Apr 082010
Blackpool Council has appointed Right Solution as development consultants for the Winter Gardens in order to help develop facilities to challenge big cities for conference business.
They are tasked with finding out what potential conference clients want and “making it so”.
Right Solution MD Sally Greenhill said;
“The Blackpool Winter Gardens represent an historic part of the UK’s business tourism heritage and we are thrilled to have been appointed to input on its redevelopment. We welcome feedback from buyers on what they are looking for in the regeneration of this classic venue.”
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I would have thought the answer bloody obvious!!
A Modern comfortable conference venue with state of the art 21st century communication tools,plenty of restaurants/bars/ nice hotels for the delegates..
Making it so Should be piece of cake!!!!!!
Callow must think he is now on the Bridge of the Enterprise!!
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More like on the bridge of the Titanic
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lol ,or the herald of free enterprise………
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To be fair, it’s important they get this right.
I’m pleased to hear the council are actively marketing Blackpool as a conference venue. I’m a big believer in marketing and PR so it gets my vote and the more we get the word out about all the good things happening in Blackpool the more we get people to firstly believe in our town and then want to come and stay.
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Agreed and Blackpool is calling out for a state of the art conference venue…
That will cost a lot of money…
The WG has the potential to turn into a huge black hole swallowing taxpayers funds.
End of the day the question has to be asked would it not be cheaper to build a brand new facility from the ground up? It could possibly be even cheaper and be designed to what is needed in the 21st Century, whether that is on the current WG site or elsewhere is immaterial.
Is there room for sentiment in the move to regeneration and protecting the interests of the taxpayers?
What worries me is public servants will control the budget strings for this and will not , cannot work to the same management cost constraints that would be applied in the private sector.
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I agree Geezer, my solution would be to build a huge conference centre linked to an extended Blackpool South railway line on the central car park site and get a friends of the Winter Gardens organisation to run the Winter Gardens as a theatre venue in the same way the Friends of the Grand do.
That said I’m pleased First Leisure aren’t running the Winter Gardens in the long run, they just don’t love the building and it deserves tenents that love it.
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Fantastic idea that Zim.
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This sounds good, I agree Zim Flyer it will be good to get a company in that actually cares about Blackpool and about the Winter Gardens. I don’t feel we should build a stand-alone conference centre as many keep demanding as I feel it would not benefit Blackpool. However modernising the Winter Gardens as a conference venue is something I would support. This will be hopefully be another step into the 21st century.
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The problem with the Winter Gardens is the parking and road infrastructure around it are poor,this is why it would be better to build a new multi purpose arena type building around the old Mecca site,that can be used for various events. You have Rigby Road, Central drive, good excess from the motorway via Yeadon way and Seasiders way,5 mins walk from the Manchester tram stop,South shore train station close by and you could create a multi storey car park next to it along with a luxury hotel which would attract clients who expect city luxury,and most importantly with a new build you could create good facility’s for the unloading of trucks and other support vehicles,were as the Winter Gardens is a complete nightmare for haulage firms and always will be. This is why we have lost out on most of the trade shows,they want to drive into the building,unload and then park conveniently nearby,hence why Birmingham NEC centre has flourished.
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In another life I was involved in heavy truck haulage and attended quite a few exhibitions/conferences and the like.
You make a very important point here Dave. Such is the importance of these events in this day and age exhibitors and trade sales will look to display their products to their best advantage at these events.
At Earls Court on a Number of occasions I had to crane off display items from an artic trailer onto a smaller wagon so it could access the lifts to the upper floors and be driven straight into situ.
This all takes time for these people which equates to money, at the same time those that know Earls Court and Olympia to that point know the access areas for unloading are limited and have to allocated in slots. Time and Money again.
It was no accident that the Motor Show and other big events migrated to the purpose built NEC. No such limitations there you can pick any number of doors to drive through and take big wagons straight onto the exhibition floors.
Whilst Blackpool doesn’t need an exhibition centre (the NEC has got this mantle now and being central to the UK should keep it) it still has the potential to offer a smaller facility say to handle conferences of up to 2000 delegates. Such conferences usually have an exhibition element which has to be planned for. Not a great deal of space but enough to satisfy and to be easily accessible.
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We appear to have a bit of a dilemma when it comes to the prospect of a new or improved conference or convention centre.
Most people would agree that it is a good idea, however, the problems arise when we discuss where it should go!
The council seem to want to attract the Political conferences back and I can understand this because they do attract a lot of publicity for the town but they only seem to bring in money for the larger hotels.
The council, and most people, seem to think that the Winter Gardens and the Central Station site are the best places for the conference/convention centre.
The dilemma is that the main reason that the political conferences do not want to return to Blackpool is because of the distance between the conference venue and the main conference hotels (Imperial & Hilton) so improving the Winter Gardens or building a new centre on the Central Station site will not result in us getting back the Party conferences. Unless of course a 250-300 bed hotel is integrated into the site.
The best site in order to attract the Party conferences would be to build a new centre on the land between the Imperial and Hilton hotels. This would have the revitalising the North Shore area but would take some business away from the town centre.
In short, whilst building a new conference/convention centre may appear to be the answer to our problems, it probably isn’t.
I am strongly in favour of a new convention centre but it must be viewed as only part of the improved offer we need to provide, not the be all and end all!
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If the council there there arse into gear the feasability of STORM CITY is the prefect location for the convention centre.
The Winter Gardens could be put to better use
Can’t wait to hear the Councils plans for the Pavillion Theatre as Phase 1 of WG-facelift
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Also slightly off-topic but it is outside the Winter Gardens, I notice today with great interest and delight (cautiously!!!) that planning permission has been applied for in the Pricebusters Megastore unit to convert to a restaurant. This could be good news in the making hopefully!!!
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why not clear out the area between Central Drive and Blackpool FC and attach the conference centre to the back of a new East Stand? Lots of facilities in common, catering, hospitality, merchandisiing, bars etc, close to the motorway and parking and would help the football club as well
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That would be good actually, Central Drive is a horrible area and same as Foxhall the best thing to do is flatten it and start again.
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I don’t think the people that live there would be too pleased if the bulldozers turned up!
I agree that that area needs some loving, but car parking is lacking there during the summer season because the Council have wiped a lot of it out with the Central Gateway stuff.
I reckon they’d have to build a car park on the site they’ve fenced off, but I’m not sure they’d want to do that because it seals an end to any remaining hope of getting an educational campus there.
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