The inaugural GEO-North event has been hailed a success by organisers with feedback from visitors, high profile presenters and sponsoring organisations extremely positive. Visitor levels were excellent, with more than 70 per cent of pre-registered visitors in attendance - a rate much higher than other events, and one exhibitor was heard to comment “Now I know what we have been missing – put us down for next year!” .

GEO-North took place for the first time on the 7th March 2013 at the Reebok Stadium, Bolton UK and building on its success is set to become a regular in the geospatial calendar. GEO-South, already well-established and well respected within the geospatial community, will take place on the 1-2 May 2013 at the Holiday Inn, Elstree and online registration is open at www.pvpubs.com/Events/Registration

“I believe the reason why the GEO events are popular is they offer a complete package for both visitors and sponsor organisations,” commented Stephen Booth of PV Publications, organisers of the event and publishers of Geomatics World, GIS Professional, Engineering Surveying Showcase and the newly launched Internet portal www.Location-Source.com. “In addition, by offering for the first time a geographically diverse choice of venue it would seem we have managed to address many travel and budget concerns and therefore attracted a high level of visitors and exhibitors.”

The free to attend seminar programme kicked off with a welcome from the organisers followed by a keynote presentation from Bob McEwan, chief technologist at Hewlett Packard, UK. Entitled ‘Trends and thoughts on change in a changing world’ it looked at ways in which manufacturers can retain competitive advantage and the rise and fall of free application access. Fantastic figures for online populations were quoted as were the volumes of data generated plus predictions for increases in both, however he was less confident in the future of Google glasses or GPS shoes!

Open data and more importantly the barriers to open data were addressed by Bob Barr, Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool while Dr Anne Kemp of Atkins Global and consultant Chris Little looked at the role of the modern surveyor in a world transfixed by BIM (Building Information Modelling). Andrew Blogg, Director at Digital Mapping & Survey, Brecht Lonneville of Gatewing, Peter Taylor of Spheron and Richard Groombridge of GeoPlace also presented and the day’s proceedings came to a close with a lively panel discussion led by Robin Waters, Editor of GIS Professional and Director of RSW Geomatics, followed by a well attended drinks reception.

GEO-North also secured support from some of the best known names from the world of geomatics and GIS including the Association for Geographic Information (AGI), Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), UNIGIS UK and GIS247. Commercial supporters included platinum sponsors Phoenix and M&P Survey plus GeoPlace, Cadline, C.SCOPE, GEO Survey, Handheld, Carlson Software, Speedy Services, Spheron, South Survey, Mobile GIS Services and Z+F Laser UK. Other supporters include Applications in CADD (AiC), APR Services, Digital Mapping & Surveys (DM&S), First for Survey, Gateway, Leica Geosystems, Location-Source, SCCS and Zenith Survey Equipment.

For further information visit www.pvpubs.com or join the LinkedIn Group at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/GEO-Event-World-Geomatics-GIS-3718139