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| The countdown is on towards the merger between the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST, creating Britain’s largest unitary university. This historic move, which takes place in October 2004, will also bring together the two largest academic conference players in the North, presenting exciting opportunities for conference organisers.
The University of Manchester and the Manchester Conference Centre at UMIST were previously hot competitors in the conference market, and the joining together of their conference facilities under one banner brings much more flexibility and a vastly wider range of facilities to both sets of clients, helping to position Manchester not only as the “Knowledge Capital”, but also as the Conference Capital of Britain.
Andrew Yates, who will direct the new joint operation, comments: “The new merged university has all the ingredients to become the biggest and best conference venue in the country. It has purpose-built hotels and conference centres, a fully professional team including PCO services, decades of experience, a very loyal customer base and a massive academic market. We will be working hard to deliver the first-class facilities and top quality service which our customers have the right to expect.“
The name of the new university will be the “The University of Manchester”, and the main campus conference facilities will be marketed under this name. The name “Manchester Conference Centre” has been selected as one of the new universities sub – brands alongside a handful of others including Jodrell Bank, the Whitworth Art Gallery and the Manchester Museum, and will be applied to the excellent facilities in the Weston Building.
In 2007 the merged university is to build a world-class landmark building, which will form the focus of the main campus. The important element of this exciting new project is that the building will contain a 1,000-seat theatre, capable of dividing into 600 and 400-seat theatres. Although the building is still on the drawing board, we can reveal that alongside the theatre, will be more than 30 seminar rooms seating from 20 to 60 people, and catering areas. The building will also provide 300 new en suite bedrooms.
Manchester has always been an exciting city. Over the last decade, music, sport and shopping in the city have become world-famous and it was given a huge boost by the superbly successful Commonwealth Games in 2002. The University of Manchester, formed by the merger of UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester, is the latest in a long line of “big ideas” for the North West, which together have helped create a conference destination to rival any in the world.
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