Welcome to

EI8HT

People

Places

Personality

A specialist PR & marketing agency working in the world of events and experience marketing. We exist because we love events, marketing, and live experiences. We talk about empathetic marketing; the creation of campaigns that take the time to understand audiences, their world, and their lives, and that build a closer connection with them.

We talk about creativity; creating ideas, campaigns, and messages that create empathy and action. We exist in that sweet spot between events and brands, people and places, emotion, creativity, and intelligence.

EIGHT started with a simple mission; to create a business that mixes business and pleasure. We attend events because they are productive, hard work, but great fun. This is allowed. You are allowed to enjoy your work.

EIGHT was formed out of a belief that this is what business should be like; that if you love what you do, you will be good at it, and it will be good for everyone; colleagues, clients, people, planet.

EIGHT was built around connections; a club mentality. Our first followers are our clients, then our network of stakeholders who formed the rest of our club.

So why EIGHT? Because we like circles but we also like connections. Because EIGHT is a lucky number, and we’re the lucky ones; we love what we do. EIGHT isn’t just a number to us; it’s a club, a network, and a promise.

Qwote saying IF YOU WANT TO LIFT YOURSELF UP LIFT UP SOMEONE ELSE Booker T Washington

Alistair Turner

Managing Director

Yvonne Turner

Marketing Director

Mike Fletcher

Freelance Writer / Content Producer

Claire Kenton

Freelance Writer / Journalist

Amber Maher

Freelance account executive

Nyomi Rose

Social Media Manager

Venues & Destinations

Sporting Venues

Event Management Companies

Industry Associations

Intelligence Content

Sporting Events

Sports Fashion

Major Event Influence

This is design and branding EIGHT-style. Building on intelligence and audience insight before we let loose with the creatives.

To do this takes an understanding of the audiences you’re trying to reach, researching who they are, what they care about - both at work and in their day to day lives.

The role of brand is increasingly important when it comes to how event planners select the people that they choose to work with. They don’t just want expertise and experience, they want brand alignment and shared values too. EIGHT gets this.

Philosophy

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

Future Generations

At EIGHT we believe in the future of the events industry. Our research points to a new event consumer and a new event organiser, backed by super brands with a conscious. For us, this is the real force behind moves towards better sustainability, inclusion, accessibility, and wellbeing outcomes. Its why we support Event First Steps and the work they are doing to raise the voice of this generation across these so urgent subjects.

Accessibility & Inclusion

It’s part of EIGHT’s core values that the event industry be as inclusive as possible. Our agency has been at the forefront of both ensuring that events are produced to cater for those who would not normally attend events – be they disabled from a motor or sensory reason, or that they just don’t like event environments – and from a societal point of view.

At the same time, we believe that one of the key structural issues that faces then industry is its ability to attract talent from across society. Be they from marginalised, disenfranchised or minority communities. Again, we have worked with our clients to bring these issues to the industry, and to address them proactively and aggressively.

Note: On a very basic level, the type face used on the website is designed to communicate better to those with dyslexia

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We choose to separate accessibility led inclusion with equity and diversity within the industry. They do mix however and speak to a more ethical approach to meetings and events.

Through our work as opinion leaders within the industry, and as advisors to events businesses, we advocate for more diversity, forging partnerships with smart businesses and movements that represent these believes. It’s something that is intrinsic across our content programmes, as we look to present a more representative view of the industry with more diversity of opinion.

Sustainability

Events have, for too long, been disregarded as a battleground for sustainable business. Now we need to show that, not only can they be a powerful communication resource for showcasing businesses sustainability, but that they can be sustainable in their own right.

EIGHT clients have always been ahead of the game, and we have been delighted to be involved in some of the most influential and industry defining campaigns around sustainability. These include the multi-award winning Beyond Food Reports, by Lime Venue Portfolio.

We were also one of the first followers, fans, and supporters of isla, the event industry’s own sustainability movement. We are a strategic advisor to The Rubbish Project a business that looks to create beauty from waste and install circular waste models into businesses.

At EIGHT PR & Marketing, we’re delighted to share that all of our business activities are offset through Carbon Neutral Britain, that we endeavour to use the most sustainable travel option possible and that we work with clients that share these same values towards more sustainable business and events.

The Virtual Experience Economy

We are, right now, in the age of the Virtual Experience Economy. A phrase initially coined by our partners at trendwatching.com, but which also provided a natural evolution of The Experience Economy, first explored by Pine & Gilmore in their same named book first published in 1999.

EIGHT PR & Marketing first bought the experience economy into the global event industry in 2018, predicting that the age of The Experience Economy (2009 -2019) had evolved into a 10-year trend. With it, we predicted a more empathetic and purpose led approach to experience, which laid out brand’s values to their audiences using events and technology in the ultimate hybrid.

This prediction has come true, with the increase in augmented experiences and the first forays of the event industry into the Metaverse.

We remain key influencers in this era of experience. In short, you heard it here first.

Intelligence

Everyone at EIGHT is committed to what we call the 70/30 principle: that 30% of everything we do will be non-client related. Intelligence gathering.

This is about collecting information, trends, data, anecdotal information, gossip, market intelligence and case studies. It’s about becoming information junkies. It means we bring new information to our clients every day. This approach got big on us, as more and more clients look for us to bring data and insight to their own events.

It started with our creating the ibtm World Trends Report (see below) and has involved in us being curators of content across some of our clients’ events, from CHS to ibtm.

Creativity

Albert Einstein once said, ‘Creativity is Intelligence having fun’. Its why we harvest so much information because creativity needs to add value, to be continual and inexhaustible; that’s why EIGHT is also an infinity symbol.

We’re not an agency that needs to be fed like a little puppy, we come armed with intelligence driven ideas.

The Club

Because we spend so much time in the marketplace, we’ve built up a large network of people, organisations and business that add value to us and our clients.

This could be value gained through information, partnerships, contacts, or event direct business. But it’s all added value, a perk of being a client. We call it The Club.