Housing 2022, the Chartered Institute of Housing’s award-winning annual conference and Europe’s largest housing festival, is returning to Manchester Central taking place on Tuesday 28th – Thursday 30th June.
AM Bid are regulars at the event and this year will have our stand right by the main entrance to the exhibition, welcoming the expected 6,000+ attendees as they walk through the door (Stand D1 – stop by and ask us about our Ultimate Tender Coach training programme).
It’s not too late to register, so just in case you haven’t booked yet and were wondering what to look forward to, we sat down with Sarah Payling, Group Event Director (Housing) at event organisers, Ocean Media Group, to find out everything you need to know about Housing 2022.
Who is Housing 2022 for?
If you work in the housing sector or even if you are a resident with an interest, there is something at Housing for you. It’s the only event that welcomes every single part of the supply chain, every person that works within the sector, all tenants and residents, local authorities and housing associations. That’s the strapline for this year. This is the place where you can meet up with all of your stakeholders.
Everyone has a part to play. If you look at the Net Zero challenge, for example, the supply chain is vital to meeting that goal and sometimes people presume that the supply chain doesn’t have a voice, but they absolutely do. Especially at Housing 2022, the supply chain is a part of the housing sector, which I think is brilliant.
Why should you attend?
Since 2012, our attendees have given us award-winning global status for our delegate experience, so we know our guests and visitors get a lot out of their time. 67% of our delegates don’t attend any other industry event and that’s consistent every year, so that shows the value of Housing that two thirds of the audience choose us as their one industry event.
Those delegates come for two reasons: one, the excellent content on show, including 450 speakers and 300+ sponsors and exhibitors over the three days, and two, all the opportunities to meet each other and to network in an informal environment, including two event-wide networking events on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
There will be plenty of both this year, and lots and lots of different ways to really get the most out of your time at Housing this year, beyond just attending the main show floor.
What issues will be covered?
Every year we open the programme with ‘There’s a housing crisis!’ – that’s been the case for some time and there’s a lot of work being done around that and certainly more still to do. Other topics this year include the cost-of-living crisis, net zero, affordability, homelessness, placemaking, technology and innovation, and the Levelling Up agenda – and what all this means for the UK housing sector in particular.
All event content is sector driven – our job is to listen and try to forecast the next 2-3 years of what is going to keep people awake at night, then build the show around those issues and how to deal with them.
Advice for first time attendees
As Europe’s biggest housing event, Housing 2022 will require a bit of forward planning to ensure delegates reap the biggest benefits. Quite often, people don’t appreciate just how big the conference is, so they turn up and realise they haven’t sent the right amount of people to fit in everything they want to do.
The first thing attendees should do is register for the event to get the full list of activities and allocate resources accordingly. Plan ahead to sit in on sessions related to your sphere of work, and ensure you are talking to people in those sessions, because they could be your clients and customers.
Don’t limit yourself to what’s on the programme either. There are always exciting things going on across the exhibition floor as well as outside on the Plaza. We always say in our communications, the whole of the event is yours. Attend the drinks receptions, the breakfast briefings, just make the most out of it.
Finally, what is it that makes Sarah Payling so look forward to the event?
The thing that excites me every year is the new ideas that come out and the new people that come to the fore. People can track a lot of the great work that they are doing back to a chance conversation that happened at our event.
So, I’m most excited about seeing the engagement, the joy, everything that happens throughout the three days, and in making sure that people truly feel it is a valuable use of their time out of the office.
We’ve also got a really active fringe this year and I can’t wait for everyone to see it. We’ve done some amazing designs of the fringe over the years; but I think this year is my favourite to date and it’ll be good fun.
Many thanks to Sarah Payling, Ocean Media Group, for her time. If you are interested in attending Housing 2022, you can register at https://cihhousing.com/