Its all change again for PestTech in 2018 as the popular, one-day event organised by the National Pest Technicians Association (NPTA) moves to a new venue for the second year running. The date has gone back to the more familiar Wednesday nearest bonfire night in 2018 thats 7 November. This time however it heads further south to the Arena MK in Milton Keynes.
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 NPTA chairman, Adam Hawley |
| So what’s going on? Is this NPTA making sure we don’t get into a rut? No, not at all! The hope had been to make the Coventry Ricoh the event’s permanent home but then along came the snooker tournament, which is why PestTech last year was a week later than normal. Guess what, the snooker returns to the Ricoh again in 2018 but, this year, the option of delaying PestTech by a week is simply impossible. Why? Because in 2018 the French event, Parasitec, returns to Paris, taking its usual mid November (14-16 November) slot and, OK, we know, most UK pest controllers don’t travel to Paris but the exhibitors do and they can’t be in two places at once. Adam Hawley, NPTA Chairman explains: “Last year we took the big decision to move to a specialist exhibition centre at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and it proved to be a big success. The feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive, from both exhibitors and pest controllers who attended. We had hoped to make the Ricoh our new home for the event, but we ran into problems during the negotiations with the venue for this year’s event”. Not only were suitable dates difficult to agree on, the big sticking point was the parking. “We were able to have free parking for delegates in 2017, but this turned out to be just an ‘introductory offer’ and the venue refused to offer the same terms for this year,” he continued. “We felt it was very important to continue to offer free entry and free parking for all attendees to this event, as we have been able to offer for so many years before. When the Ricoh refused to play ball on this, we saw no alternative but to look elsewhere. We have been very impressed with the facilities at the Arena MK, so we are greatly looking forward to this year’s event.” |
The impressive new Arena MK home of the MK Dons football club in Milton Keynes