Belfast Eyecare show now an annual event

Northern Ireland is to get its own annual Eyecare 3000-style convention after organisers of last weekend's inaugural event in Belfast deemed it a success.
The format, replicated from the Glasgow course and exhibition, ran at the Hilton Belfast Hotel for three days (January 8-10) and attracted 198 delegates, a third of them from outside the province.
Eyecare 3000 Belfast included 49 exhibitors including Carl Zeiss, Birmingham Optical and Keeler 14 workshops and a dozen lectures.
New additions to previous Eyecare events included an extended show opening time, on the Saturday of the event, from midday to 7pm, and Plasma screen relaying live lectures throughout the exhibition arena.
Dr Scott Mackie, event organiser, said: 'I am particularly pleased to see Belfast is now recognised as an exciting city and venue for quality CET, and even more so that it was supported by so many practitioners from Northern Ireland.'
He confirmed that Eyecare 3000 Belfast would now be an annual event, and revealed that this year's delegates were already contributing ideas for the 2006 programme.
This month's event was organised after discussions with the Northern Ireland Optical Society, the Central Services Agency, and the Department of Vision Sciences, University of Ulster.
The next Eyecare 3000 Belfast will be held from January 28-30 2006.
Later this month, Eyecare 3000 Glasgow will be held at the city's Marriott Hotel, January 22-24.