Despite a recent poll saying 58% of domestic attendees want to keep journeys time to less than an hour, international travellers are far more flexible with 32% willing to travel ten hours. The figures, which come from a poll taken amongst 120 Barbican clients clearly show that whilst distances need to be kept short for domestic events people are far more open minded when it comes to going abroad.
“Ten hours plus travel is great news for international events coming into London. It puts so much of the world in our catchment area, particularly when you realise that 52% were willing to travel more than 6 hours,” comments the Barbican’s head of events, Jackie Boughton. “What’s more, with the Barbican’s superb links to London’s international airports – which will improve further with the opening of the Elizabeth Line – we are perfectly placed to host events from all over the world.”
In particular, the Barbican is popular with international association events amongst which enquiries have been increasing as the venue has highlighted the benefits of its location, artistic and cultural links. The Barbican is capitalising on this popularity by contracting Jamie Ades as Head of Associations to further increase its foothold in the market.
The research was conducted amongst more than 120 Barbican clients during Autumn 2017. 53% of respondents were corporate bookers, 21% association and 26% agency.
Barbican
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.
Officially opened in March 1982 by The Queen, the Barbican was specifically built with the dual purpose of holding conferences and arts events presenting a diverse range of visual arts, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning events.
