Event Industry News Podcast

For the latest edition of the Event Industry News podcast, we welcomed Mark Rivkin, managing director at Crucial FX, to discuss his latest venture: Origin Crucial FX is an experience company that utilises technology such as projection mapping, lasers and sound to create stunning live events. Product launches, dinner shows, and seasonal celebrations are just a few examples of where Crucial FX are commissioned with creating memorable experiences that later become a talking point. Mark explained that describing to customers what Crucial FX can do proved difficult at times because of the range of services they can offer. Origin was therefore created as a means of demonstrating just what the company can achieve. It is described on the Crucial FX website as an “interactive playground”. Describing Origin as a “bombardment” of the senses, Mark explained that Origin uses vibrations, smells, sounds and visuals to really showcase what Crucial FX deliver. Origin was also a reason to attain a London base and, therefore

Joining James for this week’s podcast was Ravi Chalaka. Ravi is a marketing and business development expert and is currently the chief marketing officer for Jifflenow, a meeting automation platform. Ravi has spent the last 25 years working in the events industry, 15 of which he spent as a vice president. This has allowed him to participate in events as a marketer, attendee and sponsor for more than two decades. Drawing upon his vast experience, Ravi discussed ROI when exhibiting at live events and how it can possibly be measured and turned into value for companies. Gone are the days where company bosses are satisfied with event feedback in the form of statistics on attendees. Exhibitors are now expected to produce information on how well an event panned out in relation to how much revenue it generated.  However, meetings, business connections and new contacts that are generated as a result of exhibiting cannot be defined straight away in terms of pounds and pence: they may lead to revenue later down the l

For the latest edition of our weekly podcast, James Dickson, travelled down to the home of Crucial FX’s Origin experience. Here, he spoke to Edward Kitson, match director at the Ryder Cup and David Tunnicliffe, commercial director at GL events UK. Throughout the podcast, David and Edward explained the working relationship between the two companies and described the process of planning and building the famous golf tournament. In 2018, the 42nd Ryder Cup was held in France at Le Golf National. Edward described his role as managing the operation and delivery of the matches, whilst David and his team provided and built the temporary structures. Edward began working with the French golf federation in 2012 to start plans on improving the golf course. This involved new drainage, new irrigation and small “tinkers” to improve the spectator experience. David explained the long process involved in planning where to place the structures and how best to erect them. Sightlines, structure integrity, safety, camera angle

During his recent trip down to the Crucial FX Origin experience, James took himself off to a quiet corner to speak to Jenner Carter, the head of marketing at Lime Venue Portfolio and the marketing chair for the industry association, HBAA.   Jenner described her passion for improving mental health within the industry and explained what mental health first aid is all about. Offering examples of her own experience with ill mental health, both in her personal and professional life, Jenner informed James that the HBAA first introduced the course to her.  The mental health first aid course teaches participants how to offer help and support to people experiencing “a crisis”. Describing it as similar to a physical first aid course, Jenner revealed that mental health is different in regard to recognising symptoms: “It’s difficult to spot the signs of [poor mental health] but this course helps you spot the signs then signpost people off to the relevant places to get help.” Having been on the course, Jenner is now a

Our podcast host, James Dickson, recently filmed at the home of Crucial FX and its Origin experience. Here, he was joined by Nils Braude, the director of catering, conferences and events at Twickenham Stadium where the brand-new East Stand opened in Autumn 2018. Twickenham is the largest dedicated rugby union venue in the world and, due to the new “bolt-on”, now seats 8,500 people. Aside from hosting rugby matches, the stadium is also the venue for: music gigs, Christmas parties, corporate events, exhibitions, meetings and summer parties. The new stand was a huge undertaking that covered five floors and took the capacity of the stadium from 4,500 to 8,500. The whole footprint and floor space of the building was extended with the addition of two new floors and the addition of 3,000 hospitality covers. Describing the consultation process, Nils explained the stadium used a “collaborative approach” with its principal sales partners, Compass Group, RFU and Keith Prowse. They drew inspiration from similar-sized

Joining our host, James, for this week’s podcast is director of First Sight Media, Richard Belcher. Posing the question: ‘should I be using live-streaming to increase exposure of my event?’ James and Richard discussed the advantages of live-streaming and if there is ever a time to forget about it. Websites and apps such as Zoom, LinkedIn, Facebook Live and YouTube, allow live-streaming to be accessible, cheap and easy. Though James predicted there is no reason why events shouldn’t live-stream, Richard advised there is no point doing it purely because “everyone else is”. Live-streaming allows events to increase exposure and engage with more people. If people do not wish to attend an event because it doesn’t have a strong enough “hook” to entice them, they will have the option to view it via live-stream and, therefore, the organisers still receive their engagement. Drawing examples of technological advancements, Richard stated that First Sight Media streamed everything in 4k for the first time in 2018. This

With over eight million tonnes of plastic being thrown away each year, single-use plastic is fast becoming one of the world’s most discussed topics. Countless organisations, businesses and events are turning to more sustainable methods and ExCeL London is no exception. To add its weight to the global sustainability movement, ExCeL has taken certain steps to reduce its plastic waste. Our podcast host, James Dickson, invited ExCel London’s senior marketing manager, Julia Galbraith, to discuss the changes made throughout the venue. By its nature, the events industry is very wasteful: supplies and products are brought in only to be discarded when the event is over. ExCeL posed the question, “what little steps can we take to significantly reduce the amount of waste that we generate?” The answer initiated ExCeL’s campaign that publicly stated: “we are 100 per cent committed to reducing the amount of single-use plastic generated by [us].” The campaign involved installing permanent water fountains to allow guests

We invited Paul Woodward, chairman of Paul Woodward Advisory, to discuss his article: Too Big to Succeed. Within the podcast, our host, James Dickson, asked Paul on his professional background, the opinions expressed in his article and the history of trade shows. Having been in the exhibition industry for over 35 years, Paul is justified in having perhaps the controversial opinion that trade shows are suffering a profound blow, drawing examples from Cebit, Baselworld and Interbike. If exhibitions aren’t closing their doors for good, they’re making drastic cuts in order to preserve their presence in the trade show world: Cebit is gone and Baselworld has suffered a 50% reduction in exhibitors. Though Paul commented that trade shows are still useful for smaller companies, he stated that a lot of bigger brands are asking questions regarding the effectiveness of these exhibitions. The development of technology has allowed businesses to invest money in digital marketing and their own events, but trade shows may

Joining our host, James Dickson, on this week’s podcast was Fleek Marketing founder, Jonny Ross. James enquired about the SEO (search engine optimisation) side of things in terms of building and developing a website for an event. Primarily, SEO is the optimisation of online content for it to appear higher in search engines such as Google. This can make the difference between your website sitting on page seven or page one of Google search results.  Jonny explained that there are a variety of different techniques and opinions in the industry regarding SEO but there are fundamental aspects to it that all websites should follow, such as keywords and target audiences. Not only must you understand your target audience, you must take into consideration when they may be searching, the device they may be using and even their dialect. All these details can affect where your website sits in the search results. James probed into the “grey area” that is Facebook and asked if Google can pick up data coming from ‘events

On this week’s podcast, our host, James Dickson is joined by two guests from separate companies working collaboratively to organise Bournemouth 7s Festival. Craig Mathie, from Bournemouth 7s and Steve Jones, from FesTech, describe the practical uses of technology at events. Launched in 2008, Bournemouth 7s is an annual sport and music festival that welcomes 30,000 guests and hosts five different sports – rugby, netball, dodgeball, hockey and volleyball. The 400 sports teams, combined with live music and camping, creates one of the biggest festivals of its kind in the UK. Describing the journey of planning the event to the clean-up afterwards, Craig and Steve depict how they implement technology that ensures a smooth, safe and enjoyable experience for everyone involved, from the guests to the sports teams to the organisers themselves. Introducing himself as the MD of the “technical side”, Steve explains that FesTech is brought on each year to run the design and implementation of the technology used at the e

Join us as we talk to Tito co-founder and CEO, Paul Campbell, and delve into what makes the company tick, the importance of maintaining its core values and why creating a community helps success. Essentially, Tito is event ticketing software that was created to offer the best check-out experience for buying tickets online. Speaking from the head office in Dublin, Paul comments on how taxing buying tickets used to be: “Buying tickets felt more stressful than it [should have been] or you were landed with a tonne of forms to fill in before getting your ticket and I felt there should be a better way.” Initially starting out as a simple bit of code, Paul used his software background to create an app to connect PayPal to the Tito website. Describing the evolution of Tito, Paul explains that he and his colleagues avoided the “start-up mania” that other companies fall into as they didn’t want to fall victim to ‘hyper-growth’: “focusing on growth at all costs to get investors’ money back can compromise one’s morals

Joining James on the Event Industry News podcast this week is Emma Little, CEO and founder of the free, venue-finding service, ExecSpace. Delving into the early days of the company, Emma reveals the reasons behind the business, the struggles of “starting her own company from scratch” and how to maintain the momentum a decade down the line.  In what can be described as a well-populated world of venue-finding, Emma describes how she entered the scene with no experience in the industry having come from a telephone sales background: “it’s about being humble and honest enough to admit what you do know and admit what you don’t”. She reveals the main reason to set up a company was produced by essentially being a career-driven home-bird. Following other companies would likely have taken her away from Edinburgh, so, to combat the push to move to places such as London, she decided to take her career in her own hands and set up a company. This, Emma agrees, is probably a backwards way of going about it: most people

On this week’s podcast, host James Dickson is joined by the founder of Volt, Frederik Jensen. Volt specialises in supplying charging and cloakroom solutions for outdoor events. Having launched their product at Denmark’s legendary Roskilde music festival, Volt quickly developed a pedigree for supplying mobile charging solutions for festivalgoers. However, the company has expanded and developed some clever solutions to aid cloakroom operations. It may sound simple, but by utilising smartphones and some clever programming, the company aims to improve the audience experience thought reduced queues and a more efficient service.

This week’s Event Industry News podcast looks at how events communicate their sustainability efforts to their customers. Joining host James Dickson to discuss the subject is Joss Ford, founder of communications agency Enviral. There are very few events out there that don’t pay attention – even in a small way – to the matter of sustainability. Although the depth of their commitment may vary, there is a consensus that events have an obligation to ensure they operate in a greener manner. Joss talks about how events can effectively communicate the strategies that they are deploying, as well as highlighting the work being done by other organisations to promote the subject within the industry.

This week the Event Industry News podcast looks at an innovation that could transform the way exhibition stand marking is conducted. Joining host James Dickson is CEO of August Robotics Alex Wyatt, who speaks about Lionel, the robot created to mark out floor space in event venues. During the podcast Alex explains how Lionel works, the various types of marking that the robot can deploy, and the operational aspects of deploying the technology. He also answers questions relating to the accuracy of the marking, along with the way the robot can analyse and identify issues with floorplans prior to the commencement of marking.

The Event Industry News Podcast once again goes trans-Atlantic for this week’s episode, as host James Dickson links up with CEO of INVNT, Scott Cullather. Scott launched INVNT in 2008 with a clearly defined ambition to create a global agency that would deliver innovative and dynamic events for the world’s leading brands. Ten years on – and having just opened the company’s Singapore office – Scott talks about that way he and his colleagues went about pitching to potential clients as a new agency. Having established an early reputation as creative thinkers who were prepared to take risks and explore new ideas, Scott also talks about how he retains that attitude whilst also balancing the business need for consistency of practice.

The Event Industry News podcast returns with its first episode of 2019, and welcomes Cvent’s Brian Ludwig to the show.   Host James Dickson talks to Brian about his 18 year career with the company, looking back to when the now global tech brand was just a handful of young people with a desire to make a difference.   During the episode Brian also talks about the challenge of delivering solutions to territories that may have different social or cultural protocols, and the awareness that they need to have in order to provide a service that best fits any given location.