East of England Arena and Events Centre

Project background:

The East of England Arena and Events Centre was moving away from being a county showground and aiming to reposition itself as a multi-purpose event venue, comprising of a 6000m2 hall, additional 3000m2 of covered space, 240acres of grass, 5 miles of internal tarmac roads and a gravel race circuit. The venue held a number of solid events including Equifest, the largest amateur equine event in Europe but the desire was to target five more events to create a 'big six' around which the venue could build a full calendar of live events, both indoors and out. Interwoven with this would be a conference and corporate event schedule, maximising the assets of the venue. To do this the venue needed a marketing partner to help reposition the venue, to support its organisers in generating visitors and to generate sales enquiries from organisers,

Vividink role:

• Reputation management
• Brand repositioning pr campaign
• Brand building and lead generative social media campaign
• Content creation and website management
• Inbound marketing lead generation campaign
• Organiser pr and social media support campaigns

Timescales involved:

The campaign was initiated at the end of 2017 and ran continuously until all events were closed due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, the outcomes were achieved in just over 2 years. The venue was sold to AEPG at the end of lockdown and a new programme of marketing has been agreed upon between AEPG and Vividink.

Result / Outcome:

Over the two years the venue achieved its aim of hosting the big six events in its calendar:

• Truckfest
• Equifest
• New Wine
• Plantworx
• Soul Survivor
• Motorcycle News Festival of Motorcycling

In addition over that time, the venue quadrupled its turnover.

Feedback:

“You, Vivid are quite simply the masters of event and venue marketing. Can't imagine using anyone else. Thanks for all the great advice and fantastic work over the years. You've been a vital part of our repositioning,” Jason Lunn venue director, East of England Arena and Events Centre.