London was the capital of the geospatial world last month – as GEO Business returned to the Business Design Centre in Islington, on 23-24 May, to showcase the best new products, services and solutions of the year.
The UK’s biggest geospatial exhibition and conference enjoyed its fourth year of significant growth, serving up 2386 attendees to its 200 exhibitors. That’s a 19% increase in visitors from 2016 and a 50% increase since the show was launched in 2014! Notably, the show also attracted a large contingent of international visitors from an outstanding 52 countries.
Attendees represented organisations from across the industry including Aecom, Airbus, Alstom, Amey, Arup, Atkins Global, Babcock, Balfour Beatty, BAM Nuttall, Boskalis, Bovis, BP, Carillion, City of London Planning, Colas, Costain, Crossrail, DFT, Exxon Mobil, Knight Frank, Laing O’Rourke, Lee Valley, Network Rail, Plowman Craven, Skanska, Transport for London amongst many other.
The surge in footfall was backed by glowing testimonials from across the show floor. With many attendees taking to social media to hail the show a great success. The #geobiz hashtag saw hundreds of uses across the two days – including this from Simon Navin from Ordnance Survey, who signed off his two days of tweeting at the show with: “And so ends the best #geobiz yet. Great work by all.”
Fantastic, brilliant, important, interesting, busy, successful, worthwhile, and essential – are just some of the words used to describe the show so far and long time supporter of GEO Business, Derry Long from Mollenhauer Group said, ‘The show has been absolutely heaving! GEO Business just gets better and better.’
With so much on offer, visitors that were unable to make it to specific sessions benefited from the lively, interactive Twitter commentary and debate throughout the show. Particularly during the show’s free GEO Question Time debating ‘The future of the geospatial industry’. It was watched by a record-breaking 400+ industry professionals via Twitter live streaming (more have since viewed it at www.pscp.tv/GEOBusinessShow/1nAJEBkkeXYxL?t=26).
An amazing two days
Caroline Hobden, event director of GEO Business, calls the support of the show ‘phenomenal’:
“We have just experienced two of the most amazing days in GEO Business history and been overwhelmed by the positive reactions from our visitors, exhibitors, speakers, associations and media partners. We work hard every year to ensure that our content stays as fresh, and as relevant, as possible for our audience, and the support from the industry, as always, has been phenomenal. Judging by the wonderful feedback, GEO Business is meeting – and surpassing – the demands of the dynamic industry that it serves.
“This year’s line-up offered our visitors an unrivalled opportunity to experience first-hand, ground breaking new products and services, and get expert advice and inspiration from leading innovators and key thinkers. From the ‘buzz’ across the show floor, to the packed Keynotes, popular associated meetings, and commercial workshop theatres all full-to-the-brim, as well as the 200 exhibition stands that looked incredible – it was a very busy, valuable and productive two days for everyone involved.
“We’re already looking forward to 2018. A host of loyal exhibitors and new companies are already on the waiting list to book their space for next May, so it looks like it’s going to be another hugely successful event,” she says.
Summing up their exhibitor experience Muneer Hassan, technical sales & support manager at SCCS, says: “We have been non-stop on the stand all day – for us, this has been the best show of the year!”
“It’s essential for our company to have a presence at events like GEO Business. The sheer amount of people who work in the geomatics/geospatial industries who attend these events means that we have a fantastic opportunity to network, develop existing relationships, meeting potential future clients in the process. Year on year I’m increasingly impressed by what GEO Business has to offer a business like ours and I’ll certainly be attending GEO Business 2018,” says Formby Surveys’ MD Andy Roberts.
“It’s a great event with lots of interest. We’ll be here again next year!” agrees Olu Oke, Marketing Manager at Bentley Systems.
Show highlights
One of the show’s key draws has always been its exceptional, CPD accredited educational content, including 80 cutting edge commercial workshops (many were so popular, there were queues outside the door). Workshops by Leica Geosystems, Earth-I, 3D Laser Mapping, Ordnance Survey, and Bentley Systems, were the top five crowd-pullers.
The world-class Conference programme yet again delivered a magnificent array of cutting edge presentations with eager delegates piling into the room for each session. Notable highlights, attracting well over 150+ attendees each, included Keynotes by Nigel Clifford, CEO of Ordnance Survey; Stuart Martin, CEO of the Satellite Applications Catapult; and Charles Kennelly, CTO of ESRI (UK).
Not only did the exhibition host over 200 of the world’s leading equipment manufacturers and service providers but exhibitors were also invited to bring along mobile mapping vehicles showcased in the venue’s forecourt providing an exciting spectacle for visitors on arrival.
The newest highlight for 2017 was the introduction of GEO Careers, a one day educational programme for students organised in collaboration with Alison Watson from Class of Your Own. Students studying the Design Engineer Construct course were invited to attend and industry experts delivered exciting presentations, designed to offer ‘inspiration for the next generation’ and based on the feedback, it did just that.
However, it wasn’t all work, work, work, regulars to GEO Business will be familiar with the notorious programme of social events including the very well attended welcome drinks, the extremely popular ale trail and the lively GEO Business dinner that saw guests networking through to the early hours.
Save the date for 2018
GEO Business will return to the Business Design Centre, in Islington, London, on 22-23 May 2018. For further information, please visit www.GeoBusinessShow.com
