EN visits Harrogate Convention Centre to find out how the venue’s plans for expansion will help take it to the next level
Few UK venues have had quite the impact on a place as Harrogate Convention Centre (HCC) has on the Yorkshire spa town.
Hosting more than 150 events a year, including Harrogate Christmas & Gift, The Flooring Show and International Nursery Fair, HCC is a major driver of the town’s visitor economy.
Since operating as an NHS Nightingale hospital during the pandemic, HCC has seen a resurgent return to events, with the venue set to celebrate its best year in a decade.
HCC director Paula Lorimer (pictured) says this reflects how “unbelievably strong” exhibitions have been since the pandemic, with the industry showing no sign of slowing down.
“We’re going to have our best year since 2014 by the end of March this year. Next year we’ll exceed that as well. Since 2019, we’ve put a third on our turnover,” says Lorimer, who is the former deputy CEO of Manchester Central and sales director of International Confex.
“Exhibitions are a very big part of what we do and we care about them a lot. It’s great that they’ve now stabilised and our visitor numbers are up. One of the reasons they’re doing well is that during the pandemic a lot of the suppliers couldn’t go to overseas exhibitions. So they came back to the UK and rediscovered those amazing UK shows.”
Lorimer says the venue, which is the same size as Manchester Central, has an unrivalled positive impact on the affluent Yorkshire town.
“We keep the hospitality sector going here,” she says. “The proportionality of what HCC does for a small northern town is huge because we’re the same size as those venues that are in the city.”
Lorimer says HCC’s surrounding area is what sets it apart as an attractive events destination, with exhibitors often staying in the area for a holiday.
One exhibition organiser who knows all about this is BIGGA CEO Jim Croxton, who runs the BIGGA Turf Management Exhibition (BTME), which has become a mainstay in Harrogate since 1989.
“The town of Harrogate is the star,” says BIGGA CEO Jim Croxton speaking on-site at the event. “There’s a saying that you arrive in Harrogate with problems and leave with solutions. Our show starts at nine in the morning, we close our doors at 5pm but it carries on for six or seven hours afterwards in the bars and restaurants. The Wetherspoons up the road becomes the busiest one in the country for three evenings.
The beauty of Harrogate is that there’s accommodation and food and beverage available at every price point. We’ve got global company presidents staying in five-star hotels and then others who are staying in an Airbnb enjoying fish and chips. The town and venue work so well for us.”
Other shows that the HCC hosts have seen visitor numbers increase in the past few months. Harrogate Christmas & Gift was up 11% last year; The Flooring Show, organised by Ocean Media Group, is set to grow by 20% this year; and Nursery Fair also showed an increase in attendance of over 20% in October.
Other notable events at the venue include the Knitting and Stitching Show and the AireCon Analog Gaming Festival, which grew from a games night in its founder’s living room to “the North’s biggest games expo” in just eight years.
Venue improvements
Since arriving in North Yorkshire in 2019, Lorimer has transformed operations leading to major long-term contracts and high-profile wins. After overseeing HCC’s transformation into the Nightingale Hospital, she then launched a new destination management organisation in March 2022, Destination Harrogate.
Lorimer is now preparing for upgrades to the venue to help support North Yorkshire County’s plans to be carbon neutral by 2030. The venue is on the way to achieving a ‘BREEAM outstanding’ rating.
Featuring 13,700 sqm of event space, HCC’s facilities include 12 exhibition halls, among them a listed Edwardian theatre, the Royal Hall, and a 2,000-seat auditorium that officially opened with the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982.
“What we need going forward is investment,” says Lorimer. “We believe that with some modest investment, we can take the venue to the next level.
“Our heating, ventilation and air conditioning needs upgrading so that we can hit our sustainability targets. The challenge is that the customers are very excited about this because they want a more efficient heating system but they don’t want it to be fitted while their events are going on. So we’re going to have to do it bit by bit during the summer.”
External consultant Green Circle Solutions is currently drawing up the venue’s sustainability strategy. It is also working with Don’t Waste to rationalise existing waste streams and work towards producing event waste reports for organisers.
In addition, LED lighting and sensors offering 80% energy savings have been fitted in most of the venue’s spaces, and drapes, carpets, digital signage and E-posters with touch screens were installed post-Covid to minimise single-use decoration.
The venue also has plans to expand and reconfigure its Studio 2 area, turning it into a larger, multifunctional breakout room to be used for exhibitions and conferences.
“We tend to run most of our exhibitions in the lower halls now and that’s worked well, which means we can run more conferences and therefore they can both coexist,” adds Lorimer.
The venue also moved its catering offering in-house last year, which has seen an “enormous improvement” says Lorimer. The venue is also looking at introducing a shop and app for exhibitors.
Lorimer adds: “When it comes to retail catering, I think venues find it very difficult to get it right. We’ve added 20-30% to our exhibition catering sales. That’s very important as we want people to stay inside the venue and not go into town.
“Our overall commercial strategy was employed because ultimately we’re owned by the local government and we’re here to provide maximum economic impact. Over the years, some of those business controls had trickled away, so we had to be more proactive.”
As for Harrogate, the town is set to benefit from the DCMS appointing North Yorkshire as a Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP).
“North Yorkshire will be promoted much more thoroughly and expertly. That will mean we’ll attract more visitors for all our events.”
Lorimer adds that Harrogate benefiting from six direct trains from London has been a welcome addition since 2019 and helped to attract even more visitors to the venue.
“Every venue is different and has its strengths and weaknesses, but when you come to Harrogate and have a look around you can see how extraordinary it is.
“Some will say it’s chintzy and a bit John Lewis, I would say, ‘What’s wrong with that?’”
