EventPlan News

All news items are presented in reverse order, with the most recent towards the top of the page.

The Battle of Orgreave to be rescreened

Eight years ago in June 2001, EventPlan recreated the infamous Battle of Orgreave, the climactic clash of the 1984 miners' strike between Arthur Scargill's NUM and riot police, in a groundbreaking live re-enactment for TV. The resulting documentary is being reshown on More4 on Saturday June 20th as part of a night of programmes commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the strike. Please click the link for a news item, or for information about our now famous re-enactment.

4 June 2009                      

Sunshine and superb events!

The weekend of 30-31 May proved a busy one for EventPlan with two quite different events staged during some particularly pleasant weather. Huge crowds thronged to Tall Ships 09  in the city of Gloucester to see period ships and our multi-period displays, whilst Kedleston at War at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire entertained visitors with a 1940s shows. All in  all a wonderful weekend enjoyed by all!

3 June 2009

            Grand Historical Bazaars prove a real blast!

Our Grand Historical Bazaars at Wimpole Hall and Rufford Abbey Country Park this April were such a resounding success that we'll be running both again next year - and perhaps one or two more - please revisit for confirmed details in due course. A brand new concept, we combined bring and buy sales for re-enactors and historical enthusiasts with historical traders, living history and arena displays, then placed all this in extremely attractive settings offering excellent facilities. Even the weather was perfect!

Why not come next year and take advantage of these great opportunities to take part?  Enjoy a chance to sell, swap, barter or give away all that "spare stuff" (pre 1970 vintage or so themed) and/or accumulate more! Historical traders welcome, and living history groups invited. If you would like to be kept informed, please drop us an email and we'll add you to our mailing list.

29 April 2009

                Events sure to beat the recession blues!

It may be all gloom and doom in many sectors of the economy, but hopefully not for historical events!  The good news is that experience from the 1990s shows that's there's never a better time to run an event than during a UK recession, as there are so many people looking for interesting things to do here at home rather than abroad. For example, when Head of Special Events for English Heritage during the 1990s recession, EventPlan MD Howard Giles noted a significant rise in visitor numbers at events. And with the Pound suffering against the Dollar and Euro, there's likely to be a lot of additional overseas visitors around too. So if you are thinking about staging an event, seize the opportunity! With our assistance you could be on the way to a hugely successful show!

Likewise, if you are looking for exciting events to enjoy as a visitor, simply check out our 2009 programme, offering a variety of great shows including some with free admission! Things start with a bang in April with our two Grand Historical Bazaars at Wimpole Hall and Rufford Abbey Country Park, don't miss them!

16 February 2009

Pirate rampage ends a very successful 2008 season!

Our busiest season to date closed on 25-26 October with a hugely successful pirate themed event at Gloucester docks. Around 15,000 people enjoyed an action packed weekend of swashbuckling culminating in a "sea" and land battle between desperate pirates holding hostage the Major of Gloucester and Miss Gloucester, and the Royal Navy, redcoat soldiers and friendly pirates led by Captain Jack Sparrow himself!  Click for some of the excellent visitor comments about the show.

In all over 100,000 visitors enjoyed a huge variety of themes and displays at our events around the country this year. Click for full details of our 2008 programme, or look ahead to 2009.

30 October 2008

Gloucester through the ages a huge success!

A fabulous weekend festival celebrating the rich heritage of Gloucester, from the Romans to WWII, set at a number of key locations within the city including the Cathedral and close, historic docks, Parliament Rooms, Blackfriars, Greyfriars, St.Michael's Tower, St.Oswald's Priory, City Museum & Art Gallery, and the folk museum.  Around 10,000 people braved bitingly cold and later on Saturday afternoon, wet weather to enjoy the huge number of displays staged around the city by hundreds of participants including re-enactors, minstrels, singers, entertainers and others. Visitor comments were extremely positive and on the Gloucester City Council survey form, achieved a  70% "excellent" rating, 30% "good" and no adverse ratings at all.

Click for event survey results and letters about the event from Gloucester City Council and the people of Gloucester.

EventPlan will be back in Gloucester on 24-26 October, providing living history and historical entertainments for the City Council's maritime event at the historic docks.

12 May 2008

Looking forward to 2008!

After a record year for EventPlan, its already looking like it will be even busier during 2008, with another action-packed programme developing. But there's still a few free dates in the programme, so if you are interested in us staging a high quality historical event on your behalf please contact us without delay. Click for details of our 2008 programme so far.

6 October 2007

Its a record - over 100,000 visitors so far this season!

It's been a bumper season for EventPlan with huge numbers of visitors enjoying our shows. With two events still to come we are already over the 100,000 visitor mark, despite a summer that has not entirely been kind weather-wise (although happily we missed the worst of it). So it looks by the season end, we will have had our busiest year ever, which is excellent news for our clients. And our performers seem to have had a great time too (which is extremely important!). We are always looking for new opportunities and challenges, so if you are interested in a fantastic event - well planned., popular but not costing the earth - then contact EventPlan today!

10 September 2007

EventPlan attracts press and PR coverage

Our events tend to attract quite a lot of interest but things are particularly busy on the PR front at present. Nottinghamshire Today magazine (May issue) published a 6 page feature about our forthcoming events in the county, and this month a double page spread about our summer programme appears in the Book Club Associates "Days Out" guide (to be sent to 50,000 BCA members). We are always interested in new opportunities for EventPlan and our clients so please do contact us if you have a proposal.

12 June 2007

At the Museums and Heritage Show

Immediately after staging Osterley through the ages at Osterley Park over the early May bank holiday, we exhibited at this years Museums and Heritage Show at Earls Court, on 9-10 May. It was a very interesting two days, spent meeting existing and potential clients, and exploring ideas for forthcoming projects. This was followed by the first of four events at Rufford Abbey Country park, a super weekend of medieval living history and displays.

Updated 22 May 2007

Visit our news archives for news items from 2001 to 2006.