- Visitors
- Organisers
- Exhibitors
The National Outdoor Expo, held at NEC Birmingham, has scooped the Best Exhibition Launch Award at the EMECA Awards.
The European Major Exhibition Centres Association (EMECA) unites 24 leading exhibition venues in Europe and received entries from eight different venues across five different countries for its awards, with the Raccoon Media Group show from 2022 coming out on top.
EMECA was impressed with the launch’s size, scale and focus on sustainability, praising its use of the versatile NEC Campus including a 60-metre zipline across one of the venue’s halls and open water swimming, paddleboarding and canoeing on the venue’s lake.
EMECA President Roland Bleinroth said: “The EMECA jury was impressed by how the community was built in a creative, inclusive and diverse way. The interactive activities implemented both inside the halls and outdoor went well beyond other similar industry events.
“We also appreciated the comprehensive sustainability measures, carbon footprint measuring and ambitious goal to be a net zero carbon event in 2025. All in all, this a role model for organiser-venue collaboration, we congratulate Raccoon Media Group as well as the NEC Birmingham.”
Kelly Haslehurst, Marketing Director for Conventions & Exhibitions at the NEC, said: “We are proud to host such great content and innovative new launches at our venue and The National Outdoor Expo is a prime example of this.
“We’re excited for the success of The National Outdoor Expo going forward and can’t wait to see how it grows and develops. This internationally recognised award is testament to the hard work of Raccoon Media Group and our NEC venue team who frequently pull out all the stops to make each event in the calendar a memorable one.”
The NEC is building on its pipeline of new exhibition launches with 13 new events coming to the venue, nine of which are completely new launches for 2023, while The National Outdoor Expo has built on the success of its launch event in 2022, with a second edition in March this year.
This saw more than 20,000 outdoor enthusiasts attend the event hosted in partnership with Ordnance Survey. Visitor surveys indicate that the event will have contributed over £9 million in terms of visitor retail to the outdoor leisure market, with average spend at nearly £400 per attendee.
Mike Seaman, CEO and Founder at Raccoon Media Group, said: “It is fantastic to receive this award from EMECA. When we first announced The National Outdoor Expo at the NEC it was two weeks before we went into the first Covid-19 lockdown. At the time we had no idea what an impact that would have on the event, which effectively became two years in the making when we launched in 2022.
“We are thrilled with how we have progressed since then, experiencing rapid growth in the UK and are now expanding internationally with the National Outdoor Expo in Boston, USA, in 2024.
“Our events will always have that community feel and we’re delighted that the EMECA judges picked up on that, as well as our detailed sustainability measures. The 2022 show saw us ditch aisle carpet for the first time, working with a carbon auditor to measure, monitor and reduce our carbon impact.”
The National Outdoor Expo will return to NEC Birmingham on 23-24 March 2024.