KFC fest building graphics

KFC UK & Ireland's annual RGM Fest at SEC. © KFC UK & I.

COMPANY: KFC UK & Ireland
EVENT: KFC UK & Ireland's annual RGM Fest
NUMBER OF DELEGATES: 1,400 - 1,500
VENUE: Scottish Event Campus (SEC)

Claire Gibson is the Internal Communications & Engagement Manager at KFC UK & Ireland and delivers the KFC UK & Ireland's annual RGM Fest. We caught up with Claire to find out more about the event, motivating delegates and what she loves to do when visiting Scotland.

Can you tell us a little more about your event?

We hold our RGM Fest every year, it's our annual opportunity to get all our Restaurant General Managers (RGMs) and other key stakeholders from across the UK and Ireland together. Each year there is around 1,400 - 1,500 participants and the majority of these are RGMs who are the main audience for the event. The event is a chance to motivate the team with what's to come in the year ahead, align everyone on the strategy and galvanise them around their part to play - that's the day part anyway.  In the evening, we have a giant party and that's our chance to say thank you to everyone for all of their hard work and contribution and recognise some incredible achievements. It truly is the highlight of the KFC calendar and it's great fun creating it.

When organising your annual conference, what is the first thing you look for in a potential destination/venue?

The RGM Fest is a very special event for us, so we tend to look for a 'destination' not just a conference venue. We also look at the culture of the destination as delegates tend to spend 2 or 3 days there, so we would look at making sure the destination is friendly as well as ensuring there are plenty of things to do that will suit all budgets and tastes.

We also need to make sure there are enough bedrooms to accommodate all delegates at the conference venue or close by.  We would also look at bars, restaurants and places where we can have pre conferences.We like to get the attendees excited about the destination and a month or so after our event we'll release teaser campaigns for the next one so that RGMs can guess the location and get excited.  Nearer the time we package as much information about the destination as we can into an event app to help delegates make the most of the destination as well as get info about the event itself.

One of the things we love about Glasgow, which makes a real difference, is that the whole City wants to help. For example, various travel hubs displayed messages saying 'Glasgow welcomes KFC' so delegates felt welcome as soon as they arrive - which makes them feel like this is their home for the time that they are there.

The RGM Fest has grown quite big now and due to the way we structure the event we need a lot of space. At the moment there are only a few places in the UK which can accommodate our requirements. For the venue, we look for flexibility and adaptability of the venue space. We often don't know exactly what the conference will look like at the time we are hiring a venue, so we need to plan for all eventualities. It needs to have plenary space for 1400+, a separate evening space that can accommodate a mega stage and a gala dinner for 1400+ people and it also needs to have 5 breakouts that can each hold around 400 people - basically we look for a unicorn.

Catering is very important - we like to go off menu and co-create a concept dinner with the chefs - so the venue has to have a creative team up for the challenge. The space requirements are a pre-requisite but after that we heavily weigh decisions on the event team at the venue. A great team you can partner with, that can work with you and are invested in your event as much as you are is what we look for. A team that get inspired and creative with us - we're not keen on working with teams that just want to churn out the same event for all of their clients time after time. Finally, a nice to have is a good 'flow' to the space. Our delegates get lost quite easily!

KFC fest Hall 2 Bucket and Lighting

KFC UK & Ireland's annual RGM Fest at SEC. © KFC UK & I.

As part of your research, do you look at strength of its food and beverage sector?

Definitely, not just because we are in the food industry ourselves, but food has so many roles at the event. Food helps keep people motivated and energized throughout the day. Food is also part of the celebration and if you do it right, it's an experience! There is a trend that people expect better food now and if you get it wrong, it's the one thing people remember and will complain about, even if everything else was amazing! However, if you get the food right, it can be one of your biggest features and people will talk about it for a long time afterwards.

We also like to theme the food so that it ties into the KFC brand 'we are fresh and handmade', and we like to do the same thing with our destination and venues. For example, we've created videos from the chefs talking about the food - where the ingredients come from and the inspiration for the dish. These play as the food is being served and it's gone down really well with the audience - people love to know the story behind their food. We make it an important part and feature of our event.

How have the needs for your delegates changed in the last two years?

Technology now plays a huge role in events more so than it has done before. We're a generation of 'Uber's Children'. More and more, people demand ease and convenience in their daily lives and events are no different. For example, our table plans. Delegates don't want to stand in front of a screen anymore to wait for it to scroll around to get to their name so they can see where they are sitting. That's not convenient. So now we send an individual push notification to their event app with their table number.

So we are seeing those kind of trends and we love to explore and try out new technologies to help us run the event and interact with our delegates throughout the day.  Sustainability is also a big trend. Delegates often ask questions around this. For example, what happens to any surplus food or what happens with single use crockery.  All of those things matter and we'd also factor this into the venue choose.

Are you seeing a demand for more experiential meetings or a change in the variety of food you need to offer? How has this affected your conference programme?

What we do see is that the events that are experiential, which have a connected theme throughout, are the ones which have the most success and land messages. For example, this year RGM Fest was all about creating great experiences for our guests. So we mirrored some of the fundamentals of our guest experience in restaurant at the event. For example, we had 'professional greeters' welcoming our team to the event and surprising and delighting them during the day. And we set up a 'make it right' helpline for delegates to contact us throughout the day and evening if their experience was less than perfect so that we had a chance to make it right, there and then, instead of them walking away dissatisfied.

The delegate journey is a big part of the experience. This year we used our 'Chicken Town' advertising to form the basis of our guest journey. We turned all of the shopfronts and windows on the SEC concourse into generic 'chicken shops' and placed road markings on the floor and literally created 'Chicken Town' at the SEC in Glasgow. There was deliberately no KFC or conference branding or anything else that the team would usually expect. The team had to travel through Chicken Town, to get to registration and it was only after that point that they were able to pass through a tunnel and enter 'KFC', where there was a giant illuminated KFC bucket hanging from the ceiling acting as a beacon and a whole lot of fun.

Previously when we've wanted to launch new products or restaurant concepts we've built an entire KFC restaurant or kitchen studio at the venue to let delegates feel it, experience it and immerse themselves in it rather than just present some slides. We create experiences rather than a conference.  Actually, RGM Fest used to be named RGM Conference but we rebranded it and ran it as a festival with lots of different acts, workshops and entertainment in the evening to keep things fresh.

KFC fest Chicken Town

KFC UK & Ireland's annual RGM Fest at SEC. © KFC UK & I.

What tips do you have for motivating clients at annual conferences?

It's keeping everyone going - there should never be a lull and there should always be something going on. The Fest nature of the event really helps with that. If you think of a festival there are lots of things going in addition to the main acts, things that people can do/interact with.  And we like to try and recreate that feeling at RGM Fest.  Take our evening event - there's a main stage where all the action and entertainment is. But we also have things to do on the tables, things to visit around the room like glitter artists and shuffle board and also 'roaming presenters' to bring the action out to the audience.  There is always something to see, read and hear that keeps everyone entertained and talking to each other.

We also make it personal. We've had personal video messages for each delegate on arrival, video wall shout outs and welcomes for each team and everything we talk about we try and tie back to examples of successes in restaurants we have seen and we like to recognize those people. Even just a call out to individuals who have done something amazing in our restaurants goes a long way. Also, keeping it interactive such as quizzes or other methods of gamification through the app. We also had t-shirt cannons, modern day Colonels surprising people with swag, interactive social media wall etc.  We also had a DJ throughout the day to keep the energy going.

Instagrammable moments are a big thing, so having those points at your event where you know people will share is great.We try to have a distinct theme in each room. For example, in the room where we are talking about what products we have for the year, we try to make it look like a kitchen or recreate our menu boards which keeps people engaged.

We also use our guiding principal 'DO - KNOW - FEEL'.  For each part of the conference we  ask 'what do we want delegates to do, what do we want them to know and what do we want them to feel' so everything we have in that room always has to go back to 'DO-KNOW-FEEL'.

When you are visiting Scotland, what are your top three favourite things to do/places to visit?

There are so many things when visiting Scotland! I love visiting Leith. It's one of my favourite places to meander around and I love the restaurants there. I love the SEC campus area and I loved the morning walks to the venue when we held our last event.

I enjoyed a visit to the Clydeside Distillery, Murrayfield for the Rugby and I love visits to Linlithgow and seeing the Lochs and palace - that's where I grew up.