Royal Horticultural Society: Health and Horticulture Conference

The challenge

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s largest gardening charity with over 600,000 members and millions of people visiting their website and publications every year. RHS wanted to bring together horticulturists, planners, designers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers to help positively impact health and wellbeing, and to tackle the decline in green space in the UK. They aimed to promote specific actions that support healthcare professionals and the Government to increase the use of horticulturally-based health interventions.

The solution

To be resilient to changes in the COVID situation, and to attract a wider range of speakers and delegates, RHS were keen to organise a hybrid event. As this was the client’s first virtual event, we guided them through all the steps from conception, preparation, and delivery, ensuring interactivity between the in-person speakers and attendees, and those online. Our team handled elements including the online platform, audiovisual streaming, and remote break-out groups.

The result

On the first day of the conference, those in attendance were given tours of the RHS Garden Wisley “Wellbeing Garden” and the “World Food Garden” at RHS Hilltop. The two afternoons saw key speakers from a range of sectors give talks to share knowledge and evidence on the links between health and horticulture, with speakers including Lord Nigel Crisp (House of Lords), Dr Ross Cameron (University of Sheffield), and Professor Alistair Griffiths (RHS).

The conference ran smoothly with a total of 259 delegates attending from more than 155 different organisations and 15 countries across the world. The client was extremely happy with the event’s outcome—with spaces for people to meet and network across sectors and organisations, remote Q&A sessions, and breakout groups.

The testimonial

“Kyna, Saskya, Emily, and Rose were a delight to work with and I would recommend them for a hybrid event. From the initial stages of quotation through to initial site visits, agenda-setting, creative requirements, troubleshooting, speaker coordination, last-minute changes, and on the days of the event itself, communication channels were always clear and open. The team were patient, proactive, flexible, reassuring, and kind. The planning for this event happened over the course of around a year and the positive working relationship was maintained throughout. The scale and quality of the event could definitely not have been achieved without the emc3 team. Thank you!”
— Lauriane Chalmin-Pui, Research and Community & Wellbeing Fellow, RHS