Event magazine is the UK's leading publication for exhibitions, live events and face-to-face marketing. Our news, features, analysis and overall content aims to raise issues and explore topics that not only promote best practice but also help govern the industry we represent.

We want to hear your views on all aspects of this important marketing discipline. Want to give your opinion of a particular exhibition or venue, contribute to a debate raised from within our pages or make a suggestion for improved best practice? To submit a letter to the Editor, simply click here. As well as our online selection, the best letters will also be published in the magazine.

Did any readers go to the Field Marketing and Brand Experience Awards on 10 October?

Our agency went along with pretty low expectations. We are admittedly rather cynical about these type of events – at worst they can be self-serving and patronising in their supposed ability to be able to comment critically on a particular scene. This ceremony was a shockingly bad example of the latter description, made all the more woeful as the ‘event’ itself was critiquing (at least in part) the world of experiential marketing – a scene dedicated to creating lasting, positive associations through the employment of powerful experiences and events. If only the event organisers had a clue about their subject matter.

One could say that they set the tone by booking the Ibis Hotel in Earls Court, but this doesn’t go nearly far enough. The £180 per head ticket price entitled the attendees to be dragged through what can only be described as a train wreck. The whole gig seemed to have been produced by David Brent from The Office.

Firstly there was the world’s quietist town crier who quietened down the crowd and welcomed the publishing editor of Frank Publishing, the man behind this debacle. Our host proceeded to thank the many sponsors that had “made the awards possible”. Here we heard the inexcusably dull description of one of the sponsor’s attempts at bringing ‘experience’ to the awards – a massage treat for up to 12 people, offered as a prize. “But not tonight!” came the washroom double entendre. Cue tumbleweeds rolling past.

We then learned that the guest speaker was a chap who does the occasional stint on a morning football show but majors in a not-very-well-listened-to BBC radio station (sorry, can’t remember which). This self-proclaimed Alan Partridge-esque character then proceeded to force 20-year-old anecdotes from his more successful days upon us.

Just as people around us were saying that it couldn’t get any worse, it did. The broadcaster started to read a script that had been written by none other than the publisher – a man whose writing and public speaking experience appears to be born exclusively from managing a small and not very well-known trade magazine. Never have the words boredom, excruciating and cringeworthy been so aptly used.

Please, somebody start a rival awards showcase soon – you would have to try very hard to do any worse. I have chosen to keep my identity confidential as this awards body may have the ability to negatively affect our agency.

If you were disappointed at this event like us, or if you have comments to the contrary, please email us at lackofexperience@hotmail.co.uk. All enquiries will be treated in strictest confidence.

In the article “Agency boss urges climate change snub” (Event, June) an event agency made several inaccurate and absurd accusations about ExxonMobi

We wish to put the record straight. We take the issue of climate change very seriously and are taking action on many fronts to address the risks it poses. These include partnerships with vehicle manufacturers to reduce emissions, researching hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, vigorously pursuing energy efficiency in our own refineries and supporting groundbreaking research at Stanford University to reduce greenhouse gas emissions..

The steps we have taken since 1999 to improve energy efficiency at our own facilities resulted in the avoidance of 12 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions last year alone – the equivalent of taking about two million US cars off the road. We are partnering with automobile and commercial engine manufacturers on research and development programmes that could yield fuel economy improvements in internal combustion engines of up to 30%, with lower corresponding emissions. Readers of Event can find further information by visiting www.exxonmobil.co.uk.

We and many other corporations fund public policy organisations but we do not control their views or actions. As for research into climate science, for many years the company has supported major projects at highly respected institutions such as the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and the International Energy Agency.