Add a SIC code to your business and let the events industry be counted

A contributing factor to governments lack of recognition of the events sector is because from a statistics point of view, the industry is “invisible” with a lack of relevant Standard Industrial Classification of economic activities (SIC) codes. Equally, many have remained unaware as to how important they are when it comes to the government analysing business sectors. 

ESSA have been working alongside UKEvents and partners, as well as other bodies from the EU and USA, in campaigning for changes to these codes to make them more specific to the various roles within the events sphere.  However, as a minimum that is going to take up to five years as they are agreed internationally.

In the meantime, to create our own yardstick that we can monitor and use to inform the government in the future, we are asking every company to include at least one code from the selection below in addition to that which you currently use.

You can list up to four codes at Companies House.

In the UK, you can list four codes on your return to Companies House, although most businesses only use one, and for many, this is not always relevant as the descriptions are not well matched.  As an example, recent analysis of ESSA members showed up to 50 different indivdual SIC codes were used by members as a description of their business. Equally, by using more than one, you can retain any existing key sector category such as manufacturing or transport but use the additional code to flag your connection to the events sector.

The idea is to get all companies involved in ALL aspects of the events industry to use this code – to help create data and visibility and to better demonstrate how financially significant the industry is.

We apreciate the description that corresponds to this code are unlikely to be totally accurate to many of your businesses and we are campaigning to get the descriptions made ‘wider’. But in the meantime, we believe they will help achieve our aim of improving data and visibility at government level. 

We urge all suppliers and service providers to exhibitions, meetings and conferences, venues, organisers and agencies to do this.