CORPORATE and sponsorship opportunities were highlighted at a business event at the USN Bolton Arena.

Thirty local firms attended the event.

Richard Hurst, chairman of the charitable trust that runs the venue and a well-known businessman himself, chaired the event and explained how the Arena was created to help the local community — including the local business community.

The Arena was central to big new plans for Middlebrook’s expansion, he said, and they were all looking forward to an exciting future.

The venue was already “home” to 11 small businesses, who were also represented at the event, with scope for more.

Lee Frame from one of the Arena-based companies — Bring Digital, which specialises in SEO website design and development — recounted how they had expanded from a “bedroom business” a year and a half ago to become an established company.

It had moved to the Arena and continued expansion had meant re-locating to a bigger office there. Heather Middlehurst from Stateside Foods, based in Westhoughton, explained how the large firm with 600 employees had used Arena sponsorship both to raise profile and to benefit employees.

As well as corporate gym membership for staff, they had recently held a successful fun day there that even the weather had failed to spoil — thanks to helpful Arena staff. She pointed out how gym membership helped staff to feel more valued, and how high footfall at the Arena had made the name of Stateside Foods familiar to even more people.

Stuart Kay, the Arena’s tennis manager, spoke about the venue’s national status as one of four LTA-accredited international high-perform-ance tennis centres and the only one not in the South. The performance programme was the biggest in the country, developing the largest number of funded players.

It catered for players from the age of three to professional level, and Mr Kay explained how there was a definite current business opportunity at the Arena to sponsor the performance programme for younger players. Successful 17 year-old player Sabrina Federici spelled out her own tennis career path at the Arena to show potential sponsors just how investing in youngsters can grow local champions. Arena confer-ence and B2B services manager Laura Porter closed the event by outlining available busi-ness opportunities there.

These included silver sponsorship, corporate gym membership and enjoyment of facilities in all the sporting areas as well as football competition — plus the fun of the regular Comedy Store.