Every year we bring our high end exhibition coffee to the exciting ICE at Excel London. Over 35,000 figureheads within the global gaming industry come together to discuss the latest innovations and technologies, networking with like-minded gaming professionals and enthusiasts. It’s always great to serve our coffee in the familiar halls of our most local exhibition space, Excel. Having the Social Espresso HQ a 15 minute drive from such an incredible, global events space is fantastic, as we can support a wide range of clients at a single event with ease. It also means we can have our fleet of premium coffee equipment at the ready in case of any issues in a worse case scenario.
Setting up
ICE is one of the largest UK industry exhibitions, with over 35000 attendees flooding the halls every year and 650+ exhibitors manning their stands! Being such a large event, without meticulous organisation and preparation, things could get chaotic quite quickly when setting up stands. Fortunately, we have years of experience working within large scale exhibition spaces, and so our coffee bar set ups were installed promptly and with ease. Our set up procedures have been streamlined to ensure that we can get everything up and running within 30 mins to an hour, wherever the space! This includes, setting up, plumbing in and pressurising our La Marzocco coffee machines, calibrating our coffee grinders and arranging all the consumables and teas to adhere to our slick aesthetic. This level of attention to detail, means that our bars can be integrated onto any exhibition stand seamlessly and with a premium look. Competitors often opt for lower quality coffee equipment, but we believe that gear used on events should be of the highest quality, mirroring what you’d find in your favourite specialty coffee shop!
Exhibition Coffee
With the large numbers of guests attending, there’s always a lot of coffee to serve! Each of our stands individually churned out over 1000 coffees over the course of the three day event. This means our team got through over 50kg of coffee beans! Our trusty La Marzocco coffee machines are known within the industry as being workhorses, so had no problems meeting the high demand of this event. Having quality exhibition coffee on an events stand is a great starting point for business discussion and sharing ideas with potential clients. The dramatically increased footfall to stands with our event coffee speaks for itself! During the three days of ICE, day two had the largest number of guests – coffee was constantly flowing and there were lots of happy guests energised and ready to get immersed in the exhibition.
Extras
ICE is one of the few large exhibitions we do that’s alcohol friendly for its guests! You may not know, but alongside our mobile coffee bar for exhibitions, we provide high end cocktails. This year at ICE we had our expertly crafted espresso martinis at the ready! Rich, a member of the Social Espresso team, is not only a pro barista, but can handle his own when it comes to mixology. Using our in-house roasted specialty coffee as the base of our espresso martinis, really elevates the flavour of the cocktail, which is perfect for clients that expect high end refreshments. Along with the barista coffees on the stand, Rich crafted over 200 espresso martinis for happy delegates throughout the event.
Packing down
At large exhibitions, it can sometimes be a mad rush for exhibitors to get out as quickly as possible which can sometimes lead to stressful queues. At Social Espresso, we believe the best way to navigate large packdowns is to ensure our drivers are always punctual and in prime positions to execute smooth quick packdowns. Our professional event baristas also always clean as they go throughout events. This means at the end of the day, the final clean and pack down of all our equipment takes considerably less time. This consistent attention to detail is what helps us perform our smooth service, even in the busiest of spaces!