New starters and AIM Gold as Barbican sees positive start to 2023
The Barbican has appointed two new team members to support growth across its Business Events team. The new starters’ arrival has coincided with the venue achieving AIM Gold Accreditation for the 9th year in a row.
Natasha St Lawrence who has taken on the role of Account Manager moved over from the Barbican’s catering partner, Searcys, where she had already come to know and understand the venue. Prior to Searcys she focused on selling and planning events at an independent Amersham based venue.
Francesca Pacinella joins the team as Account Manager after two years working as one of the Barbican’s Corporate Partnerships Officers, where she focused on building partnerships, stewarding corporate members and planning and managing their events.
January 2023 also saw the Barbican once again achieve AIM Gold accreditation. The art, education and conference centre first undertook AIM Gold accreditation in 2015, since when it has continually maintained what is considered to be the industry’s leading benchmark for venue quality, customer service and professionalism.
“2023 is already shaping up to be a fantastic year for the Barbican,” comments Jackie Boughton, Head of Barbican Business Events and Commercial. “We have high expectations and plans, which will see both Natasha and Francesca work closely with a wide range of clients as we continue to deliver our industry renowned focus on quality and customer service. Achieving the AIM accreditation is the perfect demonstration of our professionalism and quality, particularly as we have maintained it consistently since first becoming accredited in 2015.”
A representative of the AIM Gold accreditation team said: “The Barbican team once again carried out a thorough assessment with me, they continue to run and upgrade an exceptional venue, embracing investment in technology, upgrading facilities and providing exceptional levels of service to their clients in a dynamic site.”
About Barbican Business Events
The Barbican is one of the world’s leading conference and international arts venues. Located in the City of London, it is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in its fully equipped concert hall, theatres, conference suites and boardrooms. Barbican Business Events brings together the venue’s expertise in the arts and corporate meetings.
Built as part of London’s Barbican development and officially opened in March 1982 by HM Queen Elizabeth, unlike many other venues, Barbican was specifically built with the dual purpose of holding conferences and arts events presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning.
The Barbican’s Business Events team contributes to the venue’s future success. To make the most of the Barbican’s rich culture and heritage, Barbican Business Events was created to bring together their expertise in three very different areas – the arts, creative learning and corporate business. This approach to corporate events is based on stronger, more in-depth partnerships with their artistic, creative learning and development teams in order to bring more creativity and rich content to events.
The Barbican provides a vibrant and inspiring venue for corporate events, conferences, meetings and entertainment. The venue is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in spaces including a concert hall, theatres, a boardroom and conference suites that can accommodate 10-170 delegates and can be adjusted using sound proofed sliding. As part of its wider investment strategy, the Barbican spent £2.2m on a significant refurbishment throughout the Centre in the summer of 2016 including its Frobisher rooms and Level 4. The focus of the Frobisher refurbishment is designed to create an even stronger connection between the Centre’s main conference and meeting facilities and its arts spaces.
About the Barbican
A world-class arts and learning organisation, the Barbican pushes the boundaries of all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Its creative learning programme further underpins everything it does. Over a million people attend events annually, hundreds of artists and performers are featured, and more than 300 staff work onsite. The architecturally renowned centre opened in 1982 and comprises the Barbican Hall, the Barbican Theatre, The Pit, Cinemas 1, 2 and 3, Barbican Art Gallery, a second gallery The Curve, public spaces, a library, the Lakeside Terrace, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre.
