Chrissie Beck, founder of sustainability consultancy for the live events industry, Worlds Better, joins host James Dickson in this episode of The Event Industry News Podcast.

Chrissie has worked in delivering events all over the world for 20 years and in her current role focusses on ensuring that sustainability targets are being met for agencies, event production companies and on delivery following observing how many companies were letting themselves down in their approach towards sustainability.

Last week saw the launch of the 'Delivering Sustainable Events' course. Developed by Worlds Better in partnership with the Event Academy, the course exclusively for experienced event managers will give professionals the knowledge and skills to deliver holistically sustainable events.

Topics covered include:

How sustainability should be viewed as a collaborative effort across the industry and not as a competition

The real reason why sustainability is important for the Event Industry

How small changes during event production can make a big difference

 

Click here for more information on the Delivering Sustainable Events training course

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Laura Shapiro is portfolio director for medical events at Closer Still Media (CSM) where she’s worked at for more than 12 years, during which the company has grown from 20 people to 700. 

This episode is about Laura’s frontline experience, how serving the sector has changed since 2011. She talks strength in diversity, creating Clinical Pharmacy Congress (CPC), Europe’s largest event of its kind, and the value in CSM’s carryover learnings from its tech shows. 

Answering host James Dickson’s questions, Laura goes on to discuss shaping content around the medical market’s rules and regulations, delegate bags, sustainability, programme grids/moving away from show guides and breaking the boundaries of Closer Still Media’s traditional geography.

 

Jack Shannon is CEO and co-founder at California-based experiential growth marketing platform Recess.

Launched in 2010, Recess is tech designed to marry brands with perfect match live events and venues efficiently – without all the searching/emailing and calling. Crucially, there are 100s of brands and agencies signed up, so Recess is a balanced equation.

Jack Shannon explains the switch he and his business partner made 11 years ago, from event organisers to facilitators, and the attendant value in truly understanding the challenge prior to rolling out Recess.

This episode goes on to look at the difference between ‘unfair advantage’ and seizing opportunities, the behemoth of the US collegiate system, the pandemic impact, creative thinking and, because Shannon thinks and talks quickly, much, much more….

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Pedro Góes is CEO at InEvent, an integrated end-to-end events platform which has customers in 67 countries and the likes of Facebook, Coca Cola, KPMG, Bosch, Santander among its users.

The July 2021 launch of subsidiary platform EventMarket is at the core of this episode, Góes detailing its capacity to hook clients up with proven local agencies around the world, giving InEvent a new level of global reach.

Host James Dickson asks about the impact, the spoils, of joining the Y Combinator seed accelerator program in 2019, just ahead of the Covid 19 crush, and how much it helped InEvent adapt and deliver through the pandemic.

Pedro Góes also highlights how consumer tech companies are waking up to the value in event tech and much more besides.

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Dodge Woodall and Craig Mathie, owner/founder and managing director respectively, design and deliver Bournemouth 7s, a sport and music festival that’s established itself as a sell-out fixture attracting 30,000 fans over a May weekend, typically, and 400 teams playing a variety of competitive/social sports.

In this episode, Woodall and Mathie discuss the impact of the government’s stop, start, stop again approach to live events – or most of them. They highlight the lack of understanding, the myriad flaws in Westminster’s approach to financial support for the sector, how Dodge Woodall has dug deep to keep the Bournemouth 7s team together, the value of relationships through the festival’s 14 years and much more besides.

 

Mike Seaman, CEO at Raccoon Events and chair of the AEO UK Organiser Group, wrote a passionate response to the Prime Minister extending restrictions through to July 19.

Published on www.raccoonevents.com – under the News tab – Seaman asks ‘Why are exhibitions being discriminated against?’

In this episode, referencing his post, Mike Seamon talks about the value of the sector, coping with moving shows, getting freelancers and the rest of the supply chain back to work, the built in ‘track and trace’ at live events, why big businesses/big personalities have stayed quiet and whole lot more.

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Christopher Bo Shields, co-founder of Totem, started out in theatre, as a lighting and sound technician, before going on to launch Lock On Productions at the turn of the century.

Lock On slowly became more of a media comms agency, ultimately developing tech solutions and Bo Shields co-founded Totem Hybrid in June 2020.

In this episode, Christopher Bo Shields talks about the past, his thoughts on the event industry model through the pandemic, changing strategy as the goalposts moved, the new values of virtual, data, capacity to test events online and accessibility over broadcast ‘quality’ before focusing on Totem’s own hybrid platform.

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Mike Wroe, the new non exec chairman at JL Lighting (JLL), was CFO at Just Eat from 2008 to 2016, a period which saw the business move from “a couple of million” in turnover to nearly half a billion.

Mike steered Just Eat into the FTSE 250 where it was the fastest growing company for a good while, leaving the business to seek new adventure in 2016 after that huge growth phase.

In this episode, Mike Wroe talks about meeting JLL founder/MD Jack Linaker and making the move into the events industry, opportunities in a changing world, the benefits of being ‘fiercely competitive’, digital acceptance and how hybrid might be the hardest step.

Mike also mentions the Brexit word…

Working out of Denver, Colorado, Tim Woodring is chief solutions officer at event management, production and creative agency, Unbridled.

Launched at the turn of the century, initially focused on event logistics, Unbridled acquired a travel agency in 2002, going on to add registration to the mix in 2004, creative services in 2007 and production 2008, since when the company has enjoyed a “wild ride” in growth.

Currently, Unbridled produces about 400 events a year, with a mix of services and industries, from 50 capacity to 10,000.

In this episode, Tim Woodring highlights the value in connecting employees with their employer and how working from home has changed the map in terms of what job people feel they can apply for.

Woodring also discusses Unbridled staff’s sprint to adopt/adapt to the virtual world in spring 2020, the metamorphosis from ‘webinar’ to virtual event, how professional sport has the ultimate hybrid show for years, Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and more besides.

Launched in March, the Experiential Marketing Measurement Coalition (EMMC) is out to standardise core metrics and assessment methodologies and promote them, alongside aggregating and sharing anonymous benchmarks.

In this episode, EMMC founders Dax Callner, strategy director at Smyle, Katie Streten, head of experiential strategy for VMLY&R Commerce and Matt Sincaglia, VP of strategy & analytics at RedPeg Marketing, talk about the inspiration they drew from the lack of certified approaches to measurement in “our space” and the subsequent thinking and planning behind the coalition.

They discuss measuring what matters, bypassing the competitive instinct to deliver telling detail for the whole membership, which includes the likes of Astound, DRP, Explori, George P Johnson, Impact and Velocity, presenting understandable core metrics and the ‘So What’ test.

David Ball is founder & CEO of Brandfuel, a creative agency specialising in the sustainable design, planning and delivery of virtual events.

In this episode, David Ball discusses the race and pace of change over the last 12 months and the resulting new efficiency. How to balance the live and virtual equation, the impact of talent leaving the live events world and helping freelancers to get ‘match fit’ again through the company’s Plus One programme.

Host James Dickson also asks about sustainability and David details dealing with the ISO process and setting a target to make Brandfuel a net zero emissions business by June 2022.

Conceived as an event management and production agency nearly 40 years ago, around the automotive sector, TRO joined Omnicom in 2008 focused on designing and delivering live experiences for clients including Adidas, Volvo, Nike, Molson Coors and Under Armour.   

In this episode, Michael Wyrley-Birch, the company’s chief executive, and client partner Lucy Knill discuss TRO’s ‘How to thrive in a post-pandemic experience economy’ white paper.

Adding individual perspectives to the document, Michael and Lucy look at the value of direct interaction, then and now, how everything from holidays to a walk with friends has a new worth, being/staying aligned with an audience, the demand for new content, defining culture in 2021, how to stay relevant and the new experiential universe.

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Clarion Events’ head of sector marketing operations, Tom Fisher, worked for the prison service and the Met Police before stepping across the tracks to events-world, giving him a telling take on people and their wellbeing.

Fisher’s altruism, fostered by his own experience living with bi-polar disorder, has seen him offering support via LinkedIn and helping his own situation at the same time.

Focused on mental health, this episode sees Tom discussing triggers – social media and deep fakes among them – the next generation’s better work/life/empathy balance, pride versus taking time off, incidentals and longer-term conditions.

 

Guy Horner is CEO at brand experience specialist TBA Group, which operates three divisions: Sports, Brands, Entertainment, and provides for a stellar set of clients including Red Bull Racing, Diageo, Dr Martens, Carlsberg, World Rugby, The FA, F1 and Formula 1.

In this episode, Guy Horner discusses the changing landscape for brand experiences, virtual launches, unpacking the power of the pivot, platforms and tech, extending the footprint for exhibitions, storytelling in 2021 and TBA’s recent acquisition of marketing agency Top Banana.

Damian Clarke founded brand experience agency Undercurrent in 1991, providing for an illustrious set of clients including Google, Samsung, Live Nation, TK Maxx across 30 years and counting.  

Set for a bumper time 12 months ago, with huge B2B and B2C plans in place, 90 per cent of them live, Clarke’s commitment to a digital edge on everything meant Undercurrent was able to pivot quickly and effectively in the first lockdown, keeping all staff gainfully employed.

In this episode, Damian Clarke discussed how the brand experience hasn’t changed it’s just moved online, how Undercurrent gets into the minds of customers beyond the bots, how integration is the buzz word and how ‘experiential’ has changed over the last 20 years – with everyone being able to access everything all of the time.

Clarke also does the detail on The Current Collective, which he launched three years ago. An umbrella over staff, stunts and a video content agencies, and how each feeds the other.

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Ally Wolf is manager, producer and programmer at “variety club” the Clapham Grand. He’s also co-founder/festival director of Mighty Hoopla.

 

In this episode, Ally Wolf looks back at the Grand’s origins and history, going on to talk about, hosting successful test events post-lockdown 1, working with the Music Venues Trust and with DCMS, representing the venue model and the greater industry, reduced capacity events, costing Covid test protocols and where we go next - before and after June 2021.

 

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Dan Schofield studied event management in Leeds. He went on to work for Salford City Council before moving to the Middle East with QMDI.

Dan came back to the UK for a job as advance project manager with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic torch relays. Then, chronologically, he was head of event delivery and finishes manager at the Tour de France 2014, head of ops with Manchester City and head of venue operations across town at Manchester Utd.

That weight of experience led Dan Schofield to launch digital charity initiative Play. Fund. Win last October, a timely cash free business designed to play for events of all sizes and their fans.

In this episode, Dan discusses the ambition behind the idea, the benefits it brings to both sides of the digital ticket – every pot is split 50/50 between event and winners – and, crucially, how the system works.

With more than 23 years in the industry, Nick Morgan is CEO of large-scale event/festival production company We Are The Fair and We Are Placemaking.

Nick sits on the NOEA Council, is a vice chair of the AIF and BVEP, a member of the NTIA and has recently joined the Festival DCMS/Public Health England workforce

In this episode Nick Morgan discusses lockdown and using it to develop solutions across an event timetable that typically leaves little time for experimentation, how supply chains have suffered, competition for kit as lockdown lifts and demand for tickets booms and where next for the live event model.

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Liz Taylor, CEO of the Taylor Lynn Corporation (TLC), designs, produces and delivers events for the corporate and private sectors and has done for more than 30 years. 

Alongside a number of high-net-worth individuals, her clients include Manchester Utd and Coronation Street. 

In light of Boris Johnson’s lifting lockdown announcement, this episode focuses on restarting the event industry safely, Liz Taylor talking vaccine passports and the value of compromise, insurance restrictions, moral responsibility and looking after the next generation of event professionals.

Richard Twamley joined Top Banana as creative director in October 2019 from a similar position at RP Group,

A creative comms agency with a weight of global clients, Top Banana was in a practised position for the streaming revolution, which started in March last year.

In this episode, Richard Twamley talks to host James Dickson about the changing landscape in terms of culture and people, event timelines, flexibility of response, hybridisation and the cost saving for clients through the pivot.

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Event Industry News’ podcast episode 223 is a welcome back for host James Dickson, interviewed by founder Adam Parry who managed the series in his absence.

James, who has put the questions across some 200 EIN podcast editions, and counting, contracted Covid-19 ahead of the pandemic’s first peak, in March 2020.

Taken to hospital by ambulance, James was put on a ventilator for two weeks before starting his recovery programme.

In this episode, Adam asks about that experience, and James’ key learnings from it, before moving on to his plans for the podcasts now he’s back behind the microphone – including the two James has already recorded.

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Harlan Davis is vice president of Product and Innovation at US-based GDS Group. In business for nearly 30 years, GDS started as a publisher, producing B2B journals for select markets including retail and healthcare, before moving across to events in 2005.

Running between 50 and 100 executive summits every year pre-pandemic, for clients as illustrious as IBM and Dell, the GDS model already incorporated the virtual world so was a few steps ahead come the travel restrictions and lockdowns.

In this episode, among other things, Harlan Davis talks through the company background before focusing on the pivot, the advantage in experience, understanding the value in digital and its benefits in terms of accelerated learning. 

Steve Gottlieb, founder of TVT Records, the independent label that gave a big leg-up to the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Ja Rule, Lil Jon, Pitbull, Sevendust, Brian Jonestown Massacre and KMFDM, launched online events platform Shindig in 2010.

With a focus on attendee/delegate interaction, Shindig replicates the ‘mingling’ aspect of live events, so people can come across others with similar interests, start conversations, meet and join groups and so on.

This episode see host Adam Parry leave the comforts of Zoom to put Shindig through its paces and to ask Steve about his history in and around events, the motivations behind Shindig, how clients as illustrious as Amazon, Netflix and Mary J Blige are using it and what the future holds.

From designing computer chips at Intel nearly 30 years ago to current role as head of industry at Fintech Meetup, Sanjib Kalita – who is also CEO at guppy.ai - has been engrossed in the technology sector, taking on events by default.

In this episode, live and direct from Fairfax, Virginia, Sanjib Kalita discusses his years at Money 2020 and how that experience triggered his move to Fintech Meetup, a brand committed to ‘revolutionising how the fintech industry connects, collaborates and does business’.

Taking questions from host James Dickson, Kalita looks at the impact of increased digitisation, the electronification of payments and other accelerators driven by the pandemic, growth in event tech, and finding the right solutions for events.

Look out too for the insider take on planning and accommodating 175 speakers, RFID tags and always making space for networking…

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Launched last year, Spelfie is an out of this world marketing opportunity for live events. Hand in hand with Airbus’ technology, bookable weeks, months, even years ahead, the app synchronises with a satellite in position. An event-goer takes a selfie from an outside location which is married to the shot from space, a digital mark highlighting the individual’s position and their environment.  

With a BBC contract confirmed and several other big sponsorship names in the frame for 2021, in this episode Spelfie CEO, Chris Newlands, details the design and development behind the tech, how it works and what an effective, cost-efficient space shot means for micro-influencers.  

Ten years ago, Jelmer van Ast took his experience as a playwright/actor/producer and festival organiser across the tracks to found technology company Conference Compass,

In this episode Jelmer discusses the Covid tipping point for his business, how it invested its way around the crisis, developing solutions to help customers, new and existing, with their pivots into the virtual world.

The focus here though is the greater Conference Compass vision for a ‘one community’ platform. How using its tech, or similar, to connect people globally and bring them together regularly is, or should be, the game changing thing for this sector. And how the notion of delivering an event once a year then disappearing on them for 11 months is not sustainable in the face of hybrid and virtual shows delivering real value – and community – around the clock, across the calendar.  

Bruce Rose has been at Live Group for more than 11 years, finding his way from business development to head of content and learning all the way.

Established back in 1975, Live Group has been focusing on digital events and streaming for almost as long as Bruce has been with the business.

Expect really interesting content in this episode then and great delivery, focused on Events 2.0 – Live Group’s timely solution to traditional thinking – and all the benefits of that reset: inclusivity, accessibility, content and connecting people.

Lou Kiwanuka is founder and MD of training specialist The Shaper Group, vice chair, about to be chair, at ESSA and part of EventWellPledge - a social enterprise set up to support industry people in need.

In this episode we discuss the DCMS exhibition pilot Lou attended ahead of the proposed restart in October and the learnings she took from that as a visitor. How reduced numbers and social distancing, coupled with masks, can suck the noise from a show floor, how more catering spaces rather than less might help foster interaction in the new order and how, in six months’ time, the event industry will be under considerable pressure to meet expectation.

Lou also talks about her upcoming role as chair of ESSA, the importance of associations as a flag for represented elements of the industry and, crucially, as a means to lobby government.

 

With more than 20-years’ experience working in live events, at Incisive Media and Ocean Media, London, before moving to the Middle East for DMG in 2012, Ashley Roberts took on the General Manager role at Omanexpo nearly 18 months ago.

 

On the back of World Mental Health Day, the focus for this episode is stress and mental wellbeing. Famously, event organisation/delivery turns the dial right up – a recent Stress Matters report highlights how 28 per cent of respondents had taken some time off attributed to being overworked or stressed and Covid-19 has further impacted the industry.

 

Working from home can make it harder for people to share or network with their work family and Ashley discusses some of the initiatives he has introduced to keep his team’s moral up.

 

These include one to ones, ‘town halls’ where people can anonymously ask questions in a public forum and by being open and honest about where the business is financially and in its projections.

 

Ashley also highlights the benefits of an initiative like employee of the month, a simple, well received way to give some invaluable recognition.

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With more than 20-years’ experience in and around live events, Mike Ford, director at UK/US based full-service engagement agency Touch Associates, has been involved in delivering and developing hybrid and virtual solutions since 2015.

In this episode, Mike talks about the reasons clients wanted to switch away from physical show in those early days, highlighting how budget constraints took one company from hybrid and on to fully virtual within about three years, but kept all the plates spinning.

Among a number of topics, we discuss the formats that get great events going online, their learnings, how tech has a whole lot of answers if you know who to ask. The ‘always on’ of virtual events and the potential for year-round partnerships with agencies. 

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Anna Abdelnoor, a freelance corporate event producer, is co-founder of the not for profit group Isla, which launched in September, focused on supporting and encouraging the event industry’s transition to sustainable working practices.

In this episode, Anna discusses the huge appetite for solutions she discovered in putting the organisation together last year, how she has worked with agencies in the thick of the industry, her founding partners, to take the competition out of the sustainability question and how there should be basic, minimum standards that everyone works to.  

We talk about the collective want for an independent, representative body that inspired Isla, the organisation’s training manifest, how to manage sustainability, setting KPIs, approaches to event design, the budget question and much more besides. 

MD Richard Belcher joined First Sight Media in 2006 when the company was primarily focused on producing DVDs and VHS tapes of graduation ceremonies. Richard helped spearhead First Sight’s subsequent step into the corporate sector; conferences, exhibitions – not least Event Tech Live - and general video production, which in turn led to streaming live events, FSM’s “niche” as Richard puts it. Tellingly, the last shoot before lockdown was for a hybrid event.

 

In this episode, hear how First Sight has adapted its experience to fit the new environment since March 2020, fitting with the speed people/clients want to work in delivering their virtual and hybrid pivots.

 

As well as discussing some of the common misconceptions, Richard highlights how investment in terms of production value of the content is vital if you want to present a brand properly – especially if you’re charging people to watch.

 

On the flipside of that, he mentions the monetisation around ‘eyeball’ marketing via an example of an event that attracted 36,000 visitors on Facebook and its value to a sponsor that just wants to be in front of an audience.

Founding director of independent promoter/festival organiser From the Fields, think Kendal Calling, bluedot, Inner City Electronic, Off the Record and Bournemouth’s Arts by the Sea, Ben Robinson is never short of ideas.

Touching on Kendal Calling and the company mantra, in this episode Ben focuses on music, science and culture fest buedot, typically at Jodrell Bank University, and transforming the event for a virtual audience in 2020, which, with a lot of the content educational, wasn’t a straight swap.

Hear how turning the bluedot dates into A Weekend in Outer Space gave the team behind it a new impetus during lockdown, keeping them creative, how the new-look is driving funding to Jodrell Bank and a whole lot more.

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COVID-19 has hit suppliers along the event industry supply chain particularly hard and Downing Street’s ‘one sticking plaster for all’ solution hasn’t helped much.

Essex-based Showcase AVi had business halt for several months due to the pandemic’s effect and founder/managing director, Ben Collings, mounts a passionate defence for the greater industry in this podcast

We talk hybrid and virtual events first, how Showcase AVi shifted its focus over lockdown to provide a platform for filming, live streaming and green screen technology as well as looking after speakers – the human kind – in the virtual world.

Borrowing from football parlance, the final third of our chat sees Ben highlighting the flaws in the Chancellor’s provision for the event industry, how his strategy should be better educated and more productively focused.

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In this episode of the Event Industry News Podcast host, James Dickson, is joined by Terrapinn COO Sharon Roessen. Sharon has been with Terrapinn for 30 years this year, starting in marketing and progressing through the company.

Terrapinn is a global Business to Business events company with a mix of exhibitions and tradeshows in its portfolio, the largest of which sees 40,000 registered attendees and 500/600 exhibitors, big events with content being the main focus.

Reflecting on Sharon’s experiences, this episode explores how working in B2B events has evolved. Do the fundamentals remain the same or is the approach to engage target demographics different from even 10 years ago?

 

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Alongside her role as senior events manager at specialist information provider Chemical Watch, Juliet Tripp is her own brand; a professional speaker, host, blogger and more besides with an inspiring take on the global event industry picture.

In this episode we talk about the transition from physical to virtual events, the value of having that alternative in the shadow of a pandemic, creating effective content and delivering it, in both domains, social engagement and more besides.

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Ratnesh Singh, head of global business at Buzznation Event Technologies, and author/keynote speaker/futurist/strategic technical advisor Bernard Marr are prime examples of tech supply and demand.

 

As an influencer, Bernard works with companies including Microsoft, Cisco and IBM to help them “amplify their voice” while ‘Nes’ has seen extraordinary demand for solutions to support the global switch to online business interaction.

 

In this episode we discuss what virtual events look like, how tech is supporting an industry that can’t meet, and the role they will play as a marketing strategy going forward. How COVID-19 has triggered new ways of thinking, how Marr pivoted to find fertile new pastures live streaming content on LinkedIn and YouTube, to the tune of 20,000-strong audiences. Still greater reach for his ideas, his brand, and no airports, no hotels and no time away from home.

 

As Nes explains, people did their education through lockdown. Now they’re asking more technical questions, using tech to keep their businesses afloat through the pandemic,

because, like Bernard, they’re ready for the virtual world order.

 

And how hybrid events, online reach coupled to a physical event, will be the new/better than normal.

Spawned from the UK’s first guerrilla marketing agency Buddha’s experience with/onus on projections, disruption and PR stunts and his military background, Mark Evans launched Kommando Experiential Marketing in 2000.

Committed to pushing against the traditional advertising/marketing tide, Kommando moved into the digital space and saw the tide change with social media.

The group of companies that sit under its umbrella, including Nomadix Media, research and develop tech for brand development and for rethinking/adapting the experiential space.

In this episode Mark talks about setting the company up, his Buddha background and beyond, going on to highlight Halo, a new product incorporating facial detection, which can be added to any screen/camera set up to provide public or personalised messaging to key locations in a venue or event.

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Ed Tranter, Managing Director at 73 Media/industry spokesperson, had to wholly rethink a launch event, the grassroots’ focused Rugby Show, in the eye of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Ed takes on an odds-defying journey - from the theory of Ricoh Arena, Coventry, where the show floor would have featured half a rugby pitch, to the reality of the virtual world.

Back to the drawing board, Ed and team focused on the nascent Rugby Show’s strengths: mission, brand, reach, influencers et al.

With 95 per cent of the content delivered live, realising 73 Media’s strengths and working with Silverstream TV to produce/deliver the live streams, 100 per cent to time and high quality, was a crucial element in the event’s success.

While it has a weight of backing from the British and Irish game, stepping across to the virtual world brought speakers to the podium a physical Rugby Show never dreamed of.

73 Media is an event organiser and agency hybrid. Delivering consumer, B2B and corporate events, company highlights include The One Earth Show as well as The Rugby Show.

With management roles at Miller Freeman, Centaur, Informa and Mark Allen Group on his CV Ed Tranter is also a member of the AEO board.

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Ashanti Bentil-Dhue, who heads up virtual production company EventMind, founded  Diversity Ally with Gabrielle Austen – Browne to help foster diversity and inclusion in companies, from recruitment to the boardroom.

 

In this episode Ashanti talks about how the events model should stop simply talking about diversity and start implementing changes, highlighting issues that can creep in as early as the interview process to prevent a business from being diverse.

 

Ashanti also discusses the challenges facing the industry and the myths 

that need demystifying… 

 

Diversity Ally provides a platform of discussion, a safe place for individuals to discuss diversity without prejudice and a framework that organisations can follow in order to create change. 

 

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George P. Johnson started as a flag maker/sail repair business in Detroit, providing for automotive events in the city. One hundred and eighty-six years on, GPJ is synonymous with brand experiences all around the world. 

 

In this episode, Jason Megson, managing director at George P. Johnson Experience Marketing, discusses the company’s reach, its mission, client objectives and more besides.

 

We talk about the pandemic challenges too of course, the growth in hybrid/virtual events, technologies, platforms and solutions.  

 

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With offices across the world, SpotMe provides enterprise solutions to more than 250 global brands via the web, iOS and Android, as well as a no-code building platform and full support services.

 

Pierre Metrailler started with SpotMe as a software engineer. Eighteen years later he’s the company’s CEO.

 

We talk about that journey in this edition, how SpotMe arguably created the first event ‘app’ in the shape of a hardware tool, going on to discuss the burgeoning hybrid market and how the industry is crying out for investment in digital skills.

 

Looking at the coronavirus effect that continues to shake the boundaries of human interaction, Pierre highlights the pre-COVID 19 virtual events numbers - just 7 per cent of SpotMe’s turnover - and how the pandemic has spun the wheel on that statistic.

 

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Founder and CEO at Washington-based Hubb, the virtual/hybrid/physical event platform, Allie Maygar launched her first company, Impulse Productions, age 21. Stepping across to event technology five years ago, that sprit of ingenuity, entrepreneurism, burns just as fiercely.

 

In this episode Allie discusses how the event industry Stateside, and Hubb in particular, has changed, or adapted, under the COVID-19 shadow, new partnerships, what the rest of 2020 looks like and more besides.

 

We also talk about Allie’s virtual conference, Untethered, ‘created by and for the event industry’ early in lockdown with all proceeds, some $17,500 and counting, going to the Meeting Industry Fund.

 

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This week’s episode features Kevin Lorch, managing director at Eventscase, a white label software business focused on providing the perfect integrated platform for conference organisers, speakers, sponsors and attendees.   

In enterprise and SaaS sales for 20 years, Lorch discusses the new tech behind virtual events, the elements he thinks will endure on the other side of the coronavirus window and the ones that won’t. 

We also look at COVID-19’s impact on particular types of event and where, when and how the corporate/conference sector will find its feet again, in terms of situation and revenue, through the new normal and beyond. 

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This week’s episode welcomes James Tucker, COO at GovNet, a well-established UK event supplier that delivers public sector conferences, expos and training courses, from local government and housing to the NHS and higher education sector.   A self-proclaimed “tech geek”, James joined the family-run business around 18 months ago to oversee the day-to-day operations.   This edition of the Event Industry News Podcast explores the significance of human interaction and networking, engagement metrics of virtual events compared to live events, and the importance of post-event customer engagement.   Also, we talked about the impact of new technologies across the sector and using data to make strategic and informed business decisions.   To keep up to date with all the news, subscribe for free here.   If you would like to take part in a podcast, then please complete our submission form.

In this episode of the Event Industry News Podcast host, James Dixon, is joined by Jeremy King, CEO and co-owner of Festival of Media.

Jeremy brings a wealth of expertise to the table, having steered Festival of Media to new heights in the dynamic landscape of events.

Festival of Media has been shining a spotlight on the very best media and marketing campaigns since 2007. Their numerous awards programmes highlighting the best in media, marketing and advertising around the globe.

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This week’s guest CEO of TEN6 Creative, Matt Culverhouse. In a more relaxed format than normal, Matt and I chew the fat about the importance of human connection at events.   The two elements that Matt identifies as a “worry” are the exhibition environment and networking as they are difficult to replicate online.   Matt’s background working for some of Europe’s largest venues coupled with his creative arts education gives him a unique understanding of live event management - from both the agency and hospitality perspectives.   Matt oversees live events of all sizes and levels of complexity, including managing production, creative and logistics for shows as large as 85,000 attendees. An expert in project management and negotiating contracts, Matt has worked all over the world, always delivering a commitment to personal service to surpass the expectations of clients and attendees.    To keep up to date with all the news, subscribe for free here.   If you would like to take part in a podcast, then please complete our submission form.

This episode is sponsored by Grip, a leading AI-powered event matchmaking solution for virtual and hybrid events.   Montgomery Events, a subset of the Montgomery Group, focus mainly on food, drink and hospitality events as well as several different niche events in the UK and Netherlands.   My guest this week is managing director, Lori Hoinkes, who started with the company three 3 years ago with an early project being to harmonise data by streamlining suppliers using a good CRM system, and subsequently, building two tech systems for internal use:   Bento: This system was built to help the company better categorise exhibitors, sponsors and visitors. They recently used this to create six key-personas of visitors to identify which type would be more valuable to exhibitors. This process resulted in a 33% increase in attendance.   Sherlock: This system was built to facilitate a ‘health check’ of an event analysing, social listening, survey data and lead generation.   The analysis and targeted process has made the team more productive and has increased revenues. The data aids the decision as to which new events to launch, an area of the company’s growth strategy.   To keep up to date with all the news, subscribe for free here.   If you would like to take part in a podcast, then please complete our submission form.

Starting her event career in 2007 with Reed Exhibitions, my guest this week, Katie Morhen, has helped some of the largest exhibition organisations drive attendance and increase sales.   Founder of 52eight3, a specialist marketing agency, the company recently announced the launch of a new free-to-attend training event aimed to support marketers and connect the wider exhibition community.   The need for effective liaison between sales and marketing teams is more important than ever. In time gone by, sales teams would be prioritised to receive training ahead of marketing personnel; organisations may need to consider levelling the support across the whole team if they want the best chance of “getting their audiences back” To keep up to date with all the news, subscribe for free here.   If you would like to take part in a podcast, then please complete our submission form.

This week’s very special guest is Saastock founder Alex Theuma. Following a career in IT, Telecoms and Cloud, Alex moved on to creating a powerful network across the Saas founder and investor community.   During the recording, Alex talks about the pivot to virtual and the launch of SaaStock Remote which open its virtual doors tomorrow (10th June 2020). And, shares his opinion about the future of events and how he’s leveraging technology to serve his global community.   This episode will no doubt be of interest to event organisers around the globe.   To keep up to date with all the news, subscribe for free here.   If you would like to take part in a podcast, then please complete our submission form.