MANCHESTER'S corporate movers and shakers are refusing to shoulder the blame for the demise of the planned North West International Business Convention.

Organisers have blamed insufficient support from businesses as they pulled the plug on the event at the International Business Convention Centre, near the G-Mex, after selling just a fraction of the tickets available.

Former US president George Bush Snr was the main draw at the convention, which was priced at more than é250 per ticket.

Regional International Business Conventions, company behind it, which has been running similar events in Yorkshire for a decade, sold just 100 out of 800 tickets for the Manchester version, compared to selling-out 2,000 places across the Pennines.

Failure

The failure of the convention to succeed and engage with the major players in such a vibrant and successful city as Manchester, has sparked much debate in the business community as to why.

Many were critical of the event's contents and the way it was marketed, while other senior business people attributed its failure to the fact that there have been other high profile events in the city, such as the recent visit by another former top US politician, Colin Powell, who spoke at a Jewish National Fund dinner.

A well-placed source at Manchester city council said: "There were several reasons why it did not get off the ground - we don't feel it was particularly well thought through.

"The tickets were very dear, we already have a major business event, BEX in the city, and less than two months ago Colin Powell was here.

It's nonsense to suggest the city could not support it."

'Unexciting'

Andrew Spinoza, managing director of PR agency SKV agreed: "The offer wasn't right and the way it was presented was unexciting in the extreme.

"I'm sure that Bush Snr has some interesting insights into global scenarios but these are hardly hot stuff for the time-pressed business community of Greater Manchester - certainly not for those prices in that setting.

"We put it up as a sponsorship option to several big clients but they all declined. The whole package lacked the compelling content that this type of thing needs to be a success."

A spokeman for the Co-operative Group, said while it "looks closely" at every event on the diary, the convention had not appealed.

Support

"We get numerous approaches and we always try to support Manchester events - we always will do.

"We would maybe look at topics close to our core beliefs. For example, if it had been Nelson Mandela talking about free trade and globilisation, then we may have taken a different view."

Mike Perls boss of Manchester design and PR agency MC2, laid the blame squarely on the organisers' shoulders.

He said: "The reason for the failure is due to the dismal marketing that surrounded the event. The north west welcomes innovative events on a huge scale but they also demand that desire is built around this event. The positioning of the event was all wrong. It should have been positioned as the event of the year and a must-attend.

Fault

"The fault doesn't lie in the speakers, venue or attitude of the north west but with the communicating of this information to the target audience."

Colin Davenport, a former banker and now corporate finance director with Berg Legal said: "Manchester already has a number of excellent organisations that offer quality networking events, such as pro.manchester.

"For the International Business Convention to compete with such organisations and appeal to the business community, more aggressive tactics would need to be taken and the event would need to be driven by the region's key players."

Sally Toumi, MD at recruitment firm Stark Brook Associates, added: "It didn't seem as though awareness of the event in the city was particularly high and I think that my own initial response was that, from a cost point of view, it seemed a bit overpriced."

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