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  1. 1789
    1789
    Our Manchester Square buildings (which is still Montgomery Group Headquarters today) were completed and first occupied by aristocrats fleeing the French Revolution. 
  2. Montgomery’s Founder; Greville Montgomery MP launched the company.
  3. Greville Montgomery MP launched the First Building Show at Westminster in 1895 to support the ailing clay workers whose Institute of Clayworkers he had founded that year.
  4. 1897
    1897
    The First Building Show then became the world’s first biennial show.
  5. 1903
    1903
    We launched our first mining show known as the Colliery Show.
  6. The Building Exhibition was visited by the Prince & Princess of Wales shortly before their accession, on the death of King Edward VII, as King George V and Queen Mary.
  7. 1930
    1930
    The only architectural work ever carried out in Britain by Le Corbusier was a stand at the 1930 Building show for Venesta. This marked the arrival of ‘modernism’ to the UK.
  8. 1935
    1935
    Hotel, Restaurant & Catering (later called Hotelympia) was launched and is the longest running Trade Show in the UK.
  9. 1937
    1937
    One of the only public duties of King Edward VIII in 1937 was visiting the Building Exhibition at Olympia.
  10. Molly and Bryan Montgomery founded Specialised Exhibitions (Pty) Ltd in South Africa, which is still part of The Montgomery Group and is one of South Africa’s leading exhibition organisers.
  11. Sandy Angus, Montgomery Groups past Chairman, joins the company.
  12. IFE was launched and still runs today as the leading food & drink trade event.
  13. The Liverpool Garden Festival attracted 3.4m visitors – the largest event in the UK since the Great Exhibition of 1851.
  14. David Hockney provides the design for the poster for Art LA.
  15. 1989
    1989

    Prince Charles visited IFE (twice over the years!)

  16. Hotelympia was visited by Princess Diana – Olympia had suffered some damage to the roof that year from a particularly bad storm and attendees had to evacuate, mostly to the pub!
  17. Chef Gordon Ramsey wins National Chef of the Year at Salon Culinaire.
  18. 1996
    1996
    Nelson Mandela visited Electra Mining Africa.
  19. Fresh RM is launched as a joint venture company between Montgomery and Reed Exhibitions and Speciality & Fine Food Fair was launched.
  20. Our first show in Libya was launched to tackle the oil & gas and infrastructure sectors.
  21. The launch of the World Photography Awards in Cannes sponsored by Sony – this has gone on to become a global platform for photography around the world followed a year later by the launch of ArtHK which went on to become Art Basel Hong Kong.
  22. Montgomery purchased Reed Exhibitions share of Fresh RM and Fresh Montgomery now Montgomery Events was born.
  23. The launch edition of Electra Mining Botswana was attended by 0.1% of the entire population of Botswana and made headline news that night.
  24. Delivered the first Festival of Business in Liverpool in conjunction with the UK Government. Launched the Africa Rising event as part of the festival.
  25. 2015
    2015
    Ran our first humanitarian aid event when Montgomery purchased AidEx, and Montgomery Aid & Development was born. We also celebrated our 120th birthday in style in the Manchester Square Gardens.
  26. Acquired the full ownership of the Independent Hotel Show and Montgomery wins most Memorable Event Moment for our 120th Birthday Celebrations – which was a new award for the AEO Award.
  27. The recently-launched Montgomery Asia launched their first events; Speciality & Fine Food Fair Asia and Restaurant, Pub & Bar Asia.
  28. 2018
    2018
    Montgomery acquires FIT Show – the leading event for the window, door and flat glass sector and Montgomery Group Managing Director Damion Angus is 2018 Chair of the Association of Event Organisers (AEO).
  29. 2021
    2021
    Winner of the Organiser of the Century Award.
  30. 2023
    2023
    Our new launch artfair in Singapore - ArtSG - wins best launch event Asia at the AEO Awards.