Record Numbers at Sydney Seminar on Hosting Conventions

Sydney has followed through on an impressive year of bid wins by hosting its biggest ever seminar on winning and holding international conventions.

Held late August, the Platform08 seminar attracted more than 50 attendees including representatives from associations around Australia that are considering bidding for an international event or in the process of planning their convention in Sydney.

Hosted annually by the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre and Business Events Sydney, the seminar was previously known as Reachout, and was relaunched this year under the new name, Platform.

Jon Hutchison, CEO of Business Events Sydney (previously Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau) said the interest came at a time of renewed vigour for Sydney’s event industry with his organisation embarking on a strategy to make Sydney one of the world’s top ten convention cities.

“It’s fantastic to see such enthusiasm about holding conventions in Sydney because it coincides with unprecedented government and industry support for our sector,” Mr Hutchison said.

This year’s seminar included three detailed case studies of recent events and event wins for Sydney including the 10th International Congress on Obesity in 2006, the World Congress on Audiology 2014 and the 18th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG18) held in Sydney in 2007.

The seminar follows Business Events Sydney’s recent announcement of an impressive list of bid wins for 2007-08. The organisation won bids for 37 international conferences, incentives and other business events during the year, a result worth almost $145 million to the New South Wales economy.

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