By Gareth McTiffin

Client Brief

With the help of leading medical minds and patients alike, the client aim was to inspire transformational change for the better within the pharmaceuticals industry. A series of workshops surrounding the key issues of accessibility of medication would be the focal point of the conference. The information gleaned from these workshops would be recorded and used to write a white paper, which would be submitted to Westminster to highlight these important issues.

The client was looking for a unique venue with a link to education and medicine. The venue also needed to have a main meeting space, three breakout areas for workshops, a catering area and room for exhibitors.

Possessing all of these requirements, Techniquest was confirmed as the host venue.

Planning the event

The client had not organised a conference of this scale before, so required a helping hand to curate and coordinate the event. During the weeks leading up to the conference, the team at Techniquest had several meetings with the client to confirm the running order and most effective way of engaging with guests during the workshop sessions.

After the event details had been finalised, delegate sign up became a priority. Techniquest supported the sign up efforts by including the event on several corporate e-shots, the main Techniquest website and official Techniquest social media accounts.

During the event

Guests arrived for a 09:00 start and signed in at the registration desk. They were then directed to the balcony level of the venue for arrival tea/coffee and breakfast.

Guests were then called down to the ground floor for the introductory session which included talks from Carwyn Jones, recent former First Minister of Wales, broadcaster Clare Forestier, and Dr Janet Woodcock, who is responsible for approving medicines and medical products in the US.

Following this session, the delegates went into workshops supported by Techniquest’s AV partner, Orchard. Doodle was used to engage guests in discussions with each of the panels and to record comments for the white paper.

Local caterers Epic Caterers served a delicious buffet lunch for delegates between sessions. During this time they were also able to explore the exhibitors at the event.

After the sessions, some guests stayed behind to network and to engage with Techniquest’s exhibits before the venue closed at 17:00.

What the client said

“The staff at Techniquest were a dream to work with – nothing was too much trouble on the day. Leading up to the event, we were able to draw on Techniquest’ s deep experience of running events and keeping everything on track. The many and varied exhibits kept the more adventurous attendees interested whilst emphasising the important of STEM to our mission in the medicines industry. We are Looking forward to further collaborations as ‘The Science Capital’ project comes to fruition” – Hedley Rees, Pharmaflow

You can buy Hedley’s book, ‘Taming the Big Pharma Monster’ here