Padraic Gilligan, Chief Marketing Officer, SITE & SITE Foundation Divided by a common language When I reflect on the content of some recent conferences, webinars and podcasts, I’m reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s much quoted comment about the US and Great Britain being “two countries divided by a common language”. The great divide, this time,… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer, SITE. In the MICE business we’re used to things going viral. These things, however, are usually to do with the mildly embarrassing occurrences that happen at events, like the CEO doing his Dad-dance at the company Christmas party. Who knew we’d be dealing with a… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua and Chief Marketing Officer, SITE I was delighted to share a stage at IMEX Frankfurt with my friend Rhea Stagner of Maritz Travel. We doubled up on moderator duties for a brilliant panel discussion on trends in the incentive travel industry and were joined by SITE colleagues from all… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer SITE Joint Meetings Industry Council This week I was privileged to accompany Annamaria Ruffini, SITE President for 2018 to the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC) summit in Hannover, Germany. JMIC is an organisation which I’ve been aware for a long time but, to my embarrassment… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua It’s difficult to pull together a series of coherent thoughts following a full-on week in one of the world’s top cities for meetings & events that commenced at the discreet luxury of the Gran Melia Rome Villa Agrippina and concluded at the imperial glory of Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria, the legendary… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Trends for Venues 2018 Last week I signed off on my contribution to the 2018 edition of EventMB’s Trends Report. Focusing on venues and destinations, I called out the trends that, I believe, will dominate discourse in 2018 and beyond. This is the 2nd year that I’ve collaborated with… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Tonight the world of Business Events will celebrate the EVCOM Industry Awards (incorporating the Meetings Industry Marketing Awards – MIMA) in London and at SoolNua Towers we’re rigid with excitement. That’s because we’re shortlisted in the Best Brand Marketing Campaign category with the #worldICECREAMindex, our tasty, left field approach to… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua It’s very unusual for me to write about the same topic two weeks in a row. But these are unusual times so having written about the SITE Index last week, here’s another SITE theme this week with a post on why you really must attend the SITE + MPI… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua SITE Index 2017 I had the distinct pleasure of co-presenting the results of the SITE Index this year at IMEX America with Rhea Stagner, President of the SITE Foundation and DVP Sourcing & Supplier Relations at Maritz. It was particularly pleasing because the capacity audience got very involved in… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In an early January post on Skift, Greg Oates talks about convergence as a key trend for the meetings industry for 2017 and, in particular, about the “festivalisation” of meetings and events as attendees seek both education and entertainment from the overall experience. I thought of this as I… Read more »