A client symposium across two suites at The Grove Hotel. Over 99% of the production materials by weight were rented, which is as close to building nothing as an event of this scale gets.
CBRE Investment Management · The Grove Hotel · Hertfordshire, UK · 2025 · Real Estate · Design; Production; Project Management
CBRE Investment Management held an internal symposium for invited investors and partners. On a one or two day hosted event, almost nothing is worth owning. The brief was an environment that carried the brand across two suites and left the venue exactly as it found it.
Over 99% of the production materials by weight were rented. All furniture, all digital signage and all plants were hired. Live plants were returned to local florists to be used again. Digital signage was rented specifically to avoid producing multiple virgin material signs for a two-suite event, which is the substitution most conference producers never make.
What was fabricated was built not to be event specific. All stretch graphics and their frames carry no dates, no event names and nothing that ties them to this symposium, so they go into store and come out again at the next one. Graphics were recyclable fabric with zero PVC, reusable at future events and fully recyclable at eventual end of life. Framing was FSC certified timber. Where printed signage was genuinely needed it was ReBoard, a recycled material that is fully recyclable after the event.
Every supplier was based within 100 miles of the venue.
A hosted event in a third party venue runs on the venue’s rules: access hours, loading restrictions and rigging limits that compress the build into a window the client never sees. The response was to reduce the build to almost nothing that needed building. Rented digital signage instead of printed boards, hired furniture and plants, and graphics designed to be generic enough to reuse.
Over 99% of production materials by weight were rented. 100% of materials were separable at end of life. Zero waste to landfill, and all rented equipment returned. 100% of suppliers were based within 100 miles of the event and 100% of rented elements were delivered from within 100 miles. All stretch graphics and frames were specified as non-event-specific and go on to be reused.
FSC certified timber framing. Recyclable zero PVC fabric graphics, reusable. ReBoard recycled signage. Rented digital signage. Rented live plants. Rented furniture.