The Event:

Alumni UK Live

A five-day virtual professional development festival

Client Brief

British Council’s Global Alumni Programme attracts and supports a growing international UK alumni network. They are committed to building long-term relationships with a target to grow the community to 150,000 alumni by 2025.

To support this objective, the British Council wanted to introduce a new flagship event to their portfolio to provide a core digital offer including careers and employability, networking opportunities and learning and development initiatives.

British Council’s aims for the festival were to: 

• Raise awareness of and promote the British Council’s Alumni UK with alumni and external stakeholders
• Attract members to the UK Alumni network
• Facilitate stronger and deeper relationships with and among a larger number of UK alumni
• Support and enhance alumni employability
• Provide access to professional development opportunities
• Facilitate universities’ connections with their alumni

Assemble Events was appointed to design, launch and deliver the inaugural Alumni UK Live virtual festival.

Our Approach

We worked closely with colleagues across the British Council, leveraging the expertise of in-country and regional teams to design a compelling programme for international UK alumni, covering a number of hot topics during the festival.

To position the event with core audiences, we created the Alumni UK Live name and brand, and designed an integrated digital marketing campaign utilising existing email databases, social media, the Alumni UK members platform, and the British Council’s website. This was complemented by a paid social media campaign targeting priority countries.

To deliver the event in priority markets, we consulted on the technology and platform choices to ensure we were able to reach audiences in China.

We also provided end-to-end project management including creating user journies, holding speaker briefings and rehearsals, delivery and reporting.

Our services included:

• Event concept and design
• Content and programme development
• Marketing, creative and brand management
• Stakeholder engagement and communications
• Event and project management
• Event production and delivery

Event Impact

• Over 11,500 alumni from over 135 countries registered for the festival
• 75% of registrations were new alumni joining the British Council community
• 13 virtual sessions including 40 speakers were streamed live over five days
• 92% of attendees rated the sessions as good or excellent

Client feedback

“It was an absolute pleasure working with Assemble Events on the delivery of the British Council’s virtual Alumni Live 1^st Edition in March 2023. Your support in the design, marketing and delivery of the event enabled us to reach over 11,500 new UK international alumni from 135 countries. In total, there were 40 speakers across the five days, from 18 different countries. 99% of alumni said they found the sessions useful and 92% of alumni rated sessions excellent or good. This must be a testament to your brilliant work. We are delighted to have Assemble Events again as a partner to deliver the 2^nd edition of the event this autumn! You have been professional, flexible and supportive with a high level of expertise in online event management and delivery.”

Daud Rasool, Senior Consultant, Programme Delivery, Global Alumni Programme, British Council