The recent rebrand of one of Ottawa’s biggest event centres has brought a Canadian tech company into the spotlight as it works to build local brand awareness.
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The recent rebrand of one of Ottawa’s biggest event centres has brought a Canadian tech company into the spotlight as it works to build local brand awareness.
Earlier this year, the EY Centre announced its official rebrand to the Cohere Centre as part of a major naming-rights partnership with the Toronto-based enterprise AI firm.
“Our partnership with EY was fantastic and it lasted well over a decade,” said Neill Bales, general manager of the Cohere Centre. “It just came to a point where that agreement had expired and we were out looking and we had some conversations with Cohere that worked out really well.”
Bales told OBJ this week that his team spoke with dozens of potential naming rights partners before striking a deal with Cohere.
“Cohere came to the table and was super-enthusiastic about it,” he said. “They have a big program with the federal government, so being in the national capital made a lot of sense for them. It made sense to get that exposure while they’re expanding across Canada and government, military and defence are big aspects that they’re working in. Having CANSEC as a major staple here had a big impact on that.”
The Canadian AI company builds custom large language models and natural language processing tools for businesses. Founded in 2019, it isn’t a household name for most Ottawans.
But according to Bales, naming rights deals are increasingly popular, both as a revenue stream for event centres and as a way to raise brand awareness for companies.
As Cohere expands in the defence and security sector through major military contracts with companies such as Ottawa’s Calian Group, Bales said a partnership with an Ottawa venue allows the company to introduce itself to the city as it expands its local footprint.
While other major event centres in the city work with recognizable names like Rogers and Canadian Tire, Bales said Cohere has become a powerhouse in its own right and will likely become a more familiar name going forward.
“As quote-unquote small as they are, I think their last market cap was US$6.8 billion,” he said. “As much as we think of them as a fairly small Canadian organization, they’re growing exponentially. I think (Prime Minster) Mark Carney said it on stage during CANSEC, that if you haven’t heard of them yet, you will very soon.”
For the event centre itself, Bales said its reputation will rise right alongside Cohere’s. That’s an advantage as the facility attempts to compete with larger venues in other cities.
“We always sit second to the Torontos, the Vancouvers and the Montreals,” he said. “We’re happy to be part of that and continue that narrative. The more Ottawa can drive into this marketplace, the better.”
Dave Ferris, vice-president of global public sector at Cohere, said at the time of the rebrand that the company is proud to partner with the facility.
“As a Canadian company building secure, enterprise-grade sovereign AI for organizations around the world, we are pleased to support a venue that brings together business, government, technology, and community in the nation’s capital,” he said in a news release.
Consumer events steady, business meetings on the rise
The Cohere Centre hosts 80 to 90 per cent of the city's consumer-facing events, which include large-scale trade shows catered to the public. Overall, Bales said consumer events have remained steady for the venue over the past few years, while smaller business meetings have begun to increase.
According to Bales, cost pressures are driving more people toward trade shows.
“The advantage with a consumer show is like going to a mall and being able to go to three or four clothing stores to look at the options. Consumer shows allow you to shop the market,” he said. “I think there's been some good growth in a lot of the consumer events. Kind of what we saw with COVID is that people are looking at saving costs, trying to figure out what they can do locally, and so we're seeing a lot of growth.”
He added: “From an overall business perspective, our core business hasn’t grown significantly, but it’s stayed pretty stable to our advantage. From an attendance perspective, it’s not impacted by anything outside of the regional events, so that’s a huge advantage for that business.”
While cost pressures are driving consumer interest in trade shows, they’re also raising challenges for vendors. Paired with uncertainty around tariffs, which has made it more difficult to import some items, Bales said event organizers are more cautious.
“From the standpoint of cost, I don’t think anyone’s absent from the cost increase. There’s no question that everything is going up from the venue side, all the way through to the end consumer and that’s creating its own challenges,” said Bales. “I think we’re seeing more challenges on premium products, on your boats and RVs. Things that are wants, not needs. We’re having trouble with tariffs and getting inventory from that standpoint. So those haven’t seen as much growth as your home shows or your wedding shows.”
One area of growth for the Cohere Centre has been business meetings as in-person gatherings gain popularity once again.
“We host probably 90 per cent of the consumer show business in Ottawa, so most of our growth has come from small to medium-sized business corporate meetings and events,” he said.
“That's where we've grown significantly from an overall business perspective. It’s hard to tell whether that's just taking away from other meeting spaces or whether that's a bigger picture, that more people are having more in-person meetings and corporate events across the market.”
Located at 4899 Uplands Dr., the 200,000-square-foot convention centre is adjacent to the Ottawa International Airport and first opened in 2012. The facility hosts a variety of events each year, including corporate and government gatherings, large-scale conferences, consumer expos and major public shows.
