Remember, remember the 5th of November
Our 2019 Olympia London Show on November 5th was, by all metrics, our most successful live event to date. It seems almost impossible to think it was a whole year ago, mostly due to the extraordinary events of 2020.
The exhibition hall at Olympia bustling with 4000 eager landlords plus speakers, exhibitors and staff seems inconceivable now. But that was the vista which met anyone visiting our 2019 November 5th London show. Coronavirus wasn’t yet a word and the major concern for most present was the looming subject of the UK’s EU departure, and how it was likely to affect the private rented sector and property market. The vagaries of Government policy were causing huge anxiety, and in the absence of clear instruction we held a standing-room-only panel debate dedicated to the Fireworks of Brexit chaired by Andrew Neil and featuring a panel of experts to share their views and field audience questions.
We wrapped-up 2019 with our second awards show, which was again a huge success, and were looking forward to a calendar of stunning 2020 events, starting with our 70th show in March. We had a brand new venue planned for our London shows and fully expected another positive year of growth.
Then Covid 19 spread like wildfire across the world and the UK went into lockdown. Not exactly great news if you’re an events company. Obviously our core sympathies are with those impacted by the virus - our own team was hit hard with a particularly virulent strain - but it soon became clear it was going to be a challenging time for our business.
There’s two sides to every coin though, and without our live shows many found themselves suddenly cut-off from crucial advice and services they depend upon Landlord Investment Show events to source. We really do see ourselves as a beacon for buy-to-let community, and after the briefest discussion decided to fill the vacuum by using our (LI) magazine as a vehicle to publish a Landlord Survival Guide.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and we decided to lead the market by undertaking to design, build, deliver the very first online show dedicated solely to the buy-to-let market.
Underwriting the production costs ourselves we offered this as a free-of-charge publishing platform for our expert contributors and readers to share their advice and thoughts. We went on to produce 6 Landlord Survival Guides between the beginning of April and the end of May, clocking-up over 20,000 views. We also combined this with a facility to share video seminars via our website as a toe in the water of digital events.
By September this year it was abundantly clear we were not going to be delivering any live events during 2020. A bitter pill to swallow for an events company, but as is often the case necessity is the mother of invention, and we decided to lead the market by undertaking to design, build and deliver the very first online show dedicated solely to the buy-to-let market.
Our regular sponsors, exhibitors and expert speakers loved the idea and were hugely supportive. Subsequently our inaugural online show was broadcast on October 8th, covering the Midlands & Northern England - following the geographical lines of the live show we had intended to hold on the same date.
We were confident an online show would be well received, but it was still a huge gamble given the myriad technical factors involved. Due to the incredibly hard work of all involved it was a resounding success for exhibitors and attendees alike, so we quickly set about planning an even bigger show covering the whole nation.
On November 3rd we broadcast a Nationwide Online Super-Show. A title which was no exaggeration, as we delivered 50+ exhibitors, 40+ seminar speakers over 4 rooms, and an incredible 1200 minutes of highly focused and informative content. We had a solid core of over 2000 virtual attendees throughout the day and engagement with our seminar speakers was superb, with great questions stimulating some really interesting dialogue.
We were just looking at our web stats and our show website has received over 80,000 unique hits from Jan 1st to the date of publishing this article. Drilling down to stats for individual events is even more impressive. It is our aim to build upon this, continue driving forward and lead the market with innovate solutions.
So quite a year all in all, and one most would likely rather forget. Challenging times call for changing solutions though. At the Landlord Investment Show we’ve been on a journey and are thrilled at where we’ve got to. We’ve got more great events and content in the pipeline starting with our next Online Super-Show on January 27th 2021 - registrations will open soon, so watch this space and register for updates if you’ve not already.
All the very best on your Landlord Investor journey.
