Versatility is the key to making the SECC a great venue, according to one planner whose event started off modestly but within a few short years has grown into a show with production values to rival some of the biggest international technology conferences in the world.
Joan Serafini, of Equator Events, runs the 360D gathering at the Glasgow venue on behalf of Scottish Enterprise’s Interactive Scotland programme. It is aimed squarely at Scotland’s fast-growing digital and creative technologies industry, and has seen the likes of global tech giants Buzzfeed, LinkedIn and Scotland’s very own FanDuel deliver keynote speeches to industry.
The event has been running for six years, and was created by Interactive Scotland, which has witnessed the annual gathering become a fixture on the UK digital circuit.
Serafini was contracted by Interactive Scotland to run the event three years ago, and for the first two years used the SECC’s Lomond Auditorium as the main speakers’ auditorium. That changed in 2015 with the creative input of Phil Smith, whose production management credentials have seen him work with the likes of the Royal Albert Hall and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
For last September’s event, Smith had the idea of creating an auditorium within Hall 2 of the SECC for 360D, creating the illusion of a smaller space, which was quite a feat.
Serafini adds: “Phil is the driving force behind all the creative ideas – and what he did looked visually stunning, but it was also purposeful.
“Hall 2 is large but very adaptable and it actually looked pretty full with the way we did the breakout areas. It was a good flow,” says Serafini, an events industry veteran who once worked as the Private Secretary for former First Ministers Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell.
“And that’s the beauty of the SECC,” she adds. “It’s got areas to suit everybody – they can go from 100 to 150 up to thousands. It’s a good size and you can quite easily design the space in a way that makes it look different or unique for the event you are running.”
The SECC was chosen as the venue for 360D last year after six other venues across the country were discounted, including locations in Edinburgh. However Serafini insists it was not a case of ‘we’ve done it there before, we might as well do it there again’.
“There is a process of due diligence to go through,” she explains. “It’s public money and the emphasis has to be on value, but also the requirements of the event have to be deliverable. Once I had completed a report back to Interactive Scotland and the project manager at Scottish Enterprise, they all agreed that the SECC gave us what we needed to deliver the event in the style that we wanted to.”
She adds: “It was basically a blank canvas; there’s no restrictions in the venue, no massive pillars you’ve got to walk round, the staff are extremely helpful, have the technical knowhow, and the events team and caterers are great. Everybody knew what we were trying to achieve and they knew the standards expected.”
The digital technologies community are also a discerning bunch. When you look at lavish international events such as Mobile World Congress or CES, the emphasis is always on ‘trend’.
So, as well as having top speakers from the industry, last year’s 360D featured giant polystyrene logos, which became a magnet for selfie hunters, and also cone-shaped columns covered in white army camouflage, lit with LED uplighters.
Caterers Levy Restaurants UK also came up with a streetfood menu featuring cuisine from across the world.
“It really was supercool,” adds Serafini. “Hall 2 was entirely given over to breakout and workshop areas with the auditorium area in the middle. It had that outdoor but indoor feel
“We used tents for the workshop sessions the year before, which was another ingenious use of the space, and this was just another step up from that.”
She added: “The flexibility of the SECC helped us to create that look and feel that we wanted – people were likening it to the big events overseas. In fact people said it was more stylish – in some of the big global gatherings you just have a bog-standard conference facility but because of the height of the ceilings in the SECC, and the ability to play with the space they have, it made it easier for us to have the imagination to do something different for delegates.
“As a venue I’ve always said it’s a great venue; there are other good venues in Scotland but they all had limitations for us and what we wanted to achieve for the 360D event,” says Serafini.
“But the SECC does allow you the freedom to use your imagination and create something unique for the client.”
