Millennium Point has been awarded the Excellence in Hospitality, Retail & Events Award at the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Awards 2024. The Awards are the region’s biggest celebration of business and were hosted by broadcaster and comedienne Noreen Khan. The award winners were announced on 15 February in front of more than 1,000 people at the ICC in Birmingham city centre.

The Excellence in Hospitality, Retail & Events category was highly competitive. The judges singled out Millennium Point’s dedication to sustainability which has resulted in a more ethically and locally sourced catering menu, enhanced recycling practices, energy efficient initiatives, and hybrid event solutions. The judges were also impressed with Millennium Point’s charitable work supporting young people in the area through STEM education, which has included an investment of £4.3 million in the last year.

Rebecca Delmore, Millennium Point Commercial Director, said: “We are thrilled to have won the Excellence in Hospitality, Retail & Events Award. The award reflects the dedication of the Millennium Point Team to deliver the best experience for our clients. We are delighted to be recognised for this.”

Awards ceremonies are exciting and are worth celebrating, but they can be hard to plan. Due to this we’ve put together 11 simple tips to help you plan a successful awards ceremony. 

Write a brief

Writing a brief is a great way to get all your ideas down and make sure you tick off everything you need or want to do before and on the day. When creating a brief you should consider:

Consider choosing a theme

Giving your ceremony a theme can be a simple way to make it memorable. When picking a theme you should think about:

What’s your budget?

When setting a budget, this may depend on whether you’re going to sell tickets or allow people to attend for free. 

Choose a venue

When choosing a venue there are various factors you’ll want to consider such as:

Do you want to create a floor plan?

Creating a floor plan is a great way to ensure things go smoothly on the day of your event by knowing exactly where you want people to sit and what the event will look like. It would be a good idea to place award nominees near the stage so that they can access it more easily. 

What entertainment are you going to implement?

Entertainment is crucial to a successful awards ceremony. You need to decide whether you want live music or other types of entertainment like dancers, comedians or magicians. Providing these sorts of things will help keep the audience engaged throughout the whole ceremony and will make it more interesting in between awards sections.

How are you going to present your awards?

One of the most important parts of an awards ceremony is the host. You need to decide whether you’re going to host the ceremony yourself or hire someone else to do it. 

The role and responsibilities of a ceremony host can include:

You’ll also want to decide whether you want to use multiple presenters, for example using different people to host each award like they do at the Brit Awards or just use your host to announce each section. 

Another thing to consider is whether the host will make a speech at the beginning and end of the ceremony and how long the award winner can speak for when they make their speech. 

Do you want to create a programme?

Creating a programme for the ceremony will allow both your staff and guests to know how the event is going to run on the day. Printing these out and giving them to guests can also act as a souvenir, making your ceremony even more memorable and can be a great way to get attendees to post about your event on social media.. 

When creating a programme you should consider factors like:

How are you going to promote the awards ceremony?

Promoting your ceremony is important as you don’t want all your hard work planning the ceremony to go to waste if no one knows it’s happening. When it comes to promoting your ceremony you’ll want to think about:

How are you going to invite your guests?

When it comes to inviting your guests you should consider how you’re going to invite them. You should also think about who you’re inviting and they’re preferred form of contact. For example you could send invitations through the post, by email or text or phone them up to invite them personally.

Why choose Millennium Point for your next awards ceremony? 

Here at Millennium Point we have multiple rooms that could be perfect for your next awards ceremony. We’re also close to bus, train and airport transport routes, as well as parking areas, making it easy for you and your guests to get to your event. 

Rooms that could be great for your next event include our Auditorium (Birmingham’s biggest screen), the Platform (perfect for dinner awards) and Atrium. 

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you find the perfect room for your next awards ceremony. 

Millennium Point wins Excellence in Third Sector award at 2022 Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Awards.

On Friday 4th March the Great Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Awards was held in the iconic ICC building in Birmingham. The evening consisted of an array of inspirational speeches, delectable food, and the much-anticipated awards.

Fundraising took place throughout the evening for PANS PANDAS UK – an important charity established in 2018 by a dedicated group of parents which aims to raise awareness and make a difference to children affected by PANS and PANDAS.

Nominated alongside fantastic charities, all with the aim of making a difference

Organisations nominated for Excellence in Third Sector alongside the Millennium Point Charitable Trust were –

Acorns children’s Hospice, Burton Upon Trent & District YMCA, Cancer Research UK, Fareshare Midlands, Living Well UK, Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS + Your Trust Charity.

It was a honour to be nominated amongst friends and impactful charities that have all strived to make a difference throughout this year and last.

From Scholarships to Grants to Community Outreach, we are proud of what we have achieved

Over the past 12 months, our organisation has used sound strategy and affirmative action to remain resolute in the face of ongoing tumultuous economic, social, and political landscape. Driven by our passionate and highly skilled team, we have protected our commercial assets which, in turn, has allowed us to continue to make a sizeable impact on STEM education for young people.

Landmark £30m in impact to STEM in the West Midlands

The Millennium Point Charitable Trust has announced it has reached a landmark £30m in STEM support to organisations across the West Midlands over the last seven years. We achieved this through projects, events, and initiatives as well as discounts to STEM tenants and rents.

Millennium Point Trust Scholarship

Each year we work with five young people over the age of 17 over five months as part of our scholarship competition which awards a fully funded degree at Birmingham City University. To date we have been able to provide over £83,000 to students in Scholarship funding.

Grant Funding

We have funded over 100 projects across schools and not for profits since 2019. This has resulted in hundreds of young people across the region becoming more engaged in STEM education.

Over the past five years, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust has awarded over £2 million to charities, not-for-profits, community groups and schools to further STEM education. Millennium Point Charitable Trust has previously seen the rewarding outcome of past projects such as the science area at Ark Tindal Primary and Sensational Science at Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The latest round of funding in 2021 saw a wide range of successful applications – from a proposal to build a fully operational light aircraft, STEM training toolkits for schools and a car engineering workshop for girls.

STEM Roundtable

In 2020, our CEO founded and now orchestrates the Millennium Point STEM Roundtable – a task force comprised of over 20 senior business leaders, academics, and educators from across local STEM industries. The purpose of this group is to facilitate discussion across education and industry and has yield four projects which are due to be delivered in 2022/23.

Community Outreach and Venue Support

For Christmas 2021, we provided festive activities at Millennium Point for 400 pupils across 4 schools in low-income areas. This included a screening of The Polar Express; a Santa meet and greet and an educational gift for every child.

As a venue we also get to host other charities events that help change lives. In December 2021, the St Basils BIG Sleepout took place outside Millennium Point. Members of our team also took part to show support for the fantastic charity and our team managed to raise over £1,800.

Want to learn more about Millennium Point Charitable Trust?

Keep up to date the latest on our charity work through our blogs and charity section on our website.

Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.