The Eastside Rooms makes Wellness Room permanent following ABPCO Festival of Learning
Following its successful debut at the 2025 ABPCO Festival of Learning, The Eastside Rooms’ wellness room – originally introduced as a temporary feature for the event – will become a permanent fixture at the venue.
This decision underscores The Eastside Rooms’ growing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and is a direct result of insights gained from recent industry-wide conversations around neurodiversity.
The inspiration for the wellness room emerged from a session on neurodiversity at the ICCA UK & Ireland Chapter Conference, later explored further in the venue’s own “Eventful Encounters” podcast. The panel, featuring voices from across the sector, emphasised how essential it is to design event environments that are genuinely inclusive of neurodivergent delegates. For The Eastside Rooms, this sparked immediate action.
The wellness room is designed to be a calm, tech-free space that offers:
- No phones or laptops allowed – creating a true mental break
- Bean bags and relaxed seating
- Cards and colouring books to engage the mind gently
- Noise-cancelling headphones for sensory relief
- Soft background music for a tranquil atmosphere
“The response from delegates at the ABPCO Festival was overwhelmingly positive,” said Leanne Bladen, Director of Sales and Marketing at The Eastside Rooms. “It reinforced what we already knew: creating spaces that promote wellbeing isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s essential.”
The wellness room is just one example of The Eastside Rooms’ holistic approach to DEI. As a Disability Confident Employer, the venue already champions inclusive recruitment practices, family-friendly policies, and partnerships with organisations such as Halesowen College to provide opportunities for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Over 200 individuals from underrepresented backgrounds have entered the hospitality sector through its partnerships with initiatives like Springboard.
Building on the themes raised in the neurodiversity podcast, the venue has also created a suite of video guides to help delegates navigate the journey to and from the venue. These travel route videos offer visual and auditory cues to ease anxiety and improve accessibility, especially for neurodivergent guests.
“Inclusivity runs deeper than ramps and accessible toilets,” added Leanne. “It’s about the entire delegate journey. From how people arrive to how they unwind, we want every single guest to feel respected, understood, and supported.”
With more than 76,000 delegates welcomed in 2024 and a 37.5% increase in association event turnover, The Eastside Rooms is proving that purpose-driven innovation drives real results. As the venue prepares to host events for organisations such as the Women’s Engineering Society and the British Society for Intraoperative Neurophysiology, it continues to lead by example in championing DEI across the events industry.
