Airmic boss John Hurrell has Bournemouth in his sights

John Hurrell, chief executive of Airmic:

With the AIRMIC conference still a few weeks away, the office has a ‘calm before the storm’ feeling. There is relatively little that we can do right now, but it’ll soon be a case of all hands to the deck as we get the show ready.

Although I say ‘we’, in reality it is the secretariat team who do the bulk of the work. Thanks to them, we have a very efficient, hard working group of people who know exactly what to do based on past years’ experience.

We have just finalised the insurance forum, which is a centre-piece of the event. We always delay announcing the details to nearer the time to ensure topicality. This year it’ll be around the state of the insurance market, and we’ve just completed lining up a top-quality panel.

We’re also getting a steady flow of delegates, who need to be acknowledged and processed. Delegate numbers look recession-defyingly buoyant at this stage, but the last few weeks are always critical in that respect. Delegates are what make these events successful.

One novelty for us this time is the conference beach party, complete with Baywatch girls and all sorts of more traditional seaside attractions. These include a machine to test your strength, a giant buzzer and a limbo pole!

On a personal note, I have always thought of Bournemouth as costa geriatrica. Not any more, apparently. Yes, there are still plenty of oldies in town, but I’m reliably informed it vies with Brighton to be the nightclub capital of the south coast. Language schools, a university and young families attracted by a burgeoning services sector have changed the demographics. Everyone is still talking about our last conference there in 2006. We intend to make sure this one is even better.

The AIRMIC annual conference takes place at the Bournemouth International Centre, June 16-17.