AEO News

Over the years, the mission of AEO has transitioned and developed to align with current issues.

A century on and the original collaborative ambitions are not too dissimilar from the AEO’s current objectives, albeit on a much wider and ambitious scale. It is run by its members for the benefit of its members through an elected council, specialist working groups and a fulltime secretariat.

The winners and finalists of the AEO Excellence Awards celebrated their successes virtually, last Friday the 4th December.

The event, which was due to take place earlier this year, saw hundreds of attendees tuning in to watch Dara Ó Briain present all 25 AEO awards, with Simon Kimble from Clarion Events taking the trophy for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry.

The Association of Event Organisers (AEO), Meetings Industry Association (mia), Association of Event Venues (AEV), and the Event Supplier and Services Association (ESSA), have today made the following joint statement. 

The business events sector warmly welcomes today’s Prime Minister’s announcement that the sector will be able to reopen under the revised Tier system. This integrates the business events sector with sports and performing arts sectors, providing the consistency for which the associations have been fighting.

AEO, AEV and ESSA have officially joined the One Industry One Voice Coalition with the #ProjectRecovery movement.

#ProjectRecovery’s objective is to inform and engage stakeholders on the work the associations are doing to facilitate the safe resurgence of events, at the earliest opportunity. 

AEO, together with AEV and ESSA has confirmed that the industry's All Secure Expo Pilot has been signed off by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Public Health England, 19 November.

The annual event, which is usually celebrated over summer was initially postponed to the 4th December 2020 at Grosvenor House, but due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, which continues to halt events around the world, will now be hosted online.

The AEO Council has officially elected Simon Parker, executive vice president of Informa Markets, as the next Chair of the Association of Event Organisers.

The election, which took place at the AEO Council meeting held on 23rd September via video conference call, also sees Carina Bauer, chief executive officer of IMEX Group, become Vice Chair.

The EIA, comprising ESSA, the AEV and the AEO has, last night, delivered an open letter  to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak.

This year’s #EventWell20 campaign educates on the importance of a commitment to providing better support for employees and talent, and to making a positive change to workplace culture and mental health.

A combined group of members from the AEO, the AEV and ESSA, led by the associations, has today launched the All Secure Standard, a risk assessment based framework of Covid-19 secure industry best practice and guidance for business events and consumer shows which take place in meetings, conferencing and exhibition centres.

We are pleased to see that after months of constructive conversations with the government they have issued a ‘go date’ has been issued for the exhibitions industry, which plays a critical role for the UK economy, generating £11bn in economic activity and supporting 114,000 jobs.

British events businesses have warned 30,000 jobs are at risk in the sector as the government has yet to set a date at which trade shows, exhibitions and conferences will be permitted to restart.