Survey names London UK’s events capital
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The new ranking is based on the number of large event facilities in the city, successful Business Event Growth funding applications, the number of major events held in the location, percentage of corporates and associations which chose the location for events and finally the total number of events related jobs available in the area.
Unsurprisingly, with 60 large event facilities across the city, London takes the top spot across all metrics but is closely followed by Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. The top 10 locations in the UK for events as revealed by the new study are: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Leeds, Belfast and Brighton.
AYRE managing director, Chris Ayre says it’s the discrepancy between the number of large event facilities which is holding back towns and cities north of London: “Obviously London is the capital city and many businesses have their head offices there, but the Northern Powerhouse in digital and tech business is rising in cities such as Leeds and Manchester.
“It’s still disappointing to see that outside of London, there is a long way to go in terms of building large events facilities to meet the events’ need. Local councils and the Government need to place more investment in these conference centres and arenas outside of London so that these locations can effectively compete with the capital and host big scale events.”
The Business Events Growth Programme forms part of the Government’s commitment to building the business events sector. Since its launch in 2016, the programme has supported 40 events and bids across the UK, with more than £700,000 awarded. Of these 40 events, London was home to a quarter (10 events), with Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester, all successfully hosting the next highest number of applicants (4 each).
Chris Ayre added: “This insight again reflects that the lack of facilities and trust in destinations north of London means that businesses and event spaces in the capital are receiving more funding than their northern counterparts. Moving forward, more needs to be done to split the funding and grants available for business events evenly. This will help the sector grow beyond London.”
Ayre concludes: “Whilst we are happy to see some northern cities like Leeds and Manchester in the top ten ‘events capitals’ of the UK, we would like to see more done to increase the event’s offerings in these locations.
“Looking at Leeds, the city only has three large event facilities at this time, meaning no major business events are held in the city. We’d love to see our home town and other northern destinations higher up the list in the not so distant future, but this will require more backing and ultimately funding. There is a huge appetite for not only business events but major consumer events outside of London, and plenty of skilled workers who are eager to showcase their talents.”
