IET venues are downtown and upmarket, Lucy Wright tells ITCM

Tuesday, 04 October 2011 14:24

ITCM interviews

image

IET venues are downtown and upmarket, Lucy Wright tells ITCM

Lucy Wright, Key Account Manager of IET Venues, is feeling happier about the conference business. ‘Lead times are coming back’, she says, ‘and future bookings are more healthy’. IET Venues is a small group but has its feet in many markets, so in the darkest days it has been able to find business from one source or another. This is true geographically as well as in terms of business sectors. It has three properties: Savoy Place in London, Austin Court in Birmingham and Teacher Building in Glasgow. It offers facilities, therefore, in the heart of the UK’s three biggest business centres.

‘We are very fortunate’, Lucy emphasises, ‘in that our venues are historic buildings that immediately lend an air of culture and maturity to an event. They are also very convenient for non-residential meetings, as they are so central and close to each city’s main office and hotel districts.’

These characteristics make the venues an obvious choice for AGMs, the attending shareholders deriving the sense of stability and seriousness from the very buildings themselves. ‘And, of course, most companies are happy to re-use the same venue for AGMs year after year once you have proved that you can offer the right level of service and security and quality facilities. We pride ourselves on the technology we offer and the assistance on hand from our team of a-v experts. The shareholders can reach us easily and they get used to coming’.

image
Savoy Place is located on the Embankment opposite Waterloo Station and can offer views of Big Ben from its function rooms, of which there are 18 in all. It has an elegant panelled tiered lecture theatre able to seat over 460 delegates.

Austin Court is a listed building on a canal in central Birmingham. It has 16 function rooms, its tiered Kingston Theatre purpose-built to seat 150 delegates very comfortably, with foldaway writing tablets. Teacher’s Building in Glasgow gets its name from the fact that it was formerly the HQ of Teacher’s Whisky. It is in the centre of town and has 14 flexible meeting rooms that can be used in conjunction with each other for break-outs, exhibitions and dining. The largest space is its Laphroaig Theatre that can seat up to 125.

Submit to Delicious Submit to Digg Submit to Facebook Submit to Stumbleupon Submit to Technorati Submit to Twitter Submit to LinkedIn