Event Management in Zory from the economic zone to Twinpigs

Twinpigs is Poland's first Wild West theme park - over 10 hectares of themed zones with cowboy shows, a Rodeo Show, a 5D cinema and the Santa Maria ship. For the automotive plants in the Zory zone (divisions of Korean and American corporations) it is a ready made, unexpected team event script that cannot be repeated in a typical banquet hall. The park's training and conference centre - around seven rooms, the largest for nearly 130 people, plus an additional barn style hall for a hundred - lets you combine a conference day with an evening party in a western setting under one roof, for over 400 participants in total.

We use this venue so that the themed activities work towards a business goal: a gunslinger show as the frame for announcing quarterly results, the park zones as the backdrop for the launch of a new component. This park is often our first choice when a client from the metal or electrical industry wants to build a story around the event rather than simply feed the guests. Air conditioning, projectors, screens and sound on site shorten the technical part, and we focus on directing the transitions between the hall and the outdoor zones.

After a three year revitalisation the seventeenth century Baranowice Palace on Zamkowa Street became Zory's new flagship cultural centre - with art rooms, exhibition spaces, a dining area and a surrounding park. It is a natural setting for a corporate gala, a plant anniversary from the economic zone or a formal year end celebration, where the historic architecture builds the standing of the event without artificial staging. It is complemented by the Municipal Cultural Centre with its auditorium and the Old Town Cinema - well suited to gala award ceremonies, celebratory concerts and events with a stage element.

With venues like these, directing the detail is crucial: a host matched to the dignified character of the evening, music that respects the historic interiors, lighting that emphasises the architecture rather than fighting it. When we run events in Zory's cultural spaces we agree the scope of technical intervention with the venue's administration and plan the rig so the gala looks designed specifically for that place. The park surrounding the palace also opens the option of an outdoor part - an aperitif or a photo wall in the fresh air before guests enter the hall.

Within Zory itself the largest banquet capacity is offered by Arkadia on Kolejowa Street (up to around 300 people, glamour style interiors with a garden) and the banquet hall of Stary Mlyn in the very centre (up to around 250 people), complemented by the intimate Hotel Kameleon on Borynska Street with a conference room for around 80 people and a spa. Stary Mlyn combines two conference rooms - a main one in theatre layout for fifty people and an intimate one for a couple of dozen - with a restaurant, allowing a conference and a banquet to run in the same building, with no transfer of guests across the city.

Klimat24h adds two air conditioned rooms that join into a single space for around 120 people, with a fenced garden and parking - handy for departmental meetings and smaller banquets. When choosing a venue for conferences and conference banquet formats, we look at guest numbers, the need for accommodation and the character of the meeting: Kameleon for multi day stays with spa and entertainment, Arkadia for a large gala, Stary Mlyn for an intimate event in the centre. This is the everyday mechanics of work for the trading, logistics and manufacturing companies of Zory.

Cegielnia Park on Folwarecka Street - an example of regenerating the site of a former brickworks - is the main ground for the city's outdoor events: host to the Przystanek Zory festival and part of the Upper Odra Festival. The same space works well for a family company picnic, a mass event with a concert or a summer team gathering for an entire plant from the zone. Combined with the Smieszek bathing area, used during the Zory Days, it provides a base for open air activities that no hall could hold.

Outdoor production has its own rules - stage, canopies, power, catering zones and safety are planned with a margin for capricious weather and higher turnout. We make use of the fact that the city already has proven festival infrastructure and fit the company event into the logic Cegielnia Park has handled for years. For industries with large numbers of production staff, an outdoor formula is often more effective than a hall - it builds a sense of community without the rigid framing of a conference.

The city's economic core is the Katowice Special Economic Zone with the KSSENON accelerator and the Polish Wood Cluster - a timber cluster with conference and e-learning rooms for training, congresses and presentations. This environment generates demand for a strictly substantive format: sales conferences, industry congresses for the automotive and metal sectors, technology launches for partners and distributors. When the scale outgrows the capacity of Zory's venues, we draw on facilities in neighbouring Rybnik - Hotel Trzy Swiaty with a hall for over 200 people or the Zorska 14 Business Center with conference facilities.

For events like these we build an agenda with registration, thematic tracks, panels and a networking zone, and tailor the technical support - sound, presentations, streaming - to the character of the B2B message. The SME sector supported by KSSENON is in turn a pool of clients for smaller, intimate conferences and partner meetings. Whatever the scale, we make sure the event serves its purpose: winning a contract, presenting a product or strengthening relationships with suppliers from across the Upper Silesia region.