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DECEMBER BLOG - The Road To Rotterdam

TOC BLOG - Paul Holloway .png

Friends

I hope you are keeping well and safe. 

Firstly, thank you to all those who attended our recent TOC Americas Virtual Expo.  I do hope you enjoyed the show and took something away from the event that maybe you didn’t have before you attended. The feedback has been very positive so far and the statistics are way beyond our expectations but if you joined us, we would really like to hear from you.  Your feedback will help us improve our next products and services as this is a new experience for us all.

Looking ahead

Planning our 2021 strategy has been extremely challenging as there is so much uncertainty about when the market will be ready to return to face to face meetings. We generally employ an 18 month lead time when setting up a TOC event so we can plan appropriately, budget, source and secure venues and build our content stories. As you can imagine this is virtually impossible in these times and is making it challenging to lay down a definitive strategy. However, allow me to introduce to you our new ‘Road to Rotterdam’ concept.

Feedback from our clients has overwhelmingly led us to believe that the industry is keen to return to face to face meetings, particularly TOC Europe. With this in mind, our next physical event will be held in Rotterdam, currently scheduled for 7-9 September 2021. The floor plan is now ready to go and available for anyone who would like to view it – Click here for the floor plan.

Much work has been done to ensure the event is delivered safely – more details on this will follow. There will, of course, be a digital element to this and all our events going forward will allow people who may not have the chance to attend, perhaps because they prefer not to travel or have budget restrictions, to join us.  From running TOC Americas Virtual Expo, we discovered that people from all over the world could attend the event, many of whom would not have made the live version of the show – so in this regard, virtual technology can offer our customers and events a great deal of value.

Between now and then we will be embarking upon a journey which we are naming ‘The Road To Rotterdam’ – a virtual content programme covering key themes and topics including Terminal Operations, Brexit, Accelerating digitalisation, port watch and much more. This content will be delivered in a series format, the last of which will take place live at TOC Europe 2021, Rotterdam.  Customers will have the opportunity to join the journey and gain maximum value by taking part in the activities in the lead up to the big return to the live experience.  A full content programme will be available soon, so watch this space!

As it stands, we still intend to run a variety of other TOC events in 2021 and preparation is already underway. TOC’s next virtual experience is likely to return virtually in May (Watch out for an announcement soon!) and also do look out for our new project in Africa.  Remember of course also that we will be back delivering TOC Americas live in Peru next year – and whilst the virtual event was a great success, I’m sure we will all enjoy being back together as an industry in the not too distant future.

TOC is here for the industry and whist this has been a challenging time, myself and the TOC team are working hard behind the scenes to create and deliver an extensive suite of digital and live events for you in 2021. We sincerely look forward to seeing you all in person next year and invite you to join the journey on The Road to Rotterdam with us; until then, thanks for reading, keep safe and do reach out to us for further information or assistance.

 

Paul.