University of Kent

The Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference, called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is held once every ten years and brings together 600+ bishops for worship, study and conversation. A parallel conference for the Bishops' 600 or so spouses runs in parallel with the Lambeth Conference, and the University also has to accommodate worldwide media, technical crew and conference staff.

Kx software is used by the University to manage both its Student and Commercial activities but at no time is it put to the test more than during a major event. Kevin Stuckey, director of residences & conferences at UKC, says:

"We definitely need Kinetic to help us. We're using all the Kinetic software suites – Event Management, Residential and Delivered Catering to help us manage this event. In fact, we rely on the software and couldn't manage without Kx."

Virtually all of the University's extensive facilities are in use during the Lambeth Conference. To provide a clearer picture of the demands placed on the team, UKC has to manage and provide:

Because of the nature of the event and the number of different nationalities involved, specialist facilities also have to be provided, such as simultaneous translation equipment, alongside the usual audio visual systems that go hand in hand with a conference of this size.

In overall charge of what could be a logistical nightmare is Kevin Stuckey, director of residences conferences at UKC. He says: "Kx software has sufficient flexibility and facilities to enable UKC to manage this massive event with all its demands from one system."

Whilst the Lambeth Conference staff are dealing with registrations directly, UKC are producing the delegate ID/room access cards and are able to take the details directly from Lambeth's booking system through an interface, which means that information is automatically transferred. This means that there is no duplication of effort, and accurate information is maintained throughout. All 1600+ guests are easily tracked if anyone needs to contact them, and names of delegates can be exported to the Kx Event Management module. "This makes life considerably easier," says Kevin.

The KxConferencing software also enables function sheets to be run off by individual departments, along with operational reports highlighting last minute changes so that everyone can be kept informed about which resources, catering, equipment and so on needs to be in which location.

Given the complex events taking place at the Lambeth Conference with multiple groups, this will enable UKC to maintain a professional service throughout the proceedings.

Also being brought into service is the KxCatering module, which will be invaluable in dealing with the 1500 delegates, and recording dietary requirements and menu choices. Kevin says:

"Having the power to integrate requests for conference facilities, accommodation and catering in one system is brilliant. It's meant we haven't had to go out and buy any additional software and our staff are all familiar with the system so it will help us to run things smoothly."