Barbican Business Events appointed Emma Dickinson as a new events manager last month. Dickinson brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her position. Dickinson will support the Barbican Business Events team, which recently announced significant new business wins and sales growth.
Dickinson previously worked as events and catering manager for Twickenham Stadium, which required management and delivery of large events, including conferences for up to 1,500 people. She also held a similar role at Leicester City Football Club. Her experience includes communication and liaison with high-profile clients and stakeholders as well as managing substantial on-site teams.
As a business events manager at the Barbican, Dickinson will be responsible for the management and delivery of a range of corporate events. These will include AGMs for blue-chip clients, corporate presentations, graduation ceremonies, seminars, photo and film shoots and other conference and events business.
The Barbican’s Head of Business Events Management, Lee Dobson, says, “Emma joins us at an exciting time for the Barbican. Our Business Events team are constantly innovating, we have added new spaces to the commercial events offering and are seeing significant growth across association and corporate markets. Her skillset and knowledge are a perfect match for our team and I look forward to seeing her flourish in the role.”
Dickinson says, “After many successful years within the industry I am looking forward to a new adventure with the Barbican. Having previously worked with venues that offer more than just conference facilities I am looking forward to bringing a host of transferable skills to this role and working with a team dedicated to making 2020 a success.”
The Barbican is one of the world’s leading conference and international arts venues. Located in the City of London, it is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in its fully equipped concert hall, theatres, conference suites and boardrooms. Barbican Business Events brings together the venue’s expertise in the arts and corporate meetings. Built as part of London’s Barbican development and officially opened in March 1982 by HM Queen Elizabeth, unlike many other venues, Barbican was specifically built with the dual purpose of holding conferences and arts events presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning. The Barbican’s Business Events team contributes to the venue’s future success. To make the most of the Barbican’s rich culture and heritage, Barbican Business Events was created to bring together their expertise in three very different areas—the arts, creative learning and corporate business. This approach to corporate events is based on stronger, more in-depth partnerships with their artistic, creative learning and development teams in order to bring more creativity and rich content to events. The Barbican provides a vibrant and inspiring venue for corporate events, conferences, meetings and entertainment. The venue is capable of holding meetings from 10-2,000 delegates in spaces including a concert hall, theatres, a boardroom and conference suites that can accommodate 10-170 delegates and can be adjusted using sound proofed sliding. As part of its wider investment strategy, the Barbican spent £2.2m on a significant refurbishment throughout the Centre in the summer of 2016 including its Frobisher rooms and Level 4. The focus of the Frobisher refurbishment is designed to create an even stronger connection between the Centre’s main conference and meeting facilities and its arts spaces.
A world-class arts and learning organization, the Barbican pushes the boundaries of all major art forms including dance, film, music, theatre and visual arts. Its creative learning program further underpins everything it does. More than a million people attend events annually, hundreds of artists and performers are featured, and more than 300 staff work onsite. The architecturally renowned centre opened in 1982 and comprises the Barbican Hall, the Barbican Theatre, The Pit, Cinemas 1, 2 and 3, Barbican Art Gallery, a second gallery The Curve, public spaces, a library, the Lakeside Terrace, a glasshouse conservatory, conference facilities and three restaurants. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre. For more info, visit www.barbican.org.uk
