We were delighted to work with Jim Richardson to plan and deliver the MuseumNext Live conference, which brought together museum professionals from all over the world to share ideas, strategies, and visions for the future.
In June 2024, we welcomed over 400 delegates to London. The three-day conference included an exciting mix of workshops, museum tours, and networking opportunities. The main event was hosted at the Royal Geographical Society and included a stellar line up of 24 fantastic speakers, including keynotes from Mike Murawski, a consultant and change leader, and Dr. Frederic Bertley, a scientist, scholar, and evangelist for innovating thinking.
For day one, delegates received a personalised agenda and spent their day attending interactive workshops, inspiring talks, museum tours or fun experiences in London. A jam-packed day which culminated in a welcome reception at the London Transport Museum.
We supported the client with venue liaison, registration management, supplier management, speaker management and onsite delivery.
Lots of positive feedback on how organised your team was, so thank you! Jim Richardson, MuseumNext Live
We welcomed over 270 members of the Opencast team to their largest conference and summer party yet at the Vertu Motors Arena. The team attended their Q2 conference, which kicked off with a performance from the in-house Opencast choir followed by the main plenary address before breaking out into 11 informative concurrent sessions.
Later, the venue was transformed into ‘Castonbury’, Opencast’s summer festival themed party, complete with live music from the in-house band ‘The Castanets’, Koroleko, a West African drumming band, and Monster Ceilidh, who filled the dancefloor with their infectious folk music and Ceilidh dances. Alongside this, we ensured there was fun for all, with glitter stations, a merchandise stand, a giant inflatable whack-a-mole, a silent disco, delicious catering, and ice cream carts.
BeaconHouse Events had everything in hand to seamlessly switch from conference/breakout sessions to a Castonbury party, managing full logistics from registration, venue sourcing and liaison, catering, entertainment, hotel room bookings, stage management, and onsite delivery.
“I loved it so much—an amazing night, and you can tell the level of effort that goes into the organisation, the coordination on the night, and the consideration for accessibility and entertainment. Loved it! Very representative of OC people.” Opencast Team
The NIHR Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) was held on 16 & 17 May in Birmingham, spanning a day and a half. This conference aimed to bring together national members of the NIHR school for knowledge sharing, research presentations, and networking.
Our role at BeaconHouse Events included everything from supporting with venue research, to speaker liaison, to post-event evaluation and carbon footprint reporting.
The event was attended by 192 delegates from across the UK, featured 20 poster presentations, and included 54 speakers. Through meticulous planning and execution, we ensured the NIHR ASM was a successful platform for collaboration and innovation.
“BeaconHouse Events are really good to work with. They are friendly and responsive and understand our needs. They’re always a step ahead with regard to chasing speakers and having their help on the day took a lot of pressure off, enabling our team to get more out of the event in terms of networking with colleagues etc. They went above and beyond, for example, taking our banner stands and other promotional materials to the venue in Birmingham (from Newcastle).” NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR)
In February 2024, the BeaconHouse Events team worked with the National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA) to welcome over 60 guests to an event at the Catalyst Newcastle. The event marked the culmination of the NICA UK-China Healthy Ageing project, with an exhibition and celebration of Chinese New Year.
The team worked with NICA to curate a small exhibition that truly celebrated the end of their project and clearly displayed its research to guests. Alongside the exhibition, we worked with a number of brilliant suppliers to celebrate the Year of the Dragon. From a traditional lion dance performance to crafting lucky hanging decorations to sampling delicious dumplings and bubble tea, there was something for all of the guests to enjoy.
‘Just wanted to say thank you for our event yesterday. The team were amazing, both on the day and in preparation.’
Sarah Nolan, Programme Manager, National Innovation Centre for Ageing
Attendees could partake in virtual networking on Hopin, followed by a simu-live screening of company updates that had been recorded in advance, and we then broadcast a live and interactive Q&A in the HQ streamed to Teams. The evening finished with a team festive Quiz using slido virtually and in the HQ and hubs.
BeaconHouse worked with Opencast to send a custom sweet treat to all OC people in advance of the conference. BeaconHouse managed fulfilment, registration, video editing, presenter briefing, AV, and onsite delivery for the event.
BeaconHouse Events helped NBS deliver their event, engaging their network in debate, discussion and making new connections. Keynote speakers included Dame Judith Hackitt (Chair at Enginuity, Non-Exec Director at HS2, Previous Chair of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety), and Jonathan MacDonald.
BeaconHouse worked closely with the internal events and marketing team at NBS. Support included venue liaison, audio visual management, registration management (with a 200 strong waitlist for the event!) speaker and programme curation, exhibition planning, branding, supplier management and onsite delivery.
The second in a series of employee engagement events for CF Fertilisers, BeaconHouse delivered a Leadership Conference at Wynyard Golf Club in September 2023. The first of its kind for the leadership team at the Billingham Complex, the event was hosted by radio presenter John Foster and brought together 30+ leaders to mark 100 years of operation.
The focus of the event was leadership, safety and diversity with a keynote provided by leadership consultant Nicky Moffatt, who shared her leadership insights from a 27-year career in the armed forces. Next up was Eleanor Tweddell, a change and communications specialist, equipping delegates with the tools for navigating change at an individual and organisation level. A diversity workshop was delivered by 50:50 Future followed by an internal safety talk and panel with Q&A.
The day concluded with an energising team building exercise in the form of a drumming workshop, where delegates raised the roof with the sound of percussion and boomwhackers!
BeaconHouse Events managed all event logistics including the sourcing of speakers, programme delivery, suppliers, AV, registration and onsite delivery.
BeaconHouse Events were delighted to work with Newcastle Strategic Solutions on their first client conference. The Client Conference: Powered by Purpose highlighted how Purpose is driving Solutions to create positive impact both for clients and for the communities in which they operate – truly Powered by Purpose.
We welcomed NSS clients from all over the UK to their Headquarters at Newcastle Building Society. The day was brimming with content from 12 excellent speakers, 2 panels and plenty of networking opportunities, which were accompanied with delicious lunch and canape sweet treats.
The BeaconHouse events team managed everything from registration, stage management, AV, catering, venue liaison, and sourced goodie bags for clients to take away – the locally designed Newcastle tea towel stating ’40 things home to the toon’ was well received and a hot topic of conversation.
After a profuse of positive feedback, we look forward to planning the next one with the NSS team.
Rolling into Q3, we worked with the team at
Opencast to deliver their 3rd staff engagement event of 2023! We had 250 of the team join us at the
Civic Centre, in their Banqueting Hall for a jam packed night of company news & updates, networking, and activities.
From venue set up, to stage management, to giving a warm welcome at registration, the BeaconHouse Events team had everything organised. ‘Willy Wonka’ was the conference hosting theme and many delegates were delighted to find golden tickets hidden under their seats, and it didn’t stop there… there were many more interactive opportunities to win custom designed chocolate goodies throughout the conference!
The venue was filled with activities to get involved in, from competing against each other in a racing game, unleashing your creativity with Lego, creating your own tasty macarons, and screen printing your own tea towels. Another huge success of a conference and brilliant activities from local suppliers.
BeaconHouse Events managed everything from greeting, registration, venue, speakers, suppliers, AV, and onsite delivery.
“Thank you for all the effort, time, thought and (perhaps mainly) care that goes into pulling this event together regularly to such an impressive standard.”
Opencast Team Member
We worked with the local organising committee from bid stage to help secure the International Complement Societies Workshop into the UK. After many years, and some COVID-19 related delays, the date was finally set for 2023 and Newcastle upon Tyne became the location, with Newcastle University hosting. The event spanned six days, with an initial teaching day, bringing over 350 complement academics and students into the region.
We supported the ICS committee and local organising committee from managing sponsorship, ticket sales and registrations, alongside curating a social programme including a welcome reception at BALTIC, Gala Dinner at the Civic Centre, LOC dinner at Blackfriars, a quiz at the coast, Wylam Brewery tour, and St James Park tour. We also managed the keynote travel arrangements, abstract booking system, facilitating the scoring and approvals with system to create a full programme of oral speakers and poster presentations, including digital posters.
BeaconHouse Events managed the onsite experience from greeting, registration, venue liaison, catering and AV.
Please accept our congratulations on an outstanding 29th ICW in Newcastle.
Also, accept our gratitude for all the hard work you have done – it was wonderful, scientifically, and ‘emotionally’.
So many people expressed during and after the meeting how well it all went and what a great time they had.
Although we all know that hybrid meetings will likely be part of our future, this nice meeting showed that in-person meetings and discussion have still the biggest impact.
President of ICW, Claudia Kemper
June 2023 saw the launch of TechNExt, a five day festival celebrating the North East’s thriving technology sector. Organised by BeaconHouse in partnership with Dynamo North East and Sunderland Software City, the festival welcomed over 3,000 attendees at its 57 events across the region, throwing a spotlight on the best tech businesses and talent the North East has to offer.
Curated showcase events included an Industry Dinner at Radisson Blu in Durham, No Code Arcade at Northumbria University, Tech Talent Live Careers Fair at Baltic Gateshead and Festival Wrap Party at Revolucion de Cuba. The Main Stage Conference at Sunderland City Hall formed the centrepiece of the festival, and featured six keynote speakers from the UK, Europe and US on topics such as AI, Tech for Good and technology for human enablement as well as panel discussions from the region’s most exciting start-ups and global businesses.
The festival also offered a comprehensive programme of over 50 community-designed and led fringe events, providing a unique opportunity for the local business community to actively participate, share knowledge and learn from one another.
From the outset, TechNExt was planned as a Good Festival, with ‘for good’ being a core value that ran throughout in its approach to quality, inclusivity, diversity, accessibility and sustainability.
With something for everyone, the festival successfully brought together tech enthusiasts from all walks of life and showcased the North East’s dynamic and vibrant technology sector to the region and beyond.
“High quality events like these, where we can learn more about advancements in technology from the best in the business, is massively valuable to us”
Roland Glancy, attendee and panellist at Main Stage, founder of Peek Home.
“Thanks so much for helping make TechNExt the week it was. I’ve received nothing but positive feedback and I’m still in awe of how you all make this work seamlessly!”
David Dunn, Sunderland Software City and CEO, Dynamo North East
