Entries invited for the inaugural Festivale Award which will recognise and reward event excellence and effectiveness

Following the exceptional success of last year's event, organisers Middle East have enhanced the event to ensure that it will surprise, excite and engage everyone who plans, organises and promotes events. Festivale 2006, which features a highly impressive line-up of speakers with a wealth of regional and global experience, will be bigger and better than ever.

This year also sees the launch of the Festivale Award, which will recognise excellence in the event management profession, a jury of industry professionals selecting the Best Event Campaign. Companies across the region are invited to place their entries to win this most prestigious award by visiting www.iirme.com/festivale for the complete details and an entry form.

"The Festivale Award will rate events across a wide range of criteria," said Jackie Wilks, Director, Festivale 2006. "The winning campaign will be one that went beyond technical professionalism - it will also have succeeded in reaching out and touching the hearts and minds of the target audience through a vigorous, concerted effort that was energetically pursued - overall, an event that clearly surpassed all others in terms of excellence, achievement and quality."

The jury will be looking for an event supported by a comprehensive promotional campaign with clearly defined objectives, one that reflects a synergistic promotional campaign that communicated effectively and efficiently to the target segment through well selected media channels.

"Entrants must illustrate how they identified their audience and subsequently customised their marketing strategy to focus on each segment within the defined group," added Wilks. "Other criteria that will ultimately determine the overall winner are the event's USP - what was done that was different or unique. We see this as essential, as it means that the regional event industry can then take away and implement key learnings."

Valuable key learnings will also come from another of the entry criteria, namely the analysis of problems or obstacles to the success of the event, and examination of what worked and what didn't. Entrants must quantify this through tangible results (leads gathered, return on investment, actual -v- projected audience, media mentions, post-event survey results, etc. The judging panel will also look for evidence of how the event was brought to life and how greater brand exposure was achieved, in particular looking at specific year-on-year improvement, or in the case of a launch event, by clearly outlining the objectives including choice of venue, problem solving solutions and interpretation of the client brief.

Festivale works in partnership with Event 360 (part of PALME, the Middle East's premier professional sound, light, music, audio visual and systems integration exhibition) to give the region's event professionals a unique opportunity to meet and network with over 400 regional and international production companies, equipment manufacturers and distributors, all of whom could have a huge impact on the success of events. Event 360 takes place at Dubai International Exhibition Centre from April 23-25, 2006, and transport will be provided to the exhibition every day after the conference has closed.