show of hands on all those who were actively leading Second Lives and almost half the room responded positively.

Our audience was then taken on an avatar-guided whistle stop tour of the faux glass and steel Urbis, the customisable training shoe creator on Reebok Island, Dublin's Blarney Stone for a virtual pint and NASA's ersatz collection of real world rocketry.

Finally Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency, raised some interesting points about the ethical and legal issues surrounding the recreation of a city in a virtual world and the potential infrigement of intellectual property rights in respect of buildings and other real world features.

SL creators Linden Labs have apparently already put a stop to naming digital locations after earthly places since 'Amsterdam' was sold on eBay for £60,000. Thankfully the team behind SL/Mcr have managed to secure Manchester UK for this project which will make it far easier for the virtual tourist...

It was a great night but I'm still out on this one. I think the whole thing looks clunky and blocky compared to the ever increasing sophistication of the visuals in today's video games. Maybe it'll catch up soon but as anyone in event management will agree, the hours we work make having a first life difficult at times!

SL/Mcr Urbis images courtesy Clicks & Links