The latest entertainment, limousine hire & events news for London

RSVP are storming ahead with plans for their 9^th consecutive yearly show for the events industry taking place from 28^th-29^th April 2010 at the business design centre, London, N1.  As any event manager or PA will explain, professional events do not only take careful preparation and concise management, it is also important to keep abreast of developments with suppliers and see what is new out there in order to help make your event stand out.

 RSVP has recently set up a monthly ‘RSVP Hotlist’ newsletter which include event industry news and info. regarding RSVP exhibitors.  The revised RSVP website also makes it easier for you to find suppliers, which includes equipment hire, venues, production, security and transport services.  Due to the relatively high cost of affiliating with RSVP you are removing the clutter and being assured of only the top end spectrum of the UK event suppliers market.

 If you are an events supplier and have interest in exhibiting you can call one of the RSVP team members on 020 8948 5522.  If you would like to visit the RSVP event in April you will need to wait it out until the end of this month when their booking system goes live, in the meantime you can sign up to the RSVP newsletter on the RSVP website and receive news and alerts of when the system is ready for you to book tickets.

This is a must visit if you are involved some form or another within the UK events industry.

 Lets be honest, even though we all love to have a dig about the qualities of Big Brother TV it has to be said the seventh and last ever celebrity Big Brother is becoming an absolute stormer to watch.  There is something about the characters in the house that seems to work better than any other celeb big brother we have seen, and what is exciting is it has only just got going as we come towards the end of the second week!

Nicola T, formerly a Sun page 3 girl has been working the glamour girl circuit for many years.  In fact, Nicola was in the first ever HummerHummer here in the UK for our launch day June 1st 2005 @ Max Power live cruise strip.  It was also the first time the car magazine used a Hummer as its support vehicle for its frantic tyre burning, car sliding events.

Since then Nicola Tappenden has featured on the WAGS to riches series on ITV 2 whereby two competitive teams would compete against each other with neighbouring boutique shops.  There was also a HummerHummer limousine supplied for the winners although on this occasion Nicolas Team lost the day task and so it was the other team who got treated to a London cruise and five star meal at a swanky west end restaurant.

Currently Nicola T is a very favourable 25-1 to win the last ever celeb Big Brother as we know it in the UK.  As the nation is gripped to its TV sets there are comments starting to float about tension in the house between movie guy Steve Baldwin and Nicola T ,our Bromley born beauty.  Although many people seem quick to judge on Nicolas credentials where credit  is due she has managed to set up her own clothing store Delicious Couture which helps support Great Ormond street Childrens hospital, it has reported to raised over £55,000 for them to date!  There are also rumours Nicola has recorded a single with Coolio due for release sometime this year.  Perhaps it will go something along the lines of “We’ve been spending most our lives living in a WAGsta’s paradise”. 

We will see, let the Big Brother fun and frolics commence!

Facebook is regularly revising its business pages and interaction with its social site, more times than not this is approved through facebook users own ideas and opinions making the biggest social website more connected than ever. Businesses base their services or products around a fan page whereby users can add themselves as fans in order for both parties to communicate. Facebook has now allowed businesses or brands to take credit of a specific address on facebook.

In light of this Facebook has acknowledged the HummerHummer brand, you can now view our exclusive facebook fan club directly at http://www.facebook.com/hummerhummer. We are currently the biggest facebook limousine hire community in the UK with over 2,000 fans. It is a great way to take advantage of special offers, last minute limousine hire and self drive availability and also get to see what other customers are seeing, hearing and doing to make their occasion that little bit more special.

To get your very own limousine business added you can go onto create a facebook fan page.

In short, yes it did!

After several months of mid year speculation on whether the deal between the U.S giant General Motors and Chinas Heavy Industrial Machinery co would ever come to fruition it looked at one point like an agreement could not be reached. The deal finally got signed and sealed in the latter part of 2009 at an estimated $150,000…that is a whole lot of Hummers, branded laptops, hummer aftershave and all of the other products the notorious Hummer brand have stamped their name on.

It is reported that GM will continue to manufacture the vehicle up until 2012 whereby it will hand over the reigns to the chinese firm. This sale justifies Chinas’ hungry ambition to become a global leader although with troubled times in the automotive market it will be interesting to see how the Chinese company will revive the brand. We will keep you up to date with future plans for the H2, H3 and hummer concept car versions, some of them look very exciting indeed!

Happy New Year, as we enter a new decade of the ‘tenies’ what better time to evaluate the limousine industry and see how far it has come in ten years. The industry as a whole has had its fair share of bad press, although it has to be said there are also many limo operators in the UK who have not been given the credit they deserve for the amount of work and dedication many have put in for charity and other good causes. For instance this limo service in Lancashire reguarly supports good causes.

Looking back, In 2000 limousines in the UK was still in its infancy, arguably the top limos were still the traditional stretch Lincolns. Within the space of five years it is amazing to see what a huge change had occured on UK roads. Mid noughties was all about the big boy American SUV market. Stretched Hummers, Navigators and Excursions were imported over and started a new craze. The older lincoln type models became less appealing as customers had more choice, more space to seat further passengers and more in-car entertainment and features than ever. This craze is evident from popular TV programs such as pimp my ride coming to our screens. Then from 2007 onwards the prestige cars such as the Rolls Royce Phantom have become very popular, although more expensive per person when it is a special occasion it goes to show consumers will pay to travel in luxurious style.

What is also evident is not just the vehicles changing but the limo business in general, the internet is slowly allowing for transparency whereby customers are able to review companies for everybody to see. Soon gone will be the days of limo companies uploading glowing, praising testimonials we assume have been received from their respective customers. Customers are now more switched on, more intuitive and more savvy as ever to ensure the limo service they us are a reputable company and provide good value. Not much has changed with regards to chauffeurs, the flat cap tradition is still evident ten years on.

Independent review sites are growing for good reason, some of the most popular in the UK are www.reviewcentre.com and www.freeindex.co.uk.

These allow a two way communication whereby companies can also write back to give their side of an event. Although some of these websites can be abused with fake reviews, you can usually get a good idea of a company from the communication between the customer and the supplier.

If there is a bad review and the company does not respond, how do you feel a company is going to treat you as the next customer? For 2010, we are now incorporating only independent reviews into our website, hopefully other limo operators will follow suit. Eventually the independent review sites will be a key indication into the quality of a company.

This is just a quick observation of the changes in the limousine industry over the last ten years, it will be interesting to see what changes occur over the next ten years, limo-copters perhaps….eco friendly ventures will be a hot topic, hopefully there will be more young people thinking about joining the industry who will continue to innovate to the discerning and ever more tech demanding consumer.

Written by Richard at HummerHummer, UK’s specialist Hummer Limousine service