Competitive Socialising 2022
Competitive Socialising 2022: The Power of Play is an industry leading show discussing and highlighting the benefits competitive socialising in its many forms can have on the hospitality industry. We heard from innovators, entrepreneurs, chain owners and chain starters to learn what worked for them and what hard lessons they learned along the way.
Competitive Socialising is about bringing people together to have fun, take part in something engaging and build lasting memories. What better way to celebrate this ideal than to pack the venue full of cutting edge competitive socialising products and technologies for attendees to experience first-hand on the day.
Plus, with so many big names in hospitality in the room it was hard not to rub elbows and network throughout the evening's festivities, especially once the drinks and games got underway.
Overall, the event was a fantastic day to have fun, learn lots and go away feeling ready to take on everything competitive socialising!
Thank You to All Attendees
A huge thank you to all who attended Competitive Socialising 2022: The Power of Play! The event sold out in record time with a waiting list of over 150 names ready to jump into the event if a spot opened up, which just added to the bustling atmosphere throughout the day.
To those who missed out, this is our wrap-up of all the amazing elements that made up our second ever Competitive Socialising event.
A Word from Our Hosts
Home Leisure Direct and Inntegra pulled out all the stops for this event, and had this to say on how it all came together:
"I was blown away by everything. The whole event couldn’t have gone better. What stood out to me was the optimism and camaraderie amongst the attendees. So many great people all sharing stories and pleased to be out from behind a Zoom camera. The quality of speakers was outstanding, truly riveting content. The support from our partners, who make all this possible, was phenomenal. Superb food and drink throughout, great stands and everyone joining in the fun.
Also, I just want to mention the whole team from Home Leisure Direct and our suppliers - they all worked tirelessly to put this show on. Lastly, a special mention for Jade. Without her none of this would have happened. She put her heart and soul into making this event as good as it could be. I can’t wait until next time!”
- Andy Beresford, MD for Home Leisure Direct
"I was absolutely overwhelmed and amazed by how the Competitive Socialising Event came together! Thank you to our speakers, delegates and partners for making this event exciting, innovative and informative! I'm excited to see the VT's soon - though unfortunately Storm Eunice wrecked our videographers' office space for quite some time - so watch this space.
I'd like to reiterate a big shout out to our perfect partners, which without whom the event wouldn't have been quite as awesome or be free to our operators to enjoy. Super looking forward to Competitive Socialising 2023!"
- Jade Craig, MD for Inntegra
Speakers
Competitive Socialising touches all of us in this industry, from the local pub to multi-venue high street dominators. Our diverse range of speakers helped identify and discussed a huge array of topics, from lessons learned through the pandemic, to how we're coping in the here and now and how we can prepare for our future - and thrive!
If you missed out - or didn't grab one of our handy event programme's from the day, our speakers and their topics of choice were:
- The Death of Mediocrity - by Steve Alton, Bii
- Escape Rooms, in the Present & Future - by Katie Falcon-Uff, Time Trap Escape Rooms & Imaginarium Designs
- Doing Things Differently - by Charlie Gilkes, The Inception Group
- The Power of Play - by Hugh Knowles, Puttshack UK
- Winning a New Customer Occasion - by Katy Moses, KAM
- Crazier Golf: From Pop-up to National Brand - by Sam Jones, Junkyard Golf Club
- Third Strike Lucky! - by Graham Cook, All Star Laines
- Panel Discussion on the Power of Play - by Craig Mayes, Riley's & Charlie McVeigh, Bunker Projects & Sharon Vickers, Treetop Adventure Golf - and hosted by Dan Brookman, Airship & Toggle
- Retail Evolution - by Ben McLaughlin, BOX PARK
- The XP Factory - by Richard Harpham, XP Factory
- An Interview with Michael Harrison of Gravity Active Entertainment - by Julian Ross, Wireless Social
- Maintaining & Sourcing Vintage Arcades - by Joe Dowling, Four Quarters Bars
A selection of speeches will be available for viewing online in the coming weeks - so make sure to be following Home Leisure Direct and Inntegra for the latest updates.
A huge, huge thanks goes out to all of those who took time out of their busy schedules to teach us about their perspective on the market.
Our Graffiti Wall
We have to give a special mention to our graffiti artist Off Key Art, who turned our grey venue walls into an eye-catching piece of art for the day.
Competitive Socialising 2022 is all about sharing and building on ideas of how to succeed and maximise within the hospitality industry, and we know from experience that customer potential starts before they even get inside a venue. A live gaffiti artist helping us celebrate partners of our event drew plenty of interest from passers-by and helped attendees know they were in for something special.
Games, Games and more GAMES
It wouldn't be a competitive socialising event without a little competitive socialising going on! We stocked the venue with a great variety of competitive socialising products: from classic pub favourites to all new augmented reality products.
We showcased our favourites: Signature Tournament Pro Edition Pool Table with Contactless Card Reader, Signature Lincoln American Pool Table, the Rasson Ox American Pool Table, two Signature Marlowe Shuffleboards, Mandalorian Pinball Machine, Godzilla Pinball Machine, Scudetto Foosball, Big Wave Air Hockey with Contactless Card Reader, JetPong, Skeeball, and many more!
We unveiled the latest augmented reality products to hit the competitive socialising scene: Batfast and Augmented Reality Darts with Bullseye!
Super! Smashing! Great! We had a fantastic Jim Bowen impersonator unveil the latest and greatest in darts: the Bullseye Augmented Reality Darts game! Relive this all-time TV classic with a live projector screen overlaying a fully interactive, smart dartboard. The game can track your hits and misses and keeps the game pace up with question rounds on the player's touch-screen terminal.
Batfast is the latest technology in providing fast paced, real time augmented reality batting cages. Choose from cricket, baseball or tennis, pick up a bat or racket and line up for a randomised bowl from behind the projector screen. Learn more about the product and how you can feature it in your venue here.
Want to see more from our commercial range? View and download our commercial brochure that was available on the day below:
Partner Stands
We must once again give a huge shout out and thanks to all of the partners who helped to make this event such a roaring success. It was great to see so many contributors in one space showing off some fantastic innovations, tech and business solutions.
We have to say a huge thanks especially to Brakes for providing a huge array of food for our attendees throughout the day - with breakfast, lunch AND dinner - and our Stint staff for making sure everyone had full acess to Brakes' selection.
Illy was a wonder for providing much needed fresh coffee throughout the day - followed closely by Redbull for providing some much needed energy too.
Wireless Social provided a fantastically fast and customised CS2022 themed wi-fi network.
Startle provided tunes and a fabulous game of Rock and Roll Bingo in the evening - which we have all been enjoying in private games at home now too!
Fountain, Laine's Brew, Jubel, Singolo Wines, Coca-Cola, Lucky Saint and Oak and Still provided an insane array of drinks offerings for our attendees, so all needs were catered for. From soft drinks, to alcoholic seltzers, to cocktails, to wine, to flavoured beer and superior alcohol-free beer... we had it all!
Thank you to Joos for keeping our audience captive with their handy phone charging stations.
We were able to donate all of our excess food and drink to those in need via Only a Pavement Away - we should all be taking a leaf out of their book.
A special shoutout to Photobot for providing an animation-producing photobooth for the day. See if you can spot you or your colleagues in their online gallery here.
A thank you to Airship, the mobile customer engagement masters; Toggle, the perfect gifting partners; Bums on Seats for their continued support; Check Your Drink, the drink safety device suppliers; Flipdish, the best flexible, ordering app out there; Hospitality industry Training for all apprenticeship needs; KAM for insight and research into this industry; NDML for all insurance needs; Polaris Elements, for all back of house and payroll needs; Sky for their continued support; Venners - who are not just your average auditors; Woodswhur, to cover all your legal requirements; RSM for all your continued support; and Dojo for all in-person card payment needs.
Professional Security were so smartly dressed and kept us feeling safe throughout.
Salty Dog had us snacking and snacking and snacking on their crisp offerings.
Goodie bags
What would an event like this be without a goodie bag? This year saw an incredible selection of goodies generously provided by our partners of the event.
Thank you again to our partners, who made this event not only possible - but epic.
Event Programme
Our event programme was jam packed with information for the day. In case you missed it, below is a virtual copy of the programme:
Register Your Interest in Competitive Socialising 2023
Excited about what's to come? We sure are - and so it seems is everyone else! Of those surveyed, a whopping 73% are definitely grabbing a ticket for CompSoc23, with a further 23% registering as interested.
“A great event overall, which provides an opportunity for the industry to get together and swap successes and watch-outs.” - Adventure Golf
"Enjoyable day and came back with some useful ideas and a clearer understanding of the direction we need to take." - The Portland Arms
Register your interest for partnering, attending or speaking at Competitive Socialising 2023 or any of our future Competitive Socialising events, by emailing Jade at [email protected] .
Competitive Socialising Awards 2022
The latest event in the Competitive Socialising space - details coming soon...