Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘Everyone was craving normality after so long’
Business event organisers have been urged to take heart by the strong turnout for one of the county’s leading events recently.
More than 2,000 gathered at the Kent Event Centre in Detling earlier this month for the return of the Kent Construction Expo after a more than two year hiatus.
Staged by the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce, numbers matched those of pre-pandemic, while the breakfast and dinner events drew record-breaking numbers.
Explains the chamber’s chief executive, Jo James: “Two months before it took place we were a little apprehensive, but the month prior to the event we suddenly had a flurry of bookings. The dinner and breakfast were sold out, pre-registrations were up
on previous years.
“Everyone turned up - and we even had people who hadn’t booked wanting to come along too.
“The way you saw people greeting each other, you’d not have even known Covid had existed with a lot of them.
They just wanted to get out there and everyone was just craving for some sort of normality. That’s what created the buzz throughout the day.”
Organisers of a host of events had to put plans on ice throughout 2020 and into 2021 due to restrictions on gatherings as a result of the pandemic.
But Jo James says there is now a real appetite to get back to normal.
She adds: “I think event organisers should take heart from the success of the Kent Construction Expo.
“It showed me that while there’s definitely a place for technology, you cannot beat that face-to-face interaction.
“We’ve held hundreds of online events, but seeing everyone catching up properly - you can’t do that online. And that’s how relationships are built.”
The University of Kent has confirmed it intends to stage its annual Kent & Medway Business Summit at its Canterbury campus in January but will stage it online should any further restrictions be introduced.