Welcome to our new-look website. It’s been nine years since we’ve had a complete overhaul, so we thought it was about time we gave it a makeover and a complete rebuild from scratch. This is also our first ever blog post, so check here regularly for the latest industry news, events on which we are working, new speaker and performer additions to our roster, celebrity guest blog posts, exclusive interviews and much more.
However, as it's been such a major overhaul and a full year in development, we thought we’d kick off with a blog about the new website, introducing some of the new features and improvements. We’ve re-built the site from the ground up to make it much more intuitive and user-friendly, and we’ve focused most of our efforts on improving the search facility to make it easier for you to browse our roster and find the right celebrities, speakers, hosts and entertainment to match your brief, audience and budget.
Here are just some of the new features you may find useful.
NEW SEARCH AND BROWSING FEATURES
We appreciate it can be daunting and hard to know where to begin when presented with a long list of speakers and performers, so we’ve done our best to assist in narrowing your search. When browsing the search results and sections of our website you can now refine the results according to fee bracket, gender and choose only to show those profiles which include video footage. A significant feature we’ve also added gives you the ability to refine the results by filtering names based on specific tags. For example, if you’re browsing “Diversity & Inclusion” within Keynote Speakers, you can narrow the results to show only profiles with the tag of LGBT. You can then combine that filter with the other options above to really narrow your speaker options. If you find that the result is too narrow, simply remove some of the applied filters to broaden the results shown.
SEARCH BY NAME & KEYWORD
Using the box at top of every page, you can now search the entire website by name or keyword. If you type someone’s name and they’re on our public roster, their name will pop up and you can click through to their profile. If you type a keyword or tag, you can choose to search that keyword/tag across the entire website or just within a specific section. For example, you may want to search for all our sports speakers, or only show those under After Dinner Speakers, Keynote Speakers, or Motivational Speakers.
SHORTLISTS
A hugely popular feature on our old website was the ability to create a shortlist of speakers and talent. We’ve upgraded this feature, so users who log on to the site can now create multiple shortlists. So you can now have a wish list for the ‘Office Christmas Party’, another for the keynote speaker at your ‘Annual Conference’ and a further shortlist of potential hosts for next year’s ‘Awards Dinner’. You can use the feature entirely as you wish, but you may also find it helpful to create multiple lists for different speakers/talent at the same event e.g. one list for the opening keynote speaker at your conference and a separate list for the after dinner speaker following your black-tie dinner. Or perhaps you’re considering speakers in different price ranges? You can also print the lists, create PDFs to share with colleagues and take to meetings or send them directly to us via the website as an enquiry.
If you’ve previously registered on the website, I’m afraid you’ll have to re-register and set up new speaker or performer wish lists, but it’s very straight forward and takes less than two minutes. Please click here to register now.
HELP & ADVICE
If you've not previously booked a celebrity, speaker or high profile performer, it can be quite daunting knowing where to start, what it’s going to cost, understanding industry terminology, booking contracts, riders and offer forms. Our old website had a very basic FAQ section, so taking on board all your questions, queries and concerns over the many years we’ve been servicing your needs, we’ve now created an in-depth all singing and dancing ‘Help & Advice’ section.
It’s something we’re still developing, so will be updated regularly over time as we create helpful content to assist you. It features a comprehensive Q&A section were you can simply type a question and a list of possible results is displayed, or you can browse the questions by category, depending on what you’re looking for or what stage you’re at in the booking / enquiry process. And if you’re still stuck and need a quick answer to a query, simply pick up the phone or email us and one of our friendly booking agents will be delighted to help. Click here for contact details.
Even for experienced and seasoned event professionals, booking headline acts, speakers, celebrities and entertainment can be daunting and quite different to booking regular acts. So if you're unsure what is meant by the terms ‘Firm Offer’, ‘Tech Rider’, ‘Track Set’ or ‘SM58’, head over to our easy-to-use Help & Advice section now.
As well as the Q&A, we’ll also be producing comprehensive guides giving you everything you need to know; from choosing the best speakers and talent for your event, guiding you through the booking process and how to ensure you get the best out of them on the day.
COMMENTS & SUGGESTIONS
We’re not officially launching the website until the New Year and over the coming weeks we’ll be testing the site, adding content and getting feedback from clients. So if you find something that doesn’t work or you have any suggestions of how we could further improve the site, please get in touch – we’d be delighted to hear from you. You can email us at webadmin@nmp.co.uk
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