On business in Antwerp

Working in PR and Marketing, I've been to my fair share of events, award dinners and exhibitions. They're a lot of fun and you meet some great people whilst getting new ideas for future work. All of the events I've been to have been located in the UK but as my job has shifted and I've been undertaking all the event organisation within the department, I had the opportunity to go out to Antwerp in May. As exciting as it sounds to go to Antwerp, unfortunately, I didn't see a lot of the city. I can tell you the whys and wherefores of the expo hall, but that's about it... I did see a Cathedral but it was night time...

Going away with work is always a funny one as it's not for pleasure, it's not the people you'd chose to go away with and you're on the clock 24/7. Having said that it can be a lot of fun being in a new city, meeting lots of new and exciting people and generally having a blast promoting your business. 

The exhibition we recently attended was Breakbulk which is basically all about bulk and project cargo. If you don't know what these are imagine ships bringing in grains/powders (bulks) and also large machines/structures (project cargo). All interesting stuff I'm sure you'll agree. It was our first time there for a long while and I'd organised all aspects of it which was pretty scary for me. Having it be in a foreign country was a worry for me as I didn't have the comfort of knowing the culture and the language so had to get everything on point so that I had no panics.

When we arrived (after successfully getting all the transport - booked by me, and checking into our hotel- booked by me again) I was so pleased with our stand, it looked fantastic and it made me all fuzzy inside knowing I'd put it all together. The show went brilliantly and I was quite chuffed in my own self-confidence being able to speak to so many people about what our company does. I wasn't too good on the techy parts but that's what our commercial guys were there for.

We had some lovely food whilst in Belgium (not in the Expo Centre, that was pretty dire, although there was a stand making fresh pizza which I took advantage of on the second day) although non of it was Belgium... We had burgers one night, you know how much I love burgers, and Italian another where I had the best dessert of my life. Like you go out for food and have dessert but then you're like, yeah it was nice but not like amazing. But this was AMAZING. It was a chocolate ice cream shell coated in coco powder with a layer of vanilla inside and inside that was a gooey chocolate sauce. Heaven.

Being away by myself, but with the team, gave me another nudge of independence. It just showed me what is possible when you plan plan plan and then it pays off! I hope that other things I organise are just as successful as I've got quite a few in the calendar coming up.