We spoke to Shaun Hinds, Chief Executive at Manchester Central about the value of real life events, the new era of events embracing digitisation and the future of the face-to-face events industry.

Shaun leads the team at Manchester Central in its mission to drive business growth through the development of its three key assets; its experienced team of people, its world class facilities and its outstanding levels of service. With a focus on innovation as a means to achieve this, Shaun is passionate about maximising opportunities as Manchester cements itself as the UK’s second city and the heart of the Northern Powerhouse.

Prior to joining Manchester Central, Shaun previously led international operations at Bridge Street Global Hospitality and has more than 25 years’ experience working across hospitality, property and business service sectors. Having held leadership roles across a wide range of business functions, Shaun is in prime position to steer Manchester Central through its next phase of growth.

Shaun tells us how he envisions technology playing a part in face to face events, “There will be premium for real-life attendance…that we will widen the audience using the technology, but there will still be incredibly value being in the space at that moment in time.”

“You can expand your audience, you can widen the scope of the discussion and debate using technology, and you can focus real value, both in terms of participation and also commercially, on being in that space at that time.”

And sharing what Shaun loves about events, he explains, “Events are always looking at presenting the pinnacle of where that industry or market is at that time – you will see the vision into the future, what the next level technology looks like - it’s always forward-looking. It’s always about innovation.”

“As a venue, we see all sorts of different industries coming to one space. Every single event is different so we get this really rich sense of what’s happening across all sorts of different industries.”

Looking forward to the future, Shaun says “There will be an incredible enthusiasm for events…and people will really value the opportunity to congregate in real life again and be part of something that’s happening in real-time, not over a screen.”

Watch the full interview here:

 [Please note: This interview was recorded in June.]

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