Dallas convention centre, beam’s priorities, ExCeL London’s floor marking robot Lionel, and more.

This Monday’s Insights (21 November) feature brings you a new Dallas convention centre, beam’s priorities, UFI General Assembly, and ExCeL London’s floor marking robot Lionel.

Headlines

A new $2 billion, 2.5-million-square-foot convention centre will be built in Dallas.

According to Skift Meetings, the new Dallas convention centre with elevate the city to compete with other major meeting and convention destinations. 

Craig Davis, president and CEO of Visit Dallas, told Skift, “This is such a big deal for us. The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center opened in 1957. It is 65 years old and looks every bit of it. Customers have been telling us for years it’s not cutting it. This new convention center will make a seismic shift for us and what our future is going to be.”

Get the full story here. 

M&IT editor Paul Harvey catches up with Sian Sayward, newly-installed chair of beam in the latest episode of M&IT Talks.

Listen now to find out what Sayward’s priorities will be and how she sees the sector’s fortunes over the next 12 months as the UK faces a perfect storm of inflation, recession and rising costs. 

UFI General Assembly wraps up a transitional year for the industry, highlights progress on key issues.

Representatives from UFI (global association of the exhibition industry) member companies from around the world met in Muscat (Sultanate of Oman) to review 2022 activities and confirm 2023.

The 2022 UFI General Assembly took place before the UFI Global Congress. At the end of a year defined by both the post-pandemic industry recovery and new global challenges, the Congress is welcoming hundreds of participants from around 50 countries and regions.

Chaired by UFI’s 2022 President, Monica Lee Müller, the General Assembly reviewed and previewed the association’s initiatives to support UFI’s members – more than 800 strong, and across 86 countries. Many new members are joining the Global Congress for the first time, as 70 companies from around the world have signed up as UFI members in the past twelve months.

Monica Lee-Müller, UFI’s 2022 President, began summarising the year as follows: “Throughout the last 12 months, so much has happened that deserves a mention.”

“As a global association, we need full participation by talented, committed women, and men, from different cultures and backgrounds, to drive our industry forward. Personally, I think there is work to be done. But I can see changes coming: If you look at the demographics of participants in this year’s Exhibition Management School, more than half of the participants were women. Among the six winners of this year’s Next Generation Leadership Grant, four are women, and the six come from a diverse geographical mix: Asia, Africa, Central America, Europe and the US. These talented young people with high potential will one day lead our industry upward and forward.”

Read the full round-up and plans at UFI.org

ExCeL London has undertaken the UK’s first use of the world’s most advanced floor marking robots as part of its long-term strategy to help make the industry more sustainable. 

Lionel (so called because he marks out lines), was recently used on the mark-out of Event Tech Live 2022 – which the venue hosts – to showcase both the business and the sustainability benefits available, as well as ExCeL’s commitment to operational excellence. 

The Lionel robots can drastically reduce environmental impact by eliminating the need for single-use carpets and other consumable materials used for manual marking. Indeed, according to a recent report by SASIE, it is estimated that as much as six million tonnes of carpet are thrown away each year by the UK event industry.

Furthermore, as the robots are completely autonomous, event organisers no longer need to hire specialist international marking contractors, saving tens of thousands of hours per year of travel time and transport emissions.

The robots were supplied to the venue by August Robots, the world leader in autonomous commercial robotic applications. The organisation supports dozens of exhibition centres worldwide and has marked more than one million square metres of exhibition space for large-scale events predominately in Germany and the USA. ExCeL will also be on the of the first venues globally to lease and operate their own Lionel robots, as previously they were only offered as part of a floor marking service.

Natalie Sykes, Sustainability Manager, said: “As a carbon neutral venue, sustainability is at the forefront of our agenda, and we are always looking for innovative new ways to help reduce our emissions and waste. As such, we’re delighted to be working with August Robotics to automate future floor marking operations and we’re delighted to have already undertaken the first UK application. From an operational perspective, this technology yields considerable cost savings, rapid build times for our clients and the elimination of costly mistakes and rework time. 

Alex Wyatt, CEO of August Robotics, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have ExCeL London as one of Lionel’s first lease clients. ExCeL are leaders in innovation and we’re proud to partner with them to advance a sustainable exhibition future with our technology. Our team has made tremendous strides to make the robots simple to use; we’re excited for ExCeL to enjoy all the advantages of autonomous floor marking.”

Located in the Royal Docks, ExCeL hosts around 400 events annually and welcomes some four million visitors. Earlier this year it became the first UK venue to be certified carbon neutral to the internationally recognised PAS 2060 status and has as an interim target for their journey to Net Zero.