After 23 successful Pest-Ventures technical seminars over the past 15 years, the Pest-Ventures team has decided to call time on its independent technical seminar format. The immediate effect is that the event planned for April 2014 will not now go ahead.
There are a number of reasons for the decision as Acheta’s Adrian Meyer, one of the principle partners in Pest-Ventures explains: “Pest-Ventures has always attracted a high proportion of local authority pest management professionals but, with fewer and fewer councils directly involved in pest management, this potential audience has dwindled. At the same time, those local authorities which still have in-house pest control departments have seen their training budgets slashed.”
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“In the private sector the pressure on time, as well as budgets, means that taking staff off the road to allow them to attend a full-day event, especially when you add in the cost of travel and, for many, an overnight stay before the seminar day, has become much more difficult to justify. “Add to this the rise in the number of free, or heavily subsidised, events such as those run by Barrettine, Killgerm, BPCA and NPTA and the economics of staging an event such as Pest-Ventures where independent speakers have to be funded, hotel conference facilities paid for and so on, just do not stack-up.” Pest was also a key partner in Pest-Ventures and our editor, Frances McKim adds to the reasoning: “Online training initiatives such as PestPractice.com together with the success of all of our independent, technical publications Pest magazine, the Pest+ e-news and this news-driven website have also added to the situation, albeit inadvertently. These all give pest professionals alternative ways to keep up with topical issues and technical matters.” Moira Hart from the third partner, Dewpoint Marketing, commented: “Whilst we realise that there are a number of people who will be disappointed by the decision, we have to be realistic. It takes a lot of time and effort to organise Pest-Ventures and with so many low-cost or free events it makes sense for us to bow out whilst we are ahead. We want everyone who attended Pest-Ventures to remember it for what it always was – a lively, informative and enjoyable event. Whilst we are not closing the door entirely, and should a suitable opportunity arise then, who knows, the Pest-Ventures brand may return, but, for now, we believe that the full day independent technical seminar format has had its day,” she concludes. Everyone in the Pest-Ventures team would like to thank the loyal band of delegates, speakers and exhibitors who regularly supported the Pest-Ventures events. |