I scream, you scream, we all scream for SoolNua world ICECREAM index

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua ICCA’s annual ranking of cities and countries according to their meetings business has become both the meetings industry standard for evaluating performance and the go-to source for governments and civic authorities when considering CapEx and other investment in congress tourism. We’re proud members and enthusiastic supporters of ICCA but we believe… Read more »

So what does SoolNua do?

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua All’s changed… Regular readers of this blog will have noticed how its byline and biography have changed. They used to say that I was Vice President of Industry Relations at MCI and Managing Director at Ovation Global DMC. About 15 months ago this changed to Managing Partner at SoolNua. When… Read more »

Prove it! Why we need organisations like the Site Foundation

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua From hands-on execution to hands-off strategy Following decades as a DMC and MICE agency, Patrick Delaney and I are now working as consultants / advisors on meetings, incentives, conferences and events under our new brand, SoolNua. In a short time we’ve moved from hands-on execution to hands-off strategy. We’ve… Read more »

Web Summit 2014: 5 new technology tools for travel

by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In only 4 years the Web Summit has grown from 400 attendees to 22,000 attendees, a staggering growth curve by any criteria.  This spectacular increase appears to stem from a happy coincidence of circumstances involving the focus and vision of its founder, Paddy Cosgrave, the allure and appeal of… Read more »

The 3 Ingredients for a Great Event

by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Yesterday the SoolNua crew participated at Site Ireland’s annual summer event and came away inspired, energized and truly motivated. And it wasn’t just the unabated sunshine – temperatures were 25 degree +. Upon reflection this morning I realized the event involved the rather rare perfect alignment of 3 key… Read more »

Lessons from Shakespeare for Meeting Industry Newbies

by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Most readers of this blog know that Patrick and I are leaving MCI at the end of 2013 but staying in the Meetings Industry to work in the areas of strategy, destination marketing, training and advisory boards. As the two decade arc from Delaney Marketing to Ovation Global DMC approaches… Read more »