Name: Mearns & Gill
Telephone: +44 (0)1224 646311
Price range: $

The Challenge

We act as Professional Conference Organisers (PCOs) for our client, and our brief is to manage their Continuing Education (CE) events, secure sponsorship to fund the events to ensure no financial loss, and to constantly look for innovative ways to evolve and continuously improve their events year on year.

SPE Aberdeen needed to evolve their annual Geothermal Seminar from a fully virtual event into something that could capture the growing industry interest while maintaining its global reach. After three years as an online-only conference, the challenge was to create a hybrid experience that would satisfy both in-person attendees and the international audience that had been core to the event's success.

Our Approach

We recognised the unique position of geothermal energy in the UK market—still emerging locally but with established expertise globally. Our strategy balanced multiple objectives:

Testing the in-person appetite with a call for abstracts launch event and networking breakfast that demonstrated strong local and national interest
Responding to sponsor feedback that favored in-person elements for investment
Maintaining global accessibility through sophisticated hybrid delivery
Maximising financial performance while delivering an exceptional experience

The Execution

The in-person part of the event was hosted at the Net Zero Technology Centre in Aberdeen. We sold out the venue and had people travelling from around the country to attend, as well as people from the local geothermal community in Aberdeen. The online element took place on Zoom Webinar where we live streamed speakers from within the venue out to those participating online and streamed online speakers into the venue. We had attendees from various countries around the world including Germany, Netherlands, USA, India, Norway, France, Austria, Estonia, Ukraine, Romania, Iceland and Saudi Arabia.

Our team:

Created a true hybrid experience with 50% in-person and 50% online attendance
Managed a complex technical integration between in-venue and virtual speakers
Connected attendees from over 12 countries around the world
Managed a hybrid Q&A experience to ensure attendees online and in the room got to ask speakers their questions

The Result

The event was a great success and received excellent feedback from both online and in-person attendees. Although the running costs were higher this year, the overall income and profit for the client were also significantly higher, meaning an increase in the amount that can be reinvested back into student bursaries and STEM initiatives.

The statistics below compare the results achieved in 2025 in comparison to the previous year's event.

Delegate income increased by 60%

Sponsorship sales increased by 129%

Overall event income doubled

Due to the success of this year's hybrid event, we hope to be able to move into a larger venue next year to accommodate the growing number of people interested in this sector of the energy industry. We continue to look for ways to grow and develop this and other events we manage for SPE Aberdeen.