Client case studies

SOUTH WALES ARGUS ONLINE PANEL DISCUSSION EVENTS

Our team supported the South Wales Argus by delivering two of their most recent online panel discussion events. One was focused on the regeneration of Newport and the other was on re-starting the tourism industry. Both events featured a host of high profile industry figures.

We were responsible for setting up the online event, managing the software, briefing panel members, answering any pre-event delegate or speaker enquiries and dealing with questions posed to the panel during the event. The panel discussions were filmed and the link to these films were sent to the Argus to distribute to their readers as a recorded session.

Editor of South Wales Argus, Gavin Thompson, said: “Katrina and the University of South Wales events team made the running of our events so much easier. By providing the behind the scenes support, I was able to focus on hosting the live discussion.

“We worked closely with the university team throughout the planning and delivery of the event and together delivered content that was both engaging and useful to our audience of business owners.”

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH WALES ONLINE POSTGRADUATE RESEARCHER PRESENTATION DAY 2020

We worked for The USW Graduate School in July 2020 to deliver the online event support for their 2020 Postgraduate Presentation Day.

The full-day virtual event included over 50 online delegates, and more than 20 presentations. We provided two separate pre-event briefing sessions to both judges and speakers, to ensure the event ran smoothly on the day.

As well as the virtual main room activities, we set up private online meeting rooms for judges to discuss winners and for individuals to present to judges in a private online meeting space.

It was our role to liaise with the event hosts to ensure the event ran to schedule and to answer any technical queries during the day.

Project Manager for the Presentation Day, Llinos Spargo, said: “When we found ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic, trying to move our Postgraduate Researcher’s presentation day to an online event was daunting and slightly scary. After engaging with Katrina and her team the switch to online delivery was painless. Working with the Conference and events team during the organisation and on the day of the event was seamless; the briefing sessions for the presenters and the judges were excellently organised as was the running order of the day”

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH WALES @ THE HOUSE OF LORDS 2020 

In February 2020 as part of Wales Week in London, we organised a corporate reception at the House of Lords, where a host of high profile stakeholders were introduced to USW’s impressive range of industry partnerships.

 We were responsible for liaising with the venue, organising the AV supplies, managing the guest list responses and briefing guests on the strict protocols for arrival at the House of Lords and overseeing the event on the day.

 Sian Oborne, Head of USW’s Executive Office, said: ‘Thank you so much for all your hard work, your flexibility and diligence in pulling together a very successful event.

It was a pleasure working with Katrina and the team who handled everything brilliantly and with absolute class, creativity and professionalism.’

ROYAL INSTITUTION CHRISTMAS LECTURE SERIES

In December 2019, we worked alongside academic colleagues and students to deliver a live event at each of our three campuses (Cardiff, Newport and Pontypridd) on behalf of the Royal Institution in London.

The exclusive event, repeated at each venue involved members of the public watching the behind the scenes filming of the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures, due to be televised a few weeks later.

Our team were responsible for the online registration of the events, managing attendee guest lists, overseeing the AV supplier, liaising with Estates, Security and Catering to deliver the event and overseeing each event on the day to ensure everything ran to schedule.

Dr Stewart Eyres, said: “Hosting this high profile event with a nationally-recognised partner across all three of our sites would have been impossible without the fantastic support and coordination provided by the Conference & Events team. They were key to providing a professional and enjoyable experience for the members of the public who attended.”

PIE CONFERENCE 2020

We worked alongside a USW project team and Dr Francis Cowe to deliver the Partnership for Innovation in Education Conference at Cardiff City Stadium at the beginning of March 2020 for 200 delegates.

This event brought together all the higher and further education establishments in South Wales who had been collaborating on an innovation project for the last 18 months, and this event was a showcase of the project’s successes.

Our role involved sourcing a suitable venue, liaison with the venue and catering team, setting up the online registration system and monitoring delegate numbers, promoting the event to wider audiences, organising the audio visual requirements, such as stage, sound/lighting and briefing all the exhibitors and speakers in advance of the event.

On the day our role involved managing the registration desk, giving out badges, keeping the event to time and being the lead point of contact for venue, speakers and catering teams. 

Project lead, Leah Jones, said: “‘Katrina and Cara were extremely helpful from day one, their knowledge and experience of event organising contributed to the success of the conference and nothing was too much trouble for them.’

CITIZEN’S JURY 2020

We provided the venue for the 2020 Citizen’s Jury; a research project on social care in Wales funded by Welsh Government.  This project involved a ‘judge’ presenting live from our Conference Centre in Treforest to a virtual jury online made up of ordinary members of the public living right across Wales.  The Jury heard evidence from witnesses all week and then deliberated on the final day to reach a verdict and will now issue those recommendations on social care to Welsh Government. 

As far as we are aware this was the world's first Online Citizens' Jury and it was vital that the Conference Centre had excellent wifi in order for the project to run successfully. ​We delivered this without any technical hitches, ​including live streaming the proceedings on a variety of social media platforms.  Our in-house IT assistant, was an asset to our team on this project. 

The 5-day project was time sensitive because of the virtual audience, so our catering team delivered refreshments and lunch breaks at dedicated times to the research team working at our Conference Centre.

Dr Rachel Iredale, Principal Investigator, said: “Thank you for looking after us so well at the Conference Centre all week. We felt welcomed, safe and very well looked after. 

It was really important that my Virtual Citizens' Jury research project went well as it was being broadcast live with officials from Welsh Government both taking part and looking on. From everyone's perspective it all went very smoothly and we have had loads of great feedback, including on social media.

Please thank the team, particularly Richard who sorted out a number of IT issues very efficiently for us, and Gaynor who kept us fed and watered at all the right times. The standard of cleaning was very high and every room we used was spotless.

So thanks once again for everything last week; we could not have done it without you!”