Meetings and Events Australia’s NSW Kick-Off Event was a sold-out affair last night at Sydney’s new 230-room Little National Hotel in the centre of the city.

At the event, SMC Conference and Function Centre was announced as the state’s professional development venue sponsor with the return of live education events to return this year.

“I think it’s important that we’re able to support the industry where we can,” Sydney Masonic Centre's General Manager Paul Davison told micenet at the event. 

Photo: Oneill Photographics

Australia’s third largest inland city by population, Ballarat, just 90 minutes from Melbourne, avoided the Victorian capital’s famously strict coronavirus lockdown and appears to be well on the road to recovery.

For this city built on the gold rush of 1851 and made internationally famous by the 1854 Eureka Stockade, 2021 is proving busier than ever according to Mandy Grant, a Ballarat-based board member of Business Events Victoria. Read more

The 250-room PARKROYAL Monash Melbourne has opened in one of Melbourne’s major education, medicine, research and science precincts, as part of M-City Monash, Melbourne’s largest mixed-use development.

The new hotel has three meeting spaces including a 375sqm ballroom for 210 seated.

“PARKROYAL Monash Melbourne will provide something exciting and different for the destination, serving up a full-service upscale hotel experience differentiated by its signature warm approachable service, combined with all the conveniences of a multi-use complex,” said the property’s General Manager, Darryl Healey. 

Arinex has launched a virtual and hybrid event platform through its event technology subsidiary eTechSuite.

The new product, called eMeeting, joins an offering which already includes management programs for abstracts, papers, event programs and speaker presentations and event app software.

“The marketplace has been bombarded with an abundance of new technology providers who all claim they have the best technology for delivering conferences or events but sadly many are likely to disappear just as quickly,” said Nicole Walker, CEO of both eTechSuite and Arinex.

Through corporate partnerships, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras gave out $248,000 in grants to LGBTQI+ community groups for this year’s festival season.

"It was important for us to work with our partners on supporting the community, in both the short and long term,” said Mardi Gras CEO Albert Kruger. 

Just one of its three grant programs, which distributed $100,000 in funding, resulted in over 200 artists, DJs and entertainers being engaged, 226 event staff employed and over $300,000 in revenue generated for venues.

The Business Events Council of Australia (BECA) has led the industry in praising Tourism Australia’s announcement of a $3 million one-year extension to the Business Events Bid Fund which provides direct financial assistance to international events to bring them to Australia.

However BECA and other representative bodies, from the Australian Convention Centres Group (ACCG) to Meetings and Events Australia (MEA) have also renewed calls for immediate support for the industry to help it survive until more events resume. Read more

One of the most powerful people in the exhibitions industry, President & CEO of Informa Markets Asia Margaret Ma Connolly has been announced as one of the headline presenters for the virtual UFI Asia Pacific conference on May 20.

Ma Connolly will talk about the future of multichannel events and discuss how the Informa Markets Asia portfolio has changed through COVID and where it’s headed. Informa Markets is the biggest expo and conference company in the world. 

Virgin Australia has announced major recovery actions, including returning 220 of its cabin crew to work and employing a further 150, as it looks to be at 80 percent of its pre-pandemic domestic capacity by mid-June.

The airline will reintroduce 10 aircraft and add 220 extra return services weekly in the coming two months. Changes to routes and frequency include the addition of Melbourne-Hamilton Island and Melbourne-Darwin flights and extended seasonal flights between Melbourne and Balina Byron.