Bear Grylls Adventure Centre, Birmingham
The West Midlands Tourism Awards are an annual event that celebrate the success and accomplishments of tourism businesses across the West Midlands and promote the impressive strength of the business and leisure tourism offer, its venues, people, experiences and accommodation.
Winners from the West Midlands Tourism Awards will automatically feed into the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence for the chance to be recognised as a national winner.
The fourth West Midlands Tourism Awards took place on 20th March 2024 at the Bear Grylls Adventure Centre in Solihull.
The aim was to recognise and celebrate the 14 tourism champions of our region, from a shortlist of 43 businesses across the region’s accommodation, arts, food & drink, visitor attraction and heritage sectors.
Our brief was to design, develop and deliver an award ceremony that shines a spotlight on tourism and hospitality from the West Midlands.
Understanding the importance the chosen venue would have on the evening, our first step was to find a venue that highlighted the wide array of tourism that the West Midlands has to offer but would also give their guests the wow factor. We shortlisted a number of venues and following a few site visits, fell in love with the uniqueness of The Bear Grylls Adventure.
With the venue confirmed, it was time to launch ticket sales. We created a fully branded registration system for finalists to claim their free tickets while giving additional guests the ability to purchase tickets to attend the event.
As the awards focused on highlighting the West Midlands region, our own ESG goals were to ensure every element of the event further boosted the West Midlands economy. This involved sourcing the host, catering, entertainment, event favours and table decorations from local vendor.
In addition to the logistical elements of the event, we were also asked to design and deliver a range of creative content, including but not limited to the award presentation, an opening video and the creation of a 30 second highlight video for each of the 43 finalists - showcasing their business, and what the award would mean to them.
The West Midlands Tourism Awards 2024 was one of the first events to be held at The Bear Grylls Adventure in Solihull, making it the perfect location to showcase the versatility of such a unique venue in the West Midlands. It even featured a diver in an aquarium full of sharks with the #WMTA24 hashtag for all the guests.
The evening started with a drinks reception where guests could network with fellow finalists, take a picture in front of the branded step and repeat and take in the fascinating surroundings, including a diver in an aquarium full of sharks with the #WMTA24 hashtag.
The evening was hosted by Ayo Akinwolere, former Blue Peter presenter and current BBC journalist and presenter, who brought his love of the West Midlands, sense of humour and professionalism to the event.
Catering for the evening was provided by Amadeus, and required a custom built kitchen to be brought in and set up in the archery room! We worked closely with the team to create the 3-course meal which could be cooked and served safely, all while remaining to a high standard.
As with any awards ceremony there are a lot of technical requirements, however with the added challenge that the venue was not a custom built event space, this required Us to work closely with our AV partners, Cue Media, to design a set and stage that both logistically worked within the distinctive venue but embodied the West Midlands Tourism Awards essence.
The night ended with some fantastic entertainment from Birmingham three-piece band, Yung Bruddas so guests were able to dance the night away under the canopy of the indoor tree.
Tune into the action from the night of the West Midlands Tourism Awards 2024 when you watch this highlight video. As you can see it was a night of reward, celebration and appreciation for all in attendance. See how the event unfolded, from set and stage design, theming, hosting, catering and entertainment.
“We couldn’t have asked for anymore! It is always going to be daunting when working with an event management company we haven’t used before and the event last night proved that we absolutely made the right decision with working with Blackberry Events.”
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