Glasgow City Marketing Bureau’s convention team delivers You First events

Glasgow City Marketing Bureau’s convention team has continued to build on its portfolio of You First conference success by organising a number of influential public health initiatives, taking the subject out-with the confines of the conference centre.

The  service, founded by Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) in 2012, was devised to deliver real benefits to conference organisers and their delegates through innovative new market solutions.

In September 2014, 2,600 delegates attended the Société Internationale d'Urologie (SIU) conference in Glasgow’s Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC) generating more than £4.9m to the local economy. As part of the five-day conference, GCMB worked with the Montreal based conference organiser to stage an impactful health event in a city-centre shopping centre with high footfall.

The SIU team – working with charity partner Prostate Scotland – held a public awareness event in Glasgow’s St Enoch Centre to raise awareness about the disease, which affects one in two men in Scotland.

Adam Gaines, Director at Prostate Scotland, said: “Organisers from SIU and GCMB approached the team at Prostate Scotland because they were interested in holding a public awareness event to provide information and link the conference to the city of Glasgow. This was a superb opportunity for us to directly engage with the public creating a vehicle to exchange knowledge about a highly important health issue."

In November last year, in conjunction with the European Public Health Conference (EPHC) taking place in Glasgow, GCMB’s Convention Bureau held a coffee shop conference in the city’s iconic Winter Gardens inviting expert speakers to lead discussions with members of the public about prominent health concerns. Delegates, GCMB staff and key speakers further promoted the benefits of a healthy active lifestyle by cycling a route from the SECC to the city’s Winter Gardens and back again using the city’s popular bike hire scheme, NextBikes.

Dineke Zeegers Paget, Executive Director of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), said: “The European Public Health Conference had never included activities aimed at the local population of the city where the conference is organised. That is, until Glasgow 2014. We had a very positive experience discussing public health in Glasgow which was an eye-opener both for us, the public health professionals, and hopefully also for Glaswegians. We now intend to continue this hands-on approach at future conferences.”

Aileen Crawford, Head of Conventions at Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, said: “When we set out our ambitions for our You First meetings, our focus was clear; to make sure the needs of our conference organisers were central to our goals whilst creating a lasting legacy in the city. Working alongside SIU and the EPHC has allowed us to continue to deliver on these objectives to provide tangible added value to the organiser whilst reinforcing Glasgow’s position as an innovative, forward-thinking and world-class conventions destination.”

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