with the audience in a 350-seat auditorium. e whole auditorium moved right across Hall 5 of the NEC through three di erent sets with a superb reveal at the end. It was just a shame that the Acclaim was such a very dull little car. But the point is that there was little in the way of technology used on that show. e auditorium was mounted on rails and could have been pushed across Hall 5 by a couple of riggers. What made it memorable was the imagination and professionalism of the production company. Today there seems to be a belief that if you get the most impressive tech you’ll have a great event. Obviously, that’s not true. It’s perfectly possible to produce a turkey using the most sophisticated tech available. What matters, just as much today as it did when I staged my rst conference in 1973, is to understand the audience. We can have the ashiest gizmos in the world but if the event doesn’t answer the question of ‘What’s in it for me?’, it’ll still be dead in the water. Ken Clayton is a director of Reference Technolog Ltd. which provides online and onsite registration systems for conferences and exhibitions. He organised his rst conference in 1973 and, from 1976 to 1984, was responsible for all the dealer launches for the car manufacturer, Leyland Cars.
broadband connections are readily available.
Memorable What hasn’t changed is that the tech on its own is unlikely to make for a memorable meeting. For that we still need the right content presented with air and professionalism. One of the most memorable shows I ever produced was for the launch of the Triumph Acclaim in 1981. It was staged at the NEC
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