ICC Wales in Newport has won two medical association conferences that have not been held in Wales before: the Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons (AUGIS) meeting in September 2027, with 800 delegates, and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Annual Conference in May 2029, with 2,000. The venue announced the wins on 4 November, along with two new sales managers for the corporate and agency markets.
Which conferences ICC Wales has won
ICC Wales has confirmed three association and academic conferences that will come to Wales for the first time, two of them medical. All three are new client relationships for the venue rather than repeat bookings.
| Conference | Organiser | Dates | Expected delegates |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUGIS Annual Scientific Meeting 2027 | Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons of Great Britain & Ireland | 15–17 September 2027 | 800 |
| ICSCRM 2027 (International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials) | CSconnected and Swansea University | 19–24 September 2027 | About 1,200 |
| RCPCH Annual Conference 2029 | Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health | May 2029 (exact dates not yet published) | 2,000 |
The AUGIS dates come from the association’s own website, which says its 2027 meeting will take place at ICC Wales on 15–17 September. The ICSCRM dates are on the conference website, which already has early bird registration open until 31 December 2026. The RCPCH booking and the delegate numbers are from the venue’s announcement; the college has not yet listed its 2029 conference on its own events page.
One practical detail for anyone planning around those dates: AUGIS and ICSCRM fall in the same September week in 2027, a day apart, so hotel rooms near the venue are likely to be in demand that month.
How ICC Wales says its life sciences and technology business has grown
The venue’s figures for 2026 are 20 life sciences events with 6,000 delegates, which it puts at £4m of economic impact for Wales, and 16 technology events with a further 5,000 delegates. It has not published how the £4m was calculated.
Craig Bingham, managing director of ICC Wales, said the venue is “seeing strong demand from sectors where Wales has real strengths, particularly medical associations, life sciences and technology”, and that AUGIS and RCPCH are “particularly encouraging, as both represent new client relationships for us”.
Bookings are being made at shorter notice
ICC Wales says 46% of the events taking place there in 2026 were booked within the same calendar year, compared with 15% in 2025 and 20% in 2024. That is a big shift for a convention centre whose association business is traditionally booked years ahead, as the 2029 RCPCH date shows.
For organisers this cuts both ways. Shorter lead times suggest a corporate or agency event can still find space at fairly short notice, but long-lead association bookings like these take out whole weeks of the main spaces years in advance, so it is worth asking for availability early if your dates are fixed.
Two new sales managers for corporate and agency clients
ICC Wales has appointed Louise Herron and Heather Jones as sales managers focused on the corporate and agency markets, alongside its existing association team. Louise Herron joins from the Bristol Hotel, where she spent more than 10 years as meetings and events sales manager. Heather Jones has more than 14 years in sales and was most recently head of sales and events at Kin House in Chippenham.
The venue says the appointments should mean faster response times and a more personal service for clients, which is the part most relevant to agencies sending enquiries.
What the venue offers a 2,000-delegate conference
ICC Wales has the spaces for a conference of the RCPCH’s size under one roof. Its published specifications are:
- Main Hall: 4,000 sq m of pillar-free space on the ground floor, capacity 4,100, divisible into up to six sections, with a 9 m ceiling and a loading bay for four lorries.
- Auditorium: 1,500 fixed, tiered theatre-style seats (762 upper, 738 lower) with a 210 sq m bar alongside.
- Meeting Room 1, the Woodland Suite: up to 900.
The venue sits just off Junction 24 of the M4, and its getting here page lists more than 2,000 visitor parking spaces on site (maximum height 2.1 m) and a 23-minute drive from Cardiff. Its accommodation page says there are more than 1,000 hotel rooms a few minutes away, including the 146-bedroom Tŷ Newport Hotel and the 148-bedroom Coldra Court Hotel, both 0.9 miles from the venue. The Celtic Manor Resort nearby is part of the same Celtic Collection group.
For a closer look at how the hall works for a conference with an exhibition, see our ICC Wales Main Hall assessment, or compare it with other options on our Newport and Cardiff conference venues pages, such as the Wales Millennium Centre. Our guide on how UK cities win association congresses covers how bids like these usually come together.
Sources
- ICC Wales announcement, as published by Event Industry News, 4 November 2026
- AUGIS (2027 meeting dates and venue)
- ICSCRM 2027 (dates, venue and registration deadlines)
- ICC Wales Main Hall and Auditorium (capacities and floor space)
- ICC Wales getting here and accommodation (parking, travel, nearby hotels)
This is desk research based on the venue’s own announcement and published venue information, checked against the AUGIS and ICSCRM websites. We have not visited the venue for this piece, and the delegate, booking and economic impact figures are ICC Wales’s own.
