IFSEC Guarding Village hailed

IFSEC 2006 - the security sector's premier exhibition - played host to an all-new feature that proved to be a "massive success" for exhibitors and visitors.

The Security Guarding Village at IFSEC, located in Hall 7 of Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre, was planned with the full support of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), ASIS International, the British Security Industry Association and The Security Institute (TSI) as a platform for guarding contractors (and suppliers to that sector) to explain what services they can offer end users in a post-regulation environment.

Exhibition stands in the Village were occupied by the AFC Group, Bconnected, Broadland Guarding Services, Constant Security, G4S Security Services (UK), ICTS, Initial Security, Interconnective, the International Professional Security Association, Legion Group plc, MITIE plc, M-Set Technologies, Nationwide Security Services, Northern Security, Over-C, Uniform Express, Securiplan, Securitas, the SIA, TSI, Skills for Security, Sword Event Guard, The Shield Guarding Company and Wilson James.

Running alongside the Village was the Security Management Seminar Theatre. Sponsored by SMT, an entire day of events was hosted by TSI on Tuesday 9 May, with ASIS International's UK Chapter 208 running seminars on the previous day and G4S Security Services (UK) on Wednesday 10 May.

Comments from Hall 7

Michael Elliot - managing director of Over-C, who offer real-time, online workforce management solutions for security operatives - was "delighted" with The Security Guarding Village. "We gained 258 qualified sales leads," enthused Elliot. "The show delivered what we didn't expect, in that many end users from blue chip companies including Sainsbury's, Tesco and American Express were in attendance. We will definitely be returning in 2007."

Paul Hopper, the managing director of ACS-registered guarding contractor Northern Security, was equally pleased. "A great show," Hopper told SMT. "We had security managers from the likes of British Nuclear Fuels, Marks and Spencer and United Utilities on our stand. That's tremendous. These are just the sort of security professionals we want to be talking to."

BSIA Member Company Constant Security Services, headed up by md Michael Lee, hadn't attended IFSEC for a decade prior to 2006. "The show looked magnificent, and has certainly worked well for us," said Constant.

Bobby Logue, director of Interconnective (and the Editor of Infologue.com, our Media Partner in setting up The Security Guarding Village) added: "The Village was definitely the right move to make. Feedback has been excellent. For Interconnective, we generated 800 high quality leads both from the UK and overseas. We spoke to heads of security from universities, pharmaceutical companies and law firms, as well as counter-terrorism advisors from the police service. The Village was a great showcase for the guarding industry."

IFSEC also represented a first exhibition outing for Skills for Security, the industry's all-new lead training body. "Our location in Hall 7 was great, the visitor numbers were excellent throughout the four days and there was much interest in our training products and services," commented Helena Wilson, Skills for Security's marketing manager. "We're very happy that we were able to communicate our ideas and solutions to so many end users and solutions providers."

Gary Shuttleworth, operations director at contractor Nationwide Security Services, added: "It would be foolish for us or any other guarding company to attend The Village for one year and then stop. We'll definitely be back, because we know this part of IFSEC is really going to gain momentum now."

SkyGuard is a lone worker protection system that was one of the finalists in this year's IFSEC Security Industry Awards. The company displayed its solution on the Legion Group's stand to great effect. "IFSEC was extremely good for us," said SkyGuard champion Patrick Dealtry. "We ended up with 170-plus leads, one third of them from companies overseas who are interested in selling our solution abroad on leasing arrangements."

Concluded Dealtry: "It's vital that IFSEC has a guarding presence. It's all-too-easy to forget that CCTV and access control systems all need some form of human response."