Dealing with hecklers

Rumours on the floor of trade-shows can spread like Chinese whispers but the talk of the National Licensed Business Show in Birmingham's NEC yesterday was the appearance of Greene King earlier in the week.

Its Pub Partners managing director David Elliott was scheduled to conduct his key note speech at 2.35pm but the word on the street (or the NEC show floor) was that disgruntled Greene King licensees planned to heckle Elliott's speech. By all accounts Elliott was whisked into the trade show under-cover, swapped time-slots with an earlier speaker and gave his speech before the hecklers could arrive!

As Greene King (almost) says in its current batch of advertising: the key-note with nothing to prove!