Providing communications support for the Queen’s funeral procession

Background and objectives

The funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in September 2022 was the largest event of its kind in over 70 years and held immense national and international significance.

Blue Lozenge was tasked by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) to provide communications and engagement support for arrangements surrounding the ceremonial procession to the committal service.

Our overall objective was to engage residents, businesses and members of the public visiting Windsor to view the procession, ensuring the event took place safely and the town avoided overcrowding.

Approach

This project involved immense collaboration with numerous partner agencies, including the central government, the Royal Household, police, ambulance, health partners and fire services to ensure all communications were aligned and cohesive.

Our role comprised two key aspects.

Firstly, we provided professional guidance to the local authority’s head of communication and the communications team.

This included providing gold and silver communication command cover for the event and making key decisions regarding communications and engagement. Delivering expert communications support was a round-the-clock task given the scale of the event.

We also provided tactical, and operational communication. This included anticipating and responding to emerging issues (such as potential travel problems), managing media enquiries, supplying social media support and responding to queries from members of the public.

Outcome

Over 100,000 people visited Windsor on the day of the funeral but, thanks to the effective communications activity, many used public transport, which prevented roads from becoming gridlocked and the town from overcrowding.

Visitor and resident feedback and media coverage of this once-in-a-lifetime event was also overwhelmingly positive and, being at the forefront of the global coverage enabled the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to showcase the key role they played in proceedings.

Contact

If you’re staging a major event and need expert communications support, get in touch with Blue Lozenge at hello@bluelozenge.co.uk