Conferences Manager Marie Townshend is the first full Member of the Institute of Event Management

Firstly, congratulations on becoming the first MIEM!

Thank you! I don’t think I realised how big a thing this is until I told people at work. I’m Conferences Manager for a membership organisation, the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS), which itself offers professional recognition to its members. I would never profess to being an expert in occupational hygiene but the letters MIEM mean I’m able to demonstrate professional status within my own chosen field.

How did your career in event management develop?

Like many people in our industry, I suspect, I became an event manager by accident. I was working for the Gala Coral Group and because I was doing a part-time law degree and was thought to be intelligent and well organised, I was asked to help put on a UK roadshow for the marketing team. I really enjoyed it. I moved on to become Learning & Development Coordinator for HMV, but it wasn’t until I became Event Coordinator for the Food and Drink Forum that there was any recognition in my job title of what I was actually doing each day.

The Forum is a not-for-profit membership organisation that supports small food and drink businesses in the East Midlands. I had two fantastic managers who helped me realise that I had the skills to be successful in event management, and made me decide that this was what I really wanted to do.

My next role was as Marketing Coordinator for a major environmental consultancy, where I organised my first scientific conference. I well remember my third day in the job, when I had to attend a meeting of the scientific committee who were going through the speakers’ abstracts. It was daunting and I wondered if I was cut out for this world. But I stayed there nearly eight years and learned lots. Organising scientific conferences forms the bulk of my workload now for BOHS.

Looking back to your earlier career, what do you know now that would have particularly helped you when you were starting out?

Scientific conferences are quite different from most other events and I worried that I wasn’t an expert in the subject matter. I now know that I don’t need to be – my expertise is different. I don’t know much about waste management or the nuclear industry either but I’ve organised successful conferences on both.

How many events do you manage for BOHS?

It’s a wide-ranging programme, including an annual conference for 300-500 people, two specialist events each year for around 100-200 delegates, regional networking meetings, and a number of webinars which began during the pandemic and have continued afterwards as they were so popular. We also bid to host conferences on behalf of other organisations, where they put together the programme and we manage the logistics.

I’m very excited because BOHS and the Occupational Hygiene Society of Ireland were successful with a joint bid to host the 13th International Occupational Hygiene Association Conference in June 2024. This will be at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. There could be as many as 700 attendees, and we’ve had 330 experts submit to be a speaker! We might face some interesting logistical challenges if there’s a

rugby match at the stadium in the days leading up to the conference, but it’s such a fantastic venue and very different from the usual convention centre.

How did you find the transition to delivering events online?

It would have been easy to cancel our annual conference when Covid hit, but we knew our members wanted the opportunity to engage and interact. Online was more stressful than a face-to-face event because there’s the added uncertainty of the technology, but it brought new international delegates who couldn’t have travelled to the physical gathering. I remember when we went live on the first day, the chat was full of people from all over the world saying hello.

We’ve since done a couple of hybrid events but now we always record everything so people have the option to buy a digital delegate pass if they can’t be there in person.

The pandemic was dreadful but from my perspective, it opened up opportunities to see how you can do things differently.

Which of your events are you most proud of?

There are two that stand out. In one of my previous jobs, our MD would go off to a conference, get talking to someone who was looking to put on an event themselves and then tell them that he knew someone who could help them – and that person would be me. So suddenly I’m on a call with an executive based in Hawaii and we’re discussing how to put on an event in Belfast! We did, I still follow him on LinkedIn, and it’s a thrill to see how that organisation has grown, partly as a result of the event we staged.

Another was having to make a business case for an event in Brighton. The board and members were concerned about the location, right at one end of the UK. Would people travel? I managed to convince them that the city and the venue were exactly what we needed, and after a really good working day then getting everyone into dinner on time, we were all treated to a beautiful sunset on the I360 vertical cable car. I finished that conference with an amazing feeling of satisfaction.

Why is event management such a rewarding profession?

For me, event management plays to my skills. I’m the swan, gliding serenely across the surface while paddling furiously under the water. If something does go wrong, I want people to leave the event without knowing anything about it. And if they don’t know I even exist, that’s brilliant because then everything has gone to plan.

My job is about balance. It’s about creating events that deliver the strategic goals for the organisation, that attract the right delegates, that give attendees everything they expected and more, that allow people to mingle, and that have a bit of fun thrown in. An event can’t be boring, and I often spend as much time planning the social aspect as the scientific. I love that mix.

You’re already using the post-nominal letters MIEM on your LinkedIn profile…

Yes, and I’m proud to! What the IEM is trying to achieve with professional standards is really important. I had a look at the various institutes and associations I could join and none of them were right for me. The IEM is – it feels personal. Not only can I join, I can also be recognised for what I do as an events professional. That’s hugely rewarding, and a big step forward for the industry.