BMFMS — Four years of growth, one record-breaking conference
When the British Maternal & Fetal Medicine Society appointed Outsourced Events as its new conference organiser in 2023, the ambition was clear: transform the Annual Conference from a well-regarded but commercially modest event into a financially sustainable, growing asset for the Society. Four years on, that transformation is a matter of record.
In 2023, the British Maternal & Fetal Medicine Society went to tender for a new professional conference organiser, its previous PCO relationship having ended during the COVID pandemic. The Society chose Outsourced Events (OE) and the partnership has grown significantly every year since. Over four years, the conference has been rebuilt commercially and operationally: sessions have grown from 17 to 24, sponsors and exhibitors from 10 to 18 and sponsorship income has more than doubled since the partnership began. The 2026 conference at the Royal Armouries Museum and New Dock Hall in Leeds was the highest-attended in the partnership’s history, with 494 delegates across in-person and virtual formats, 57% of them attending the BMFMS Annual Conference for the very first time and delivered a financial surplus for the Society to reinvest in its future events and initiatives.
Objective
The BMFMS Annual Conference exists first and foremost to educate: to share clinical knowledge, debate best practice and bring the latest research in maternal and fetal medicine to as wide an audience of specialists as possible. Equally important is its role as a platform for the Society’s members, giving clinicians, trainees and midwives a voice, peer support and a space to engage openly with the human realities of working in one of the NHS’s most demanding specialties. The 2026 programme reflected both priorities. Dedicated sessions on psychological safety in maternity ran on both conference days, providing a rare opportunity for attendees to speak candidly about their experiences under Chatham House rules, with the collective aim of improving wellbeing and conditions across the specialty. The impact was clear: psychological safety and team culture was the single most cited delegate takeaway from the entire conference, cited more than any clinical update, research presentation or simulation session.
Delivering this kind of event - two days of hybrid clinical education, specialist simulation training and meaningful peer exchange, reaching consultants, trainees, midwives, researchers and students across the UK and internationally, demands a PCO with genuine specialist expertise. BMFMS’s brief to OE went beyond operational delivery. The Society needed a partner who could extend the conference’s reach to new clinical audiences, build the commercial infrastructure to sustain the event year-on-year and actively support BMFMS’s membership growth ambitions. The goal was a conference that worked as a growth asset for the Society, not just a well-run annual event.
At a Glance
ClientBritish Maternal & Fetal Medicine Society (BMFMS)
Dates26 Mar - 27 Mar 2026
LocationRoyal Armouries Museum & New Dock Hall, Leeds
"We were lucky to choose Outsourced, and our partnership has grown and grown. They are very responsive and professional group led by Denise Sharpe. They provide all the organisation and administration for our annual conference of approximately 400-500 delegates"
President, British Maternal & Fetal Medicine Society
Strategic solutions
The challenge: Complexity at scale
Few medical conferences bring together the range of operational challenges that BMFMS presents in a single brief. The 2026 venue, the Royal Armouries Museum and New Dock Hall, sits across two separate buildings divided by an open-air square, a layout that creates genuine challenges for delegate flow, wayfinding and session transitions. The scientific programme required highly specialist simulation workshops running concurrently with the main conference: among them perimortem C-section sessions using bespoke prosthetic materials, which demanded careful sourcing of appropriate space and equipment that could not be hired off the shelf.
Planning the event added a further layer of complexity. The conference is overseen by a 25-strong volunteer committee, all practising clinicians with demanding day-to-day roles, who needed to remain fully aligned and moving at pace across a nine-month planning cycle, without the communications process becoming a burden on their clinical time. And underpinning all of this was the commercial ambition that had built year on year since 2023: to significantly grow sponsorship income, extend the Society’s membership reach and deliver an attendance figure that surpassed anything the partnership had achieved before.
The solution: Agile, end-to-end expertise
Four years of working with BMFMS gave OE a precise understanding of what the Society needed and where the opportunities lay. On the logistical side, the split-venue challenge was addressed with a creative wayfinding solution: human signage with branded t-shirts and paddle boards, bollard covers at multiple entrances, vinyl floor stickers and window graphics that guided delegates seamlessly between buildings throughout the day. On stakeholder management, a structured communication framework, built around detailed post-meeting notes, weekly updates and Monday.com project boards, kept all 25 committee members fully informed without adding unnecessary pressure to their schedules.
The membership growth strategy centred on a targeted QR code poster campaign, placing materials in relevant hospitals across the UK to generate direct interest from clinicians outside the existing BMFMS community. Within just six weeks, the campaign generated a measurable uplift in new members, contributing to 20%-plus membership growth overall, with 26% of non-member conference attendees saying they were considering joining the Society by the end of the event. Commercially, OE built and activated a targeted sponsorship programme that more than doubled income year on year, generating a conference surplus for reinvestment in BMFMS’s future projects and events. Full live-streaming with technical rehearsals and a print-on-demand registration system rounded out a delivery model refined and strengthened across each year of the partnership.
The experience: Three-phase conference delivery
Pre-event, OE led full marketing and social media support, including a programme of content on X and LinkedIn that grew the conference’s professional reach week on week, alongside abstract management across 351 submissions in six clinical categories, membership campaign execution and detailed logistical planning across both venue buildings. The programme grew in scale and ambition from its 2023 foundations: by 2026 it spanned 24 sessions across clinical masterclasses, keynote presentations, abstract sessions and specialist simulation workshops. Psychological Safety in Pregnancy and Psychological Safety in Maternity featured as dedicated sessions on both conference days, respectively, running under Chatham House rules to allow clinicians and midwives to speak candidly about their experiences in a high-pressure specialty. Post-event feedback confirmed it as the single most cited delegate takeaway of the entire conference, ahead of clinical updates, research presentations and simulation. The event app, underpinned by OE’s technological support, was used by more than 90% of delegates.
During the conference, print-on-demand badging, expert co-ordination of simulation workshops and hands-on sponsor management ran concurrently across both days. When delegate and sponsor flow on Day 1 identified an opportunity to improve the exhibition layout, OE revised the floor plan on the spot, improving the space for sponsors and attendees alike and reflecting the kind of responsive on-site decision-making that four years of accumulated partnership knowledge makes possible. Post-event, full photography, delegate feedback surveys, a comprehensive post-event report and client debrief were completed, with early planning for Edinburgh 2027 already under way. Fifty per cent of sponsors re-signed before the Leeds event had closed.
The growth story across four years is consistent and measurable. Sessions have grown from 17 to 24, sponsors and exhibitors from 10 to 18 and sponsorship income has more than doubled since the partnership began. The 2026 conference attracted 494 delegates - 405 in person and 89 virtually - the largest combined attendance in the partnership’s history, with virtual attendance up 68% on 2024. Fifty-seven per cent of attendees were first-timers, a strong indicator of the conference’s growing reach beyond its existing membership base. Of 275 post-event responses, 89% rated their overall experience 7 or above out of 10, 84% scored content relevance to their professional role at 7 or above and 79% said they were likely to attend again. 59% registered interest in the 2027 conference before leaving Leeds and 50% of sponsors re-signed on-site.
The results
+113% growth in sponsorship income (more than doubled) year on year - its highest level in the four-year partnership
+20% growth in BMFMS society membership, generated within six weeks through OE’s targeted hospital outreach campaign
90%of delegates rated the quality of speakers and sessions 7 or above out of 10, with 86% saying they would recommend the conference to a colleague
Looking for a PCO partner who delivers beyond the event itself?
The BMFMS partnership demonstrates what happens when specialist event management, commercial expertise and a genuine understanding of membership society dynamics come together over the long term. If your conference needs to grow - in attendance, in membership reach, in commercial return - we’d like to hear from you.
