This month marks the 4^th Birthday, we are done being a three-nager, and looking forward to getting into our stride with the feisty four’s.

Make a brew, and join us as we look back at the events and experiences that shaped four extraordinary years, with each team members highlights… (it’s worth it just to see the picture of us in high-vis at the end!)

Sarah Thackray, Director

Dynamo North East was one of our first client events. Dynamo started as a two man volunteer committee with an idea to find out who worked in the IT & tech sector in the NE. From the seed idea, we now deliver an annual events programme for the network including a conference for over 300, an awards ceremony for over 350, a senior leaders dinner and monthly networking and panel events. We also led the development of a membership model for the network and we now manage, administer and oversee this, as well as advising on the financial strategy for the CIC. A brilliant example of growing with one of our clients!

We started the company with only two event contracts. Today we deliver over 100 events and services annually and work with many regional, national and international clients including The Planet Mark, an environmental standard mark; The European Thyroid Association; The Great Run Company; Dynamo North East; Space Group architects; the University Technical College and many others. Perhaps the pinnacle of our growth to date has been the sheer pride we felt when our small team were selected in a competitive tender process to deliver the design and production for the upcoming Great Exhibition of the North’s Business Summit in July 2018. This contract should propel us into the limelight across the North, not just the North East, bringing us more possibility and opportunities in the future.

We are proud to support the event delivery for such a brilliant North East charity as the Chronicle’s Sunshine Fund. Funding essential equipment for some of the North East’s disabled children is such an amazing cause and one that we are delighted to be able to support.  Simply put, our team has become an extension of the charity’s own team. We have adopted their values, mission and culture and continue to support the growth of the charity through the delivery of an exceptional annual events programme.

The future is bright…the future is BeaconHouse Events orange. We have great hopes, and solid plans, to firmly root the company into the fabric of the North East business community. And we are proud that we are already becoming a key part of the region’s ecosystem. We are excited about what is possible, and the organisations – that we are yet to meet – who we can help through the delivery of exceptional events. Our vision has no ceiling, but as we are planners at heart we make sure that our excitement has realistic plans behind it to make sure that our growth will happen.

Catherine Coulter, Director

FOUR YEARS! Wow, well it definitely wouldn’t be the same place to work if a year didn’t go by without us putting the party in pasta as part of the Great North Run weekend. It’s just so amazing for us to be part of an event that brings so much regional pride.

We get to work in the most fantastic venues across the nation but when a client comes to you with a challenge such as converting a modern office block into an exclusive club come cocktail bar come secret garden, well that’s the kind of challenge we thrive upon! Working with Arch Group Northumberland to convert Blyth Workspace for the Tall Ships event in 2016 was just incredible – we absolutely got the opportunity to shake our creative tail feathers and work with some of the most inspiring suppliers across the North East.

Employing staff meant upgrading from our home office and what a learning curve that was! A day spent in IKEA saw us purchase floral cushions and window seating solutions, an awkward office meeting with a tall chap, no place to set a cup of tea and knees up around our ear lobes quickly taught us that an office space needs to be fit for purpose and not an extension of your ‘House and Home’ subscription. Hoults Yard offers us the perfect balance – a cool, trendy establishment that strokes our creative ebb and a collaborative, professional community and suits our scale-up flow. Our first orange wall will always hold a personal point of pride in my heart.

People often ask us how we set up the company, it’s not a story full of drama and big dreams…Sarah and I set the company up because we loved managing events and we’d had feedback that we weren’t bad at doing it. Enter, ‘BeaconHouse Events’ – we stick to that mantra today, we still love managing events and we employ people that feel the same way, you’ll only ever be great at this job if you love it and we only tolerate greatness! We delivered our first couple of events and quickly got a couple more, soon our work continued to grow at pace and we had the confirmation that we were doing something right – the cherry on the cake was winning ‘New Business of the Year’ at the Newcastle Business Awards, recognising our achievements in our first year of business.

Clare Nicholson, Event Coordinator

I take great pride in our continued relationship with Dynamo and its members. It’s a great feeling to know I’ve played a part in growing their events from the Dynamites, to just a casual Monday trip to the House of Lords!

My two-year work anniversary was a real highlight, celebrating 730 glorious days as part of the BeaconHouse team. Excuse the cliché but time really does fly when you are having fun!

It’s a common misconception that event management is all tasting canapes and arranging flowers, and although it doesn’t make up the majority of my time, I’ve been privileged enough to be assisting with some pretty special events for clients including big birthdays and weddings that included lovely flowers and tasty samples. It’s such a pleasure to build a strong personal relationship with the client and there is nothing more satisfying than knowing that you have played a part in helping their vision for a special celebration, come to life.

The awesome BeaconHouse crew continues to grow, and while these are four of my highlights, it was also fantastic to be able to welcome Bex, Sophie, Katie and Helen to the team, and of course teach them the ropes, i.e. try and incorporate orange in everything you do. #WeHeartOrange #TeamworkMakesTheDreamwork

Sophie Flanagan, Event and Marketing Manager

Start a new job, start working on an International Film Festival, get to meet mega talented film professionals (and the one and only Jools Holland!!), watch up and coming films, handling Box Office and tickets for over 200 events, manage six screening venues, award the Geordie ‘Oscars’ to the deserving filmmakers. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick and triple tick. Yep organising the first year of Newcastle International Film Festival was exhausting, but extremely rewarding!

My first event onsite with BHE was The Chronicle Sunshine Fund’s Sunflower Ball. Helping to deliver an unforgettable ‘Arabian Nights’ themed evening, providing unique experiences to guests and creating lasting impressions all whilst smashing the fundraising target was such a fantastic feeling.

As event professionals, we want everything to be beautiful. So the introduction of BHE Snap of the Month competition is a once-a-month highlight, I did win the first month, but I am yet to regain my crown, here’s hoping for May. *Quickly scrolls Beyonce’s feed for insta inspo*. Check us out

Putting my marketing geek hat on, a personal highlight has been tackling the beast that is GDPR. Data audits, opt in forms and cleansing data, oh my! It’s like a digital spring clean and it feels so good.

Katie Whitehouse, Event Coordinator

My first ever event with team BHE was the North East Futures UTC open evening held at the BOILER SHOP and hosted by Ubisoft. Over 200 people attended to learn more about this fantastic new school, there were great speeches, great food and lots of fun had by all on the Ubisoft live gaming stands. A perfect first milestone. I only wish I could give out Ubisoft games at every event – we didn’t have a single no-show on our attendance list!

One of our charity clients is The Chronicle Sunshine Fund, we produce an event called ‘The Glass Slipper Awards’ celebrating inspirational women across the North East. Wonderful lunch and delicious cupcakes were had by all but most importantly, we helped the charity raise a brilliant sum in 2018 which will change the lives of children with disabilities in the North East. Go team!!

Decamping to London for the Digital Agenda Impact Awards, held at the unique Oval Space, meant I got to assist delivering my first event outside of the toon! The awards celebrate all digital innovations that improve people’s lives and the world around us, and they certainly made an impact on me!

Newcastle International Film Festival brought cinema across the city, needing over 100 volunteers. No small task, but I recruited, trained and managed and kept 120 volunteers hydrated over the Easter weekend (hint: never under-estimate how much water you need onsite for an event of that scale!). It was fantastic to see the event run smoothly with their assistance, and a pleasure getting to know all the talented individuals.

Helen Barthorpe, Event Manager

BIM Show Live 2018 was the first large scale event I worked on at BHE. At the end of four busy, high energy, long, snow-filled days we got to the end of the conference. The client was so happy with the event that he personally thanked and hugged us all! We all then proceeded to the pub…well deserved beer always tastes better!

I’ve loved working on Wild at Kielder Festival. It’s been great to help pull together a full and exiting programme of activities. It was funny when my boyfriend asked me “How has your day been?” I said “Brilliant! The Alpaca walks are nearly sold out!” to which he replied “That’s a sentence I never thought you’d say..”

Being a part of the GEOTN pitch was a fantastic experience. Preparing the pitch with Cat, Sarah and Wayne Hemingway was exciting and bursting with ideas. The pitch itself was very serious and nerve wracking. We left the pitch feeling good but unsure who we’d be up against. To win the bid was a fantastic feeling!

Our first BHE team building evening is definitely one of my highlights. The Escape Room was a great way to see everyone’s true personalities. We all came together and succeeded as a great (and very competitive) team! Afterwards, we proceeded to eat all of the tapas and drink most of the drinks in Newcastle.

Proof of our victory at the escape room:

Here are BHE HQ we are looking forward to another year of highlights, thanks to all our clients and supporters, we couldn’t have done it without you. We will see you for (orange) jelly and ice cream on the 5^th Birthday!

In my career I’ve had the joy of going through more than a few recruitment drives as an employer, some experiences have been better than others but I ALWAYS learn something.

As a small, growing and young company BeaconHouse Events want to employ people that fit our ethos, our personalities and our way of thinking. We want quality recruits that understand what we’re looking for.

We never write ambiguous job adverts, we always ask for exactly what we’re looking for. We try to inject some of our own company personality into our job adverts, in doing this we expect the responses to reflect the tone.

My advice for putting together a CV and covering letter would be as follows…

 

No more than two sides

Don’t waste space listing all your BTEC, NCQ, baccalaureate, GCSE, AS and A-level grades. It’s great that you have them, but that’s all we need to know, just mention them, condense as much as you can and move on. If you have further education qualifications, list your degree and grade but again don’t elaborate – we can ask detail in the interview.

Call a spade a spade. Look at the difference:

A spade.

A large or small metal tool with a wooden or plastic handle that I have used on occasion to turn over the dirt in my garden.

I know what you’re talking about. Keep it high level, I know what a spade is.

 

Keep it relevant

Only list the employment/responsibilities/experience that is relevant to the position you’re applying for – everything else is noise and can be talked about in the interview. Take heed of the intricacies of the job description/advert – if it’s written as light hearted and creative don’t write a super formal covering letter.

 

We know what we do

Don’t just reiterate everything you read on the website – I already know what events we organise. As an applicant to the position I would already expect that you would have looked at the website, so copying and pasting the words that I probably wrote for the website doesn’t tell me anything about you other than that you can use the copy and paste function.

 

Your interests – are they interesting?

I like reading about applicants’ interests. I tells me more about the person they are but try to make your interests stand out. A lot of people enjoy reading, going to the gym and traveling. I appreciate a CV that stands out, a keen interest in bungee jumping or extreme cake making would give me something to talk to you about. I’m not suggesting you rack up loads of debt trying new hobbies just think of your more alternate interests or creatively describe why you enjoy reading!

 

I care more about the covering letter than the CV

The covering letter shows me much more about your writing style (very important for gauging your copy writing skills as an employee). It also gives a snapshot into your personality and shows me whether or not you understand the job you’re applying for and if you’re applying for the right reasons.

 

List your references on your CV

I don’t know why but when people say ‘references available on request’ it makes me think they have something to hide. It also means I have to contact you to you to request the information and THEN call the person. I’m not lazy, you just haven’t made it easy for me to contact someone that’s going to tell me wonderful things about you and if it were me I’d make this VERY easy. Why do you think we put testimonials on our website?

 

Nice font – Nice layout

Don’t worry about a border or cramming the pages with information. Less really is more, after reading the tenth CV I scan read…I know it’s not fair but it’s true – I’m ruthless with a highlighter and if I get bored you get a red line.

Let it be noted; this advice lists my personal preferences as an employer. I have no formal training as a recruiter, but have recruited many excellent staff over the past ten years. Should you choose to follow the advice in this blog I hope it gives you food for thought, it does NOT guarantee recruitment at BeaconHouse Events.

That’s where all good events start – good ideas. After that obstacle, we help you apply the mathematics and logistics to make sure the idea works and that there is a ready market available.

So what do you do when you have an idea? Where do you start? Let’s use a conference as an example…

Is your idea unique?

Is there another conference out there that is successfully doing what you want to do? If so, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve stopped before you started. If anything it gives you a great research project – look at the website, the social media platforms, the programme, the marketing collateral – work out what makes that event successful. You may decide the market for your idea has already been exhausted – but hey, at least you found out before you spent time and money.

If you’re lucky and your idea is unique it’s time to move onto the next step…

 

Can the event afford to exist?

We nearly always follow up an original briefing discussion with a detailed budget. Your event budget will show you what you have to spend to manage the event successfully and what revenue you need to ensure you deliver the event ‘in budget’.

We cannot emphasise enough how important it is to be as detailed as possible when putting together the event budget. Use ‘worst case scenario’ figures in the expenditure and be under-generous in your revenues, allow for a 10% contingency of the total budget cost too. It’s very easy to think ‘I can get that for cheaper’ and lower the expected costs in your expenditure. It’s a much more difficult task to question how to achieve the revenue – be balanced, be realistic.

If you want to spend £100K to have an all singing all dancing conference that’s fine, but you need to balance the budget. Be realistic and answer the following questions:

• Will delegates pay to attend? How much?
• How many tickets will you sell? How will you sell them? Is there a service charge application on your sales platform?
• How can you attract sponsorship? What will your sponsors want from their packages? Can you offer sponsor packages with good ROI for both parties?
• What do I NEED to put this event on and what is a NICE TO HAVE? (You can always add ‘nice to have’ elements in later)
• Have you spent enough on marketing? If no one knows about your event they won’t know to buy a ticket and you’re likely to have a quiet event with disappointed sponsors.

It’s not an exhaustive list but it will get you thinking along the right lines.

 

Can you deliver the event?

Having an idea is one thing. Having the time to realise the idea is another (of course this depends on your day job, your work/life balance and your life choices!). Create a production schedule; this will help you to plot out the busy times in the delivery of the event. Again, there’s no steadfast rule for this, different types of event have different types of preparatory periods.

Using a first time conference as an example, allow ample time to plan the event launch, create the brand and consistently adopt this throughout your marketing. The first few months should be focused on finding a venue, negotiating supplier costs, approaching speakers and attracting sponsorship. These factors will determine the viability of your event. If enough time and effort is put into this stage the other delivery factors should fall neatly into three further categories; production, customer service, and delivery. And always, always update your budget.

There is no precise recipe for ‘event delivery’ but to reiterate, planning is key. Seek advice, talk your idea through (get a confidentiality agreement signed if you’re worried), choose partners to work with that you feel understand your idea and that are as enthusiastic as you are about delivering it. Find your team; trying to deliver an event yourself can be time consuming and the amount of work involved often underestimated. Using the expertise of industry professionals such as designers, marketeers, AV teams, event dressing agencies etc can be the maker or breaker of your event. Getting support isn’t always as pricey as people might assume and the right support can result in your event making a much larger profit, making the impact you wanted to, and not result in news headlines for the wrong reasons.

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This is just a taster; the hope is that the information here might inspire you to take any event idea to the next stage and prepare you for what those exciting next steps look like.

We’re not. But, we’re professionals so we appear to be! Truth have it it’s likely we’ll have been on our feet for 20 hours in uncomfortable shoes. The last time we slept properly was weeks ago. The last time we ate something ‘nutritious’ was the sultanas in a garibaldi biscuit we nabbed at the first tea break – before that a month ago…before the endless office take outs and the conference brown buffets began.

We love our jobs, we love the work involved, we love delivering and problem solving and everything that being onsite throws at us and hey if you can say all that then why wouldn’t you be smiling?

 

“Is your whole life just dresses and parties?”

Absolutely not. The ‘parties’ are a very small part of what we do and we manage them so that other people are having fun and ultimately that means we’re working. So yeah, we get to go to a lot of parties but that doesn’t mean we are partying. We’re always the last to leave the dance floor but usually it’s because we’re trying to prevent the conference director from pole dancing on the stage set.

We get to admire the finery our guests arrive in but often we wear black and comfortable to be ‘unseen’ event ready ninjas.

Even when we do get time off to go to parties you never really enjoy yourself, you’re constantly looking for things you’d have done differently and anticipating the next issue that might need your instant attention.

Lucky though that this attention to detail usually means you’re a popular guest – always ready to lend a hand and used to operating on very little sleep. We work hard and we play hard.

 

“So, do you basically just walk around with a clip board?”

Yes. Actually this one is true BUT contrary to popular belief the clip board is not there to make it look like we’re busy, we are in fact busy and very mobile, having a clip board just gives us a hard surface to write on. Experienced practicality.

 

“Can I borrow a formal dress? You must have loads.”

We don’t. We don’t have a clothes allowance and what we do have are ‘staples’ i.e. dresses that won’t be remembered that you can get away with wearing time and time again and that if needs be allow you to sprint lengthy distances at a moments notice.

Chances are there was previously a much bigger selection but after one got ripped lugging boxes to taxis, another fell fate to pen marks from the aforementioned clip board and one proved see-through at that crucial moment during the award presentation on stage…you now stick to black, plain and roomy.

 

“You look so calm, you’re never stressed.”

That’s because we’ve done our job well. But saying we’re never stressed is untrue, working hard to make sure everything is stress free onsite is what we do best and boy oh boy does it result in LOTS of hard work. We also get a lot of practice though and having that experience to make sure your event goes hitch free and we’re a calming presence onsite – we live for that.

 

“Event management – it’s a Mickey Mouse career.”

No. No it’s not. Still not entirely convinced as to what this means but usually it’s meant derogatively.

Mickey Mouse meaning it’s child’s play? Easy? True, it gets easier with experience but that’s just professional know how. In our company alone we’re multi-lingual masters students with advanced (acclaimed…thank you) degrees in project management and business, we work day to day with top achieving CEOs and company directors that in a ‘proper’ job we’ d have to pay to get in front of.

Mickey Mouse meaning the bright buttoned popular rodent who would become the mascot of The Walt Disney Company, experts in production, entrepreneurship and turning over billions year on year? Yeah, we’ll take that.

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As an event manager it’s true, every day is different but it’s because we work with such a range of different people and that’s what makes our job so special. Being able to adapt to all these different situations and events keeps us fresh and constantly attentive. So forgive us, usually we’ll talk too much, have far too many stories and always be busy. But, when we’re there we’ll make sure you and everyone around us is having a damn good time…of course in a well organised manner.

Last night (26 November 2015) the Newcastle Business Awards announced BeaconHouse Events as the New Business of the Year and quite frankly we were totally bowled over!

There was obviously a slight chance of us winning, we were shortlisted after all but the actual announcement saw us stumble our way to stage in a rather shell shocked state.

But why not? It’s been an incredible 18 months, we’ve been hugely overwhelmed by the support we’ve received regionally and nationally and we’ve exceeded all targets that we set for the company. We absolutely didn’t get here alone though and if we’d been invited to / been physically able to, we would have blubbed our thank yous out on stage. So, instead we’ll use this platform; our clients, all of them, the opportunities they give us and the referrals they make for us, our suppliers, our staff, our volunteers, our friends, our families (especially for all those initial facebook likes…), our landlords, our competitors and everyone in between.

Well done to all the nominees and winners from last night, the room was absolutely rammed and made us very proud to be a Newcastle business. Here’s to the next 6 months, bringing us to a round 2 years in business and hopefully many more opportunities to make fools of ourselves on stage at many more awards ceremonies.

Already, 2015 has seen us expand our annual events calendar from two events to 45, develop our bronze partnership with NGI, work with regional universities and colleges to create work experience opportunities, double our staff numbers and cement new client partnerships across the technology, private and public sector nationally.

The New Business of the Year category shortlists companies which have brought a new energy and vigour to their sector, creating a dynamic organisation which looks set to thrive for many years to come. Modest as we are, we know we’re up against strong competition. Newcastle has a lot to celebrate in terms of innovation and key achievements of businesses in our city.

The Newcastle Business Awards focus on community and sustainability, and growing businesses in Newcastle in a positive, sustainable way that benefits the area and those living within it – in terms of skills development, opportunities, community projects and job prospects. We’re delighted to be in such good company and have our fingers crossed.