Now that Exhibition Centre Liverpool is open in Liverpool, the English city is gearing up to host the world’s leading business event—International Festival of Business (IFB) —over the next three weeks. As of Monday, the city will begin hosting the more than 30,000 international attendees expected to attend the business festival—the first of many big-name events for the city this year.
Opened back in September, the 87,187-sf, three-hall exhibition center connects to the 216-room Pullman Liverpool Hotel, which debuted in February. Together they form part of The ACC Liverpool Group, which also includes BT Convention Centre and Echo Arena, to offer meeting planners a total of 163,881 sf of space.
For the IFB event, Exhibition Centre Liverpool will be used as a business hub for exhibitors, with specially constructed seminar rooms and hospitality areas. The Great British Showcase, featuring the best in British manufacturing, and the Blue Skies speakers stage with 12 big-name business leaders giving keynote speeches are just a few of the event’s key highlights.
“Exhibition Centre Liverpool will become the hub for IFB, and while events are our industry, this is the largest concentration of separate events taking place under one roof during a three-week period that we have ever hosted,” says Bob Prattey, chief executive of The ACC Liverpool Group. “It is of course business as usual in our convention center and arena with the British Society of Gastroenterology, the British Association of Urological Surgeons, Elton John and Barry Manilow being just some of the events taking place in the rest of the venue.”
The nearby waterfront will liven up the event with 20 beach huts for live music, along with workshops and live performances. The huts will form a trail leading attendees from the exhibition center through Albert Dock and to the main part of the Strand shopping center.
In addition to IFB, the city will host the Labour Party conference in September and other international events such as the European Association of International Education and the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health later this year.