Events, dear boy, events: College in the running for national award

College events shortlisted for prestigious Scottish Event Awards

An Edinburgh College school-engagement event and two student-led projects have grabbed places on the hotly contested shortlist for prizes at the Scottish Event Awards.

The college has been nominated for the Best Educational Event for an event held to engage local schools, particularly head teachers, and increase opportunities for young people. And two teams of talented Events Management students picked up nominations for the Best Student Event Award.

The Scottish Event Awards honour the best events of various types across a range of sectors. They are run by magazine and marketing website The Drum.

The college’s Schools Event welcomed head teachers and other representatives from 34 local schools, who heard about some of the college’s key projects, its curriculum offering and how it is creating new vocational learning and progression opportunities, and spoke to key staff from each of the college’s curriculum centres. It was warmly received by attendees, and will form the basis for future partnership working between the college and local schools.

Two groups of BA (Hons) Events Management students made the shortlist for events held as part of their course.

One team, Icon Events, organised a fashion show featuring people with dementia as models to raise funds for Alzheimer Scotland. Service users, carers, staff and volunteers at the charity’s Fife Dementia Resource Centre in Kirkcaldy strutted the catwalk as models at the event, which raised more than £700 for the charity.

Another team, Festival Events, organised a sell-out mini fringe festival at the Voodoo Rooms, featuring a variety of musical acts and a magician. The team raised £2,200 for Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland.

Teams of students from Events Management courses organised 38 events this year, raising more than £20,000 for a range of charities.

This year’s nominations follow the college’s win in the Best Educational Event category last year for the Graphic Design Industry Night, a one-night event that showcased graduates’ award winning design work, and celebrated Edinburgh College’s close ties with industry.

This event allowed young designers to get face to face time with potential future employers. Due to the success of the first event last year, this has been made an annual event, and this year’s was held at the Fruitmarket Gallery as part of Let’s Glow.

The awards take place at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow on Wednesday 7 October.