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A look back at 2019

Published: Thu 19 Dec 2019

As a new decade fast approaches, IET Venues has reached the turn of the year following a strong 12 months which has seen a host of new clients and audiences making their way to IET London: Savoy Place and IET Birmingham: Austin Court. 

Over 113,000 delegates passed through our doors (London and Birmingham) to attend a combined 3,550 events. This was in part down to a staggering 70% of repeat external client events returning to IET London: Savoy Place.

Among the delegates arriving in 2019 were robots, hackers, global ambassadors and world leaders (including the Prime Minister), even a Princess graced the IET with their presence.

IET Venues’ status as the go-to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) venue was further enhanced with significant financial investments to the AV and digital infrastructure at both sites.

IET Birmingham: Austin Court received over £450K of redevelopments to the city centre venue, increasing the technology offering and transforming the Kingston Theatre into a live event space; while IET London: Savoy Place’s Riverside Room underwent more than £280K investments to its already state-of-the-art AV. The versatile event space remains one of London’s leading locations for award dinners, banquets, product launches and conferences.  

These improvements contributed to new and returning clients, particularly for tech and digital events, rising by 30% at IET London: Savoy Place, while 60 new clients arrived in Birmingham at Austin Court including the Knowledge Transfer Network.

Sean Spencer, Head of Venues and Facilities at IET Venues commented: “Every year we strive to better the last, and I’m pleased that Savoy Place and Austin Court have strengthened their position as leading STEM venues. It is a competitive field and since the beginning of the decade we have gone through a massive transformation, including rebuilding Savoy Place into a global tech hub. Austin Court is now one of Birmingham’s premier live event venues and I’m pleased to say we have set a standard that’ll put us in a stronger position going into a new decade.

“Financial and people investment mean clients can rest assured that whatever sector they are from, they can take advantage of our state-of-the-art infrastructure. As we head into 2020, we’ll also begin the celebrations for the IET’s 150th anniversary in 2021.”