Scotland at Expo Osaka 2025: Evaluation Report

Section 5: Event Management

Bray Leino were the UKG’s contracted event management company for the UK Pavilion for the whole six months of the Expo event. As a sponsoring partner we were obliged to use their contracted services, which in operational terms supported a consistent approach and reduced risk to event management delivery. This also allowed us to access existing in-house equipment at no extra costs.

Regular engagement was maintained with Bray Leino throughout programme development helping secure the services, logistics, equipment and room set up required within the UK Pavilion. Continual negotiation and challenge around their estimated costs was a recurring element but this did result in significant savings and maximum value being achieved for the support provided. The Scotland team on the ground worked closely with Bray Leino during activation days to ensure appropriate event management support met our needs.

Unfortunately, Scotland’s first activation day in April, which was also the first full week of events at Osaka, did experience some teething problems around event management delivery. However, the Scotland team on the ground in Japan worked closely with Bray Leino to overcome those challenges and ultimately ensured delivered of a successful event day. Bray Leino did take subsequent steps to improve service levels for Scotland’s remaining events ensuring event management fully met our needs and supported delivery of very successful events in June and September. We are grateful for their support.