ExCeL London, the home of world leading events, is returning to pre-pandemic business levels since reopening its doors earlier this year with a packed schedule of almost 60 events. With more than 25 events already successfully and safely delivered, the Royal Docks venue is seeing a faster than expected return in market confidence after reopening in July as the new home of sustainable motorsport with the London Formula E event.
A-near-capacity 56 events are scheduled until the end of 2021 with 11 new and relocated shows running for the first time at ExCeL, covering a variety of business-to-business and business-to-consumer offerings from The London International Horse Show, Shoptalk Europe and InfoSecurity.
Last month alone, the venue safely welcomed more than 40,000 visitors for the Virgin London Marathon Show, in addition to strong attendance to Digital Transformation EXPO Europe, the Business Travel Show Europe, Global Offshore Wind and The Meetings Show – the latter officially opened by Tourism Minister Nigel Huddleston after relocating from Olympia.
Simon Mills, Executive Director of ExCeL London, said: “After unprecedented times for everyone in the sector, we are pleased to reveal that events at ExCeL are flourishing, and renewed market confidence is growing far faster than expected. Thanks to continued investment, we’ve been able to secure 11 significant new business wins to reinforce ExCeL as the home of world leading events, aided by aspects like our new entry protocols, which put visitor safety and wellbeing at the forefront of experiences.
“The pandemic has also given us the chance to further enhance our visitor offering such as state-of-the-art digital signage, a new online exhibitor service, significant upgrades in our IT infrastructure and a new partnership with London’s leading street food vendor KERB. All of this combined is leading to renewed confidence in the face-to-face events sector, which is forecast to be worth £27.6 billion by 2026.”
Simon Brooks-Ward, Event Director at The London International Horse Show, one of several events to relocate to ExCeL, commented: “We are very pleased that we are able to stage the event at ExCeL London. ExCeL will offer our horse show customers excellent facilities, first class restaurants, fast digital connection, multiple parking spaces and a relaxing environment for Christmas present buying in the Show’s renowned Shopping Village. Our partners, sponsors and exhibitors including the FEI, British Equestrian and Longines are all supportive of the move and are looking forward to seeing a new version of the Show at ExCeL.”
Medical aesthetic event CCR, running this week, is the next new business win to take place at the London venue.
