As I have mentioned on one or two occasions in the past, I've been helping to put together the CIPR's Northern Conference 2006 which takes place on Thursday 6 July in Leeds.
Along with some help from other PR people in Yorkshire, and the always outstanding Nicky Wake at Don't Panic event management, we have pretty much got the day sorted. The venue is the exciting Carriageworks theatre in the centre of Leeds; there are some great keynote speakers and a lot of tempting workshops.
The two confirmed keynotes so far include:
- John Willman - UK Business Editor, Financial Times
- Rob Skinner - Chief Press Officer First Direct and Marks & Spencer Money
While the three main workshops that I want to sit in on include:
- PR in the voluntary sector - delivered by the team from Oxfam
- The Regeneration Game - a panel discussion on the role PR plays in regeneration
- Blogging and New PR - Philip Young and Stuart Bruce (but of course!)
More details on the whole event here. Tickets cost £145 for CIPR members and £185 for non-members (both + VAT).
The thing is, we are still waiting to confirm our third keynote speaker. So I thought before we have the full line-up in place I would through it open and give people the opportunity to nominate who would really make them fork out their hard-earned csah to attend.
The idea is (and I whole-heartedly admit nicking it off Philip Young!) that I list the two confirmed keynotes and then my 'dream ticket' speaker. I then 'tag' other bloggers to get them to reveal their idea of someone who would put the key back into keynote.
So. Simon's dream line-up this July would be:
- John Willman - FT
- Rob Skinner - First Direct
- Tintin - reporter for Le Petit Vingtieme (He would tell of his adventures with Opium smugglers, Bolshevik thugs, Chicago gangsters... and time spent fending off poorly written press relases)
Over to you: Stephen "PR Blogger" Davies, Nicky Wake and Richard Bailey.
wow £185 for a ticket!
It does sound good though... perhaps they can give me a job working the bar or handing out programmes so I can catch it for free? :)
Posted by: Alexandra Pullin | May 16, 2006 at 05:39 PM
Alex, I take it you're exclaiming wow at the amazing value of the event! One of the recent PR Week conferences cost £1000+ for one-day.
If you're a student member of the CIPR (...and why not?) then discounts apply... or email Nicky to see if she needs helpers!
Posted by: Simon | May 16, 2006 at 05:55 PM
You already have UK PR conference superstar Michael Bland. So the question is, who would I pay to hear?
Shel Holtz (on all things web); Toby Young (on celebrity); Niall Ferguson (on the challenge to liberal democracies); Julia Hobsbawm (on ethical media relations).
The problem is, in all cases, you can buy their books for a fraction of the conference fee. I'm with Alex on this (sorry to say). I sometimes feel these full-price conferences are organised more for the sponsors' benefit than for the members'.
Posted by: Richard Bailey | May 24, 2006 at 07:24 AM