Professional Academic Conference Organisers (PACO)
Integrated Meetings Specialist prides ourselves in managing successful academic and research conferences. A Professional Conference Organiser or Professional Congress Organiser (PCO) is a company which specialises in the organisation and management of congresses, conferences, seminars and similar events. An academic conference is a conference for researchers (not always academics) to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.
PCOs work as consultants for academic and professional associations. We provide full service management for conferences including but not limited to registration, site and venue selection and booking, audiovisuals, IT support, logistics, leisure management, marketing, printing and web services, sourcing speakers, funding and sponsorship, financial management and budget control.
A 2006 survey of UK conference venues found that a third of conference bookings were made by PCOs. At that time UK-based conferences generated British Pound 7.6 billion in direct sales giving PCOs a central role in some British Pound 2.5 billion of revenue generation. The UK is ranked second behind the US for global market share of conferences. Thus, although there is no one source of global statistics for the conference market it appears that PCOs play a central role in several billion dollars worth of revenue generation worldwide. Today, with the increase activities in Asia, IMS is poised to be a leading player in this market.
As no two conferences are alike, we tailor a services and structure our teams to suit every individual organising committee. For more information on the job scope of our individual teams, you may proceed to: