Home Instead hosted its annual conference at Manchester Central in March 2023 – the company’s first live event in three years having previously utilised the venue’s virtual offering to stream its 2021 event to delegates during the pandemic.
Taking place across three-days, and welcoming more than 1,000 franchise owners, teams, suppliers and delegates, the venue’s flexible spaces – Central Hall, Exchange Hall and the Charter and Gallery spaces - were a perfect fit for the vast event programme featuring an exhibition, seminar sessions, keynotes, breakouts, and a gala dinner.
“Manchester Central’s layout is fantastic. It has a huge flexible space in Central Hall which provides a multitude of options that when coupled with the conference facilities on the other side of the venue provide access to breakout spaces which can accommodate a large contingent of delegates or split down into smaller spaces.”
“It was great that our catering and exhibition area, Exchange Hall, was a ready dressed space with carpet and drapes. It was also a huge benefit to have the self-contained Exchange Auditorium, which we used as a separate breakout area!”
“The abundance of smaller meeting spaces to accommodate breakout sessions and the fact that all Manchester Central’s spaces are located in close proximity to each other is a huge plus for us as it means we can really maximise the time in the venue!”
Due to the incredibly jam-packed schedule, one challenge the organising team face is ensuring the precise flow of content and delegate movement, so Team Manchester Central were quick to identify opportunities for extra signage as well as where existing signage could be changed to improve delegate flow. The venue’s team of security and operational personnel were also fully briefed to ensure that delegates were quickly and professionally guided to the right place at the right time.
In fact, throughout the pre-event planning and during the live event, the Manchester Central Team were continually on-hand; greeting the organising team and guests, ensuring that, operationally, everything was going smoothly and accommodating any additional requests to guarantee such a successful event.
On the venue team, Caroline also said: “The Manchester Central Team were on hand in the months ahead of the event and were always most welcoming, from Tracy on Concierge greeting the organising team and our guests, to Alex, our Event Manager, who made sure we were taken care of during the pre-event meetings and venue walk arounds. During the event, they were ever present but never in the way, quietly checking everything was running to plan and any obstacles we faced were dealt with promptly and without fuss. Becky looked after our catering requirements and was very accommodating to unplanned changes we wanted to make on the day!”
The Home Instead team were so pleased with their experience at Manchester Central that they have signed to bring their annual conference back to the venue in 2024.
