Events organiser on the hunt for new premises

Apr 15 2010 by John Hill, The Journal

EVENT management company She's Gott It is on the hunt for new staff and new premises in Durham and Scotland.

The seven-strong company, which was set up by Nickie Gott in 2002, has outgrown its Forster House office in Finchdale Road, Durham, and is looking to leave its home of seven years for a bigger space.

Mrs Gott said: “We’re looking to buy in events stock rather than hiring it, and we’re also planning to take on another two members of staff in the next 12 months.

“We’re looking at a couple of places but we haven’t signed anything as yet. We do a lot of work in Durham, Scotland, Teesside, Newcastle and Northumberland so it’s a good halfway house. Plus it’s my hometown and the Durham business network has been very supportive of me.”

The Chamber of Commerce’s 2009 North East Entrepreneur of the Year has been asked to become a board member for Women Into the Network, a support network for female entrepreneurs.

She said: “I’m incredibly proud of that as I’m a big supporter of people in business, particularly women, and because I’ve had a lot of support from other women in the past.”

Mrs Gott has just returned from the United Arab Emirates, where she was carrying out consultancy work in the events sector, looking into health campaigns with government bodies in Dubai. She is also talking to a shopping mall in the area on plans to bring more people through the doors and is due to make another visit to the region in May.

She said: “We were looking at the Spanish market, and we still are. But we did a very intensive business plan late last year and it looked at international markets on a fly-in, fly-out basis. If it’s successful, we could see an office in Dubai and I haven’t ruled that out yet.”

She’s Gott It is also looking at an office expansion in Scotland, after the Edinburgh Christmas Festival opted to retain its services for a fifth year until Christmas 2011 and added PR and marketing responsibilities which were previously in-house.

The company has also won contracts with Edinburgh organisations TIE and Essential Edinburgh.

Mrs Gott said: “I was astounded by how useful our business plan was. I have been in business for eight years and this is the first time I’d written a proper one. I had one in my head, but I always just did what felt right.

“We realised we were on the verge of the next step for the company so we had to sit down and draw one up. It focused our ideas and made us think about increasing staff and looking at new office space.”