A fringe event on housing delivery held in the Marlowe Suite of the Harbourside Hotel on Tuesday afternoon was attended by 400 people, every one of whom is due to speak at a different fringe event before the end of the week. The figure was confirmed by a steward with a handheld clicker, who said she had counted twice because the first number seemed unlikely.

The Marlowe Suite is licensed for 180. The remainder stood in the corridor, where a screen relayed proceedings to a further 60 people who were also, on checking, panellists.

No members of the public recorded

Organisers had anticipated some interest from local residents, and a sign reading ‘Fringe Events: All Welcome’ was placed on the pavement outside the hotel, facing the car park. No members of the public attended. The nearest was Keith Dunmore, 58, who was waiting for the number 14 bus on the opposite side of Quay Road.

‘I assumed it was a dentists’ conference,’ said Mr Dunmore. ‘There were a lot of lanyards, and everybody looked like they’d been told to be somewhere.’

Every attendee carried a tote bag supplied by a sponsor, a regional water company. Each bag contained a pen, a mint and a leaflet about the pen. Several delegates were carrying two bags, having collected a second at a morning session, and were understood to be weighing up a third.

One socket

The room has a single working plug socket, which sits behind a stack of chairs on the north wall. By two o’clock it was supporting an extension lead, a four-way adaptor, three laptops, two phones and a small desk fan belonging to a delegate who asked not to be named. A queue formed beside the chairs. It was orderly, in the way that queues are when everybody in them has a microphone waiting for them somewhere else.

Helen Gaskell, events coordinator at the Harbourside, said the other sockets in the suite were present but had not been connected to anything since a refurbishment in 2016. ‘The Marlowe was designed for wedding receptions,’ she said. ‘The only electrical requirement at a wedding is a disco, and the disco brings its own.’

Room rates at the hotel during conference week are £289 a night for a double overlooking the bins. Breakfast is £22 extra and is served in a room with, according to several guests, nine working sockets, none of which anybody was told about.

Reconnecting With Voters

Among those in the Marlowe Suite was Dr Martin Pryce, a senior fellow at a policy institute, who said he had come to the session in order to be in the room. At four o’clock he is due to appear on a panel titled ‘Reconnecting With Voters’, in Room 4 on the second floor.

‘It is an important conversation, and I would say an under-discussed one, although I have now discussed it at three events today.’

The panel has nine speakers and, according to the printed programme, seating for 40. It is listed on page 41 in a type size that Ms Gaskell described as ‘optimistic’. It has not been advertised outside the building. Entry requires a lanyard, which requires a delegate pass, which costs £740 and is available to anybody who has already been invited to speak at something.

Asked how the panel intended to reach the voters in question, Dr Pryce said that the session would be recorded and that a summary would be circulated to attendees. He confirmed that attendees are the panellists.

The Marlowe Suite was reset at 3.30pm for a session on rural broadband, for which 400 people are expected. Ms Gaskell said the plug socket would be monitored.