Student Finance Tour

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills commissioned Speakeasy to deliver its 12-week Student Finance Tour 2016, involving more than 2,000 events to educate over 160,000 students about the financial support available for going to university.

Peer-to-peer communication is key to the campaign’s success. Speakeasy recruited a group of outgoing graduate presenters to act as passionate advocates, sharing their own 

positive university experience with prospective new students.

Our presenters attended a bespoke three-day Speakeasy training programme to prepare them for delivering interactive and engaging 30-minute presentations at each event.

The aim was to fully immerse the graduate presenters in the Student Finance Tour experience, and ensure they were ‘emotionally attached’ to the brand message when they went out on the road.

To help the campaign target key low participation regions across England, Speakeasy selected presenters who were familiar with these areas to deliver the local presentations. This allowed us to maximise the audience connection in priority areas.

Since its launch in 2011, the BIS Student Finance Tour has educated nearly 500,000 students and 60,000 parents about the financial support available for university through around 8,000 events.

Annual Conference

Speakeasy produced the annual conferences for Cycling Scotland, the national cycle promotion organisation for Scotland, in 2015 and 2016. Held respectively at Edinburgh’s Our Dynamic Earth and Perth Concert Hall, both events followed a similar format.

Delegates drawn from around Scotland with a keen interest in promoting and developing cycling took part in some cycling study tours on Day 1, which concluded with a Civic Reception.  Day 2 consisted of a day of plenary sessions, panel discussions, ministerial addresses, workshops and keynote speeches.

Speakeasy worked with the Cycling Scotland team to plan the agenda for each day.  We programmed and launched the conference website and online booking facility, and liaised with the venue to coordinate all catering, logistics and AV requirements. We also designed and built a striking 8m set backdrop for the main stage.

Our brief included coordinating the requirements of 20 exhibitors at each venue.  Our content producers gathered and formatted all speaker content and wrote the script for the conference host, BBC Sports presenter Rhona McLeod.

Arriving at the venue, delegates were greeted by our onsite team and checked in with our sophisticated scanning and badging system.  

First Joint International Conference

Abertay University commissioned Speakeasy to produce the largest conference ever held by the Finland-based Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and the California-based Foundations of Digital Games (FDG).

Designed to promote and advance the science, technology, design, and study of digital games, the week-long event in Dundee included four plenary sessions and more than 250 academic papers, workshops, panels, special sessions and posters.

We designed an eye-catching brand for the conference, drawing on an ancient Scottish gaming icon – the Lewis Chessmen – and giving it a modern twist.   This look-and-feel was applied to a conference website and online registration and payment system.

We implemented an extensive marketing, social media and sponsorship strategy, and worked closely with the team at Abertay to stage a series of innovative and engaging social events, culminating with a Gala Dinner at Guthrie Castle in the Angus countryside.   

Onsite, 350 international delegates were welcomed by our hosting team and were given specially-branded delegate bags, pens and the conference proceedings on an eye-catching pink slap wrist band USB stick.

Delegates enjoyed using our conference app, with participants vying with one another to gain points by posting photos, comments and rating sessions.

Dinner & Annual Awards 2017

Since its launch 18 years ago, Scotland’s Life Sciences Dinner & Annual Awards has grown into one of the biggest events in the UK life sciences calendar. Scottish Enterprise commissioned Speakeasy to produce the 2017 event in Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland.

More than 700 guests attended the dinner and awards, which included a keynote address from GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Sir Andrew Witty and networking activities.

Speakeasy managed and produced the event from start to finish, including guest registration and management; venue liaison; catering; audio-visual; nominee filming; a national marketing and communications campaign; sponsorship generation; logistics and financial management.

To enhance guest interaction, we arranged a choice of fun and engaging post-dinner networking activities, including interactive cocktail making classes and a multi-sensory tasting experience.

Speakeasy also recommended introducing a mobile networking app. Take-up was impressive, with 60% of guests downloading the app to their device. App usage was also high, with almost 7,000 sessions and more than 17,000 recorded sponsor impressions over the period.

Orientation Events and Films

The Glasgow2014 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee commissioned Speakeasy to design and produce a series of events to launch the training process for the ‘Games Workforce’ – a group of around 16,000 volunteers, contractors and paid staff.

We designed a high energy, fast-paced programme based on a Saturday night ‘live TV’ format mixing theatre, audience interaction, comedy, pre-recoded inserts and a high energy fashion show where a team of ‘Clyde-siders’ unveiled the volunteer uniform for the first time.

Speakeasy produced a series of short, memorable films, including a tour of all 15 games venues, fronted by Welsh Commonwealth Sprinting Champion and TV sports correspondent Iwan Thomas. 

Our programme spanned four events over two days, with audiences of around 4,000 at each show. Speakeasy worked closely with Police Scotland and Transport Scotland to co-ordinate logistics including security bag searches, individual registrations, badging and the distribution of training packs.

International Low Carbon Heat & Water Conference

Scottish Enterprise commissioned Speakeasy to produce the 2016 International Low Carbon Heat and Water conference and showcase, bringing together suppliers, customers and other experts in the low carbon heat, water and wastewater sectors.

Speakeasy created a high-impact one-day event attracting more than 450 delegates and featuring more than 60 exhibitors, three keynote speakers and 40 workshop presenters from 13 countries. The event included a powerful business-to-business matchmaking session, drinks reception and conference dinner.

We designed the event to be “paperless”, providing delegates with a smartphone app containing the full agenda, speaker biographies, networking profiles, exhibitor details and social networking features.

An onsite filming service was also provided, resulting in a highlights video and several interview pieces for use on the client’s website, to demonstrate their work in these key sectors.

The National College for Teaching & Leadership (NCTL) – Events

The National College for Teaching & Leadership is an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE), with responsibility for ensuring the supply of high-quality teachers and training. Speakeasy has been managing events and other marketing for NCTL’s Teacher Recruitment Campaign since 2015.

A key feature of Speakeasy’s approach is the recruitment of university brand ambassadors to engage with graduates on campus and in high-footfall locations such as train stations. Equipped with iWalker digital billboards, the brand ambassadors generated almost 6,000 registrations in 2016, representing around 60% attendance for priority subjects such as physics, maths and chemistry.

Alongside our partner company Blackberry, Speakeasy planned, marketed and managed a series of events including:

• 6 x Large Train to Teach events
• 16 x Mini Train to Teach events
• 14 x Application workshops
• 30 x Online surgeries
• 32 x Graduate Fairs

These took place all around the UK, including Birmingham, Manchester, London, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham and Southampton, with delegate numbers at each event ranging from 300 to 1,200.

In 2015, Police Mutual Group commissioned Speakeasy to produce its first ever series of group-wide staff events, to be held at key locations in the Midlands, Hampshire, Suffolk, Merseyside and Staffordshire.

The UK-wide organisation offers financial advice and services to serving and retired Police officers and members of the Armed Forces. Speakeasy’s role covered video, 2D and 3D design – including all print design and production and screen animation – app development, content development, communications planning and transport and logistics.

Marketing of the events involved setting up eight separate event websites and managing the invitation process, as well as signage, registration and badging at the venues. 

We developed all content for the roadshow events including slides, a series of video inserts and interactive elements. Interaction with the audiences was via a bespoke event app using iPads to cast votes and submit feedback and questions. The event app also included a note-taking facility and information about the agenda and speakers. By providing full event information, the app meant there were no print requirements – making the event completely paperless.

The final show was webcast live, also with interactive content.

Venturefest Scotland

Speakeasy has been producing Venturefest Scotland since 2015 for national economic development agency Scottish Enterprise and partner stakeholders including Innovate UK and Glasgow City of Science.

Designed to drive economic growth through innovation, the annual event brings together entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and academics from across the UK and beyond to collaborate, learn, network and share knowledge and ideas.

Speakeasy worked with the client team to deliver an engaging and packed programme including 18 interactive workshops delivered by 80 contributors, an innovation showcase, an exhibition and a Meet-the-Expert programme of appointments. 

Specific deliverables have included a mobile networking event app; a bespoke registration website infographic and fanfare videos promoting the event; coordinated social media and email marketing campaigns to drive delegate registrations and sponsorship raising of more than £100,000.

Recent successes have included generating 2,050 Twitter followers, more than 2,000 mentions and 1,500 retweets for the event.

Annual Conference

In Spring 2018, the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) commissioned Speakeasy to event manage the 2018 SMAS National Manufacturing Conference – the only manufacturing conference of its kind in Scotland, taking place just once every two years.Sponsored by the Bank of Scotland and taking place at The Westerwood Hotel in Cumbernauld on 30 May 2018, Speakeasy worked with SMAS to fully design, promote, administer, deliver and evaluate the event.

Designed to raise ambitions, productivity and a wider understanding of Industry 4.0 among Scottish manufacturers, the conference featured a stellar line-up including First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and manufacturing heavyweights, Tom Williams, COO at Airbus and Juergen Maier, CEO at Siemens.

Facilitated throughout by ex-Scotland Today presenter, Angus Simpson, the packed programme included panel discussions, industry-led workshops featuring some of Scotland’s most successful manufacturing companies and a networking Gala Dinner.

As a publicly funded event, sponsorship and exhibition income was key and we achieved major sponsor partnerships with leading organisations including the AFRC and HVM Catapult and a ‘sold out’ exhibition which included international companies such as Rockwell Automation, Tente and IFM Electronic.

One of our client’s main objectives was to achieve 400 senior manufacturing delegates on the day from across Scotland’s diverse manufacturing sector.  Using our wide network of Scottish manufacturing contacts – from industry through to manufacturing support organisations such as Construction Scotland, Scotland Food & Drink and Scottish Bakers – we achieved the full 400 delegates and had to close registration early due to unprecedented demand. Delegates included CEOs, Managing Directors and Operations Directors from across engineering, manufacturing, food & drink, life sciences, oil & gas, construction, electronics and aerospace.

As part of our promotional campaign, we contacted over 120 stakeholders to enlist their help, securing event listings, social media support and e-bulletin inclusions with organisations including the ADS Group, OGIC, KTN, HVM Catapult, Oil & Gas UK and Scottish Engineering.

Conference and Events

Speakeasy has been producing high-impact annual conference events and films for global investment firm Newton Investment Management for eight years.

Each year we bring to life a striking visual identity that shapes the overall look and feel of the conference, including delegate and guest communications; online presence; branding and signage; layout and staging and content development.
The theme of the 2017 event at etc. Venues County Hall, London – From Fake News to Artificial Intelligence – was about how technological disruption, from self-driving electric cars on our roads to android robots in our homes, is set to revolutionise our lives. Meanwhile, the political landscape is disorientating, with policies announced in tweets & elections fought on Facebook. Set against this backdrop, Newton’s intention was to enable delegates to cut through the noise of misdirection and uncertainty to offer perspective. The alien and monkey emojis created to establish the brand of the conference combined the latest social media trends with the age-old theme of the maxim of the three monkeys and its associations with turning a blind eye to impropriety.
The graphical theme ran throughout the venue to enhance the delegate experience from the moment they walked in with large branded banners, branded directional signage, branded registration desks, two large LED walls in the main conference room and a thought-provoking opening film to set the overall tone of the conference.
Our opening film engaged the audience from the outset and immediately captured their imagination and attention. Presented as an authentic public broadcast transmission, the film creatively intercut excerpts from keynote speeches and interviews featuring world leaders and technology billionaires – to create an alternative (fake) speech. This was augmented by ‘fake’ news captions and surreal compositions featuring emoticons, digital interference static and graphical typographical headlines. All these motifs combined to deliver an expressionistic, surreal and darkly comic event opener.
Previous event themes have included Space, Optical Illusions, Through the Looking Glass & Heads Together.

The European Group of Organisation Studies (EGOS) along with local organising committee, the University of Edinburgh Business School, commissioned Speakeasy to produce the 35^th EGOS Colloquium in 2019, bringing over nearly 2,500 academics specialising in the field of organisations to Edinburgh. The Colloquium was the largest conference ever held by the University.

Speakeasy worked with conference organisers to plan the complex agenda of plenaries, sub-plenaries and sub-themes, exhibitions and an in-depth social programme. We managed abstracts, sponsors and exhibitors, delegate communications and onsite planning and logistics. The project also involved managing delegates, suppliers, volunteers and stakeholders, organising audio-visual, signage and onsite requirements over the five conference days.

We also worked with the project team to make the colloquium as sustainable as possible, including switching to more sustainable materials, eliminating the distribution of traditional conference bags and reducing the production of printed materials, providing exhibitors will reusable water bottles, working with suppliers to use compostable catering items at events, and selecting menus which included locally sourced and seasonable products.

Speakeasy was awarded a 3-year contract in 2018 by Education Scotland for the management of the Scottish Learning Festival Conference.

Held at the SEC in Glasgow over 2 days, the Scottish Learning Festival and Exhibition is a pivotal event in the education calendar, inspiring better teaching and learning and helping created a confident teaching profession in the 21st Century.

Speakeasy were responsible for the conference element of the Festival which included the management of initial submissions for the sessions and the review process. Once the papers were selected, Speakeasy worked with Education Scotland on the design of the programme to incorporate up to 130 sessions and manage all the speakers and their requirements. In addition, we were asked to help create and deliver an exciting, engaging and interactive session for ‘STEM Live’ which was being held on the second day of SLF 2018.

For both the 2018 and 2019 conferences, we adapted the room layout and built a stage on the main floor of the auditorium so that we could create an inclusive environment. We designed and produced ‘festival chairs’ for Education Scotland where delegates got to build their own chairs for the keynote sessions and really made the sessions interactive and engaging.

The days consisted of a jam-packed programme of keynote lectures, parallel sessions and live demo exhibition sessions in between. The turnaround and build for each and every session required careful planning and both conferences were a roaring success!

In Numbers:
– Over 4,500 delegates over the course of 2 days
– 204 Sessions submitted
– 20 Themes
– 130 Parallel Sessions
– Over 105 invited speakers included school children from all over Scotland
– Education Scotland also commissioned Speakeasy to build an interactive and engaging Education Scotland stand for the conference exhibition.

15th International World Water Congress

The International Water Resources Association (IWRA) and the Scottish Government commissioned Speakeasy to produce the 15th International World Water Congress in 2015, bringing together 1,000 of the world’s pre-eminent scientists, academics and industry experts in the global water sector.

Speakeasy designed a conference website with secure online payment and worked with project teams to plan the complex agenda of plenary, parallel and special sessions, the exhibition and a week-long social programme.

We managed abstracts and iPosters, put in place a PR and marketing strategy over the 18-month planning period and produced all delegate communications. The project also involved managing delegates, sponsors, exhibitors and stakeholders, organising high-quality catering for 1,000 delegates over the five conference days and producing a video highlights film.

Touchscreens in the exhibition area allowed authors to include video and interactive content in their submissions to give delegates a richer experience. Distributing memory sticks of conference proceedings avoid over-dependence on paper to protect the environment.

Group Leadership Forum 2017

FTSE 250 building supplies group Travis Perkins commissioned Speakeasy to produce its 2017 Group Leadership Forum. This brought together the leaders of the group’s 23 companies to update them on challenges and successes, and remind them of the group’s core values – their ‘Cornerstones’.

Speakeasy created a truly immersive experience that seamlessly promoted these key messages throughout the two days. Delegates entered the venue through an ‘experiential values corridor’, with Cornerstone messages visible throughout the hotel.

In the main conference room, we created a wraparound experience with the use of three screens to immerse the delegates in the content that was being presented. While the main screen projected the core content for each section of the event, side screens were used to highlight key messages. 

The commission included editing film content overnight for the group’s annual awards ceremony – and producing two corporate films for Travis Perkins which were presented for the first time at the Forum before being rolled out across the group.

Annual conferences

Speakeasy has been producing high-impact annual conference events and films for global investment firm Newton Investment Management for six years.

Each year we bring to life a striking visual identity that shapes the overall look and feel of the conference, including delegate and guest communications; online presence; branding and signage; layout and staging and content development. 

The theme of the 2016 event at the Landmark Hotel, London – Heads Together – was about bringing together some of the world’s leading financial thinkers to share ideas and reveal unique insights into the investment landscape. The theme of bees was chosen to reflect this sense of collective achievement and collaboration, with a hexagonal honeycomb motif at its core. Hexagonal projection screens flanking a central LED wall and a half hexagon thrust stage area helped reflect the concept of a hive or a forum. 

Our dramatic opening film combined highly rhythmic animation with quick-fire ‘kinetic text’ captions, an explosive percussion track and live action clips of iconic people, places – and bees. A series of short sting versions were produced to chapter-mark the four main sessions of the Newton conference. Engagement tools included a bespoke app and interactive voting.

Previous event themes have included Space, Optical Illusions and ‘Through the Looking Glass’ – a reference to the apparently contradictory states of the world.  

Dinner and Awards

Scotland’s Life Sciences Annual Awards & Dinner is the UK’s largest life sciences award show, celebrating the successes and achievements of Scotland’s internationally-renowned life sciences sector.

Now in their 18th year and wholly owned and managed by Speakeasy Productions, this year’s Awards took place at the Glasgow Hilton Hotel, the first time the event had been held in Glasgow for over a decade.

Sponsored by a raft of leading organisations including the University of Glasgow, GSK, Concept Life Sciences and Symbiosis Pharma, and attended by over 750 of the leading players in Scotland’s vibrant life sciences community, this year’s sold-out event included a drinks reception, a three-course meal and post-event networking activities to help guests break the ice and make new connections.

Paul Wheelhouse MSP, Minister for Energy, Business and Innovation presided over the awards ceremony with seven prestigious awards presented in areas including innovation, investment, business leadership and collaboration.  Other highlights included a keynote address from Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak, Vice Principal and Head of College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow.

Working closely with key figures in Scotland’s life sciences community, we updated the 2018 award categories to better reflect the sector’s rising stars and global successes. We also assembled the judging panel; oversaw the nominations and judging process and filmed all 18 finalists in various locations across Scotland.

Speakeasy devised a national marketing and communications strategy featuring social media; a dedicated event app; e-communications and a programme of weekly guest blogs. Press activity played an important role and early on in the campaign we secured a high-level media partnership with The Scotsman resulting in editorial and advertising in both print and online editions.

Speakeasy produced the event from start to finish including content development; speaker and sponsor recruitment and management; venue management including menu selection; stage set design and technical management and full onsite logistics. Our team also created an impressive opening film; designed and produced the printed Awards programme and sourced a variety of fun and unusual networking activities to entice guests to stay on after the awards ceremony had ended.

83.5% of all guests who responded to our survey rated the event as either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’.  Our host for the evening, Des Clarke, also scored highly with 80% of respondents rating him as ‘excellent’. One guest’s comment summed up the whole evening: “Great host, excellent speeches. Nice dinner. Great opportunities for interactions. Made me proud to be Scottish”.