Event Industry News Podcast

Following on from last week’s post-General Election special edition, the Event Industry News podcast continues the political debate by looking at how UK music festivals and the live music touring industries could be affected by a ‘hard’ Brexit.

Joining host James Dickson was Parcel Hero’s Head of Consumer Research David Jinks. As a specialist price comparison site, Parcel Hero act as an online broker for logistics, with a significant part of its business conducted in the live music sector.

Speaking under the scenario of a ‘hard’ Brexit, David highlighted many of the issues that could hit touring operations, including the issue of carnets and the financial obligations that would have to be met upon entering the EU zone from a post-Brexit UK.

He also gave some interesting facts and figures relating to European visitors to British Festivals, and whether a currency valuation drop would mean good or bad business for UK festivals.

Last week the country was thrown into turmoil as the General Election returned a hung parliament. Amid growing uncertainty in the business world, what does this election result mean for the events industry?

In a special edition of the Event Industry News podcast recorded on Monday 12^th June, host James Dickson welcomed two guests who lead significant companies within the industry, both of whom have been extremely vocal with their opinions about the UK’s current political status.

Group CEO of DRP Group Dale Parmenter was joined by Andrew Baxter, Managing Director of Europa Worldwide Group.

During the podcast, both guests spoke candidly about how they see the outcome of the election affecting the events industry due to the growing level of uncertainty regarding the makeup of the government and the forthcoming Brexit negotiations.

This week’s Event Industry News podcast welcomed Media 10’s Giles Perry to discuss the ingredients used to create and drive this established brand.

During an engaging conversation with host James Dickson, Giles talked about the challenges of moving the show between various venues including Olympia London, EventCity in Manchester and the SEC, Glasgow.

Giles also stressed the importance of understanding that they work in the entertainment industry and that the content and customer experience is key to them improving the event and delivering the experience that loyal visitors have come to expect.

He also gave his reaction to some well-crafted criticism of the catering at the Olympia show that was posted by a visitor on TripAdvisor. Despite a response by Olympia directing the customer back to the event organisers, Giles confirmed that the catering during their event is delivered by the venue’s own preferred suppliers, prompting a question as to whether the venue team should have taken more responsibility for the complaint.

This week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast saw two guests join host James Dickson to talk about trackway and temporary surfacing. It’s often the first thing onsite and the last thing offsite and plays a huge part in the planning and execution of outdoor events.

Respected industry journalist and now director of All Access Communications, Nic Howden joined John Davy, founder of Floor Box, a new company that offers trackway and temporary flooring solutions for sale rather than for hire.

During the podcast, John explained how he sees a gap in the market for venues to purchase small quantities of product to keep permanently onsite. He also highlighted the consultation process he plans to offer to clients to make neutral recommendations on which product is best suited to their needs.

In addition to discussing the new venture, John also reflected on his vast experience of working within the temporary surfacing sector, including referencing several examples of how the UK hire industry coped with the huge demands placed on it during the summer of 2012.

This week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast featured an engaging conversation with Helen Sartory, the creative artist behind a new live music experience called ANDRODES.

Under her stage name SARTORY, Helen has created what is billed as an immersive, cinematic musical journey that utilises 3D animated film synced to an electronic dance music soundtrack, which is performed live. The experience is dubbed ‘Cinematronica’ by Helen, who took time out from her busy schedule to talk to the podcast about the creative process behind the show and how interactive technology is helping shape her ideas for the show.

The ANDRODES show has led to Helen having her own Daft Punk style robot helmet created, as well as a custom-made crystal-like console that houses the various electronic instrument that she uses to perform the live soundtrack.

During the episode, Helen also spoke of her experience of being part of a Hackathon at the SXSW festival in Texas, during which engineers created an app that would allow Helen to send audio to the phones of audience members and utilise the device’s speakers to create additional soundscapes.

This week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast looked at the Sunfall Festival, an event set to take place in London this summer for the second time.

The festival is a unique event that combines an outdoor daytime element that is then followed by official after parties in nearby indoor venues. Andy Peyton and Noah Ball from the festival’s senior management team joined the podcast to look at the various elements of the event and how it’s put together.

During the podcast, they talk about the challenges of working in an urban park, and how they could split some of the major infrastructure elements with another event that takes place on the same site.

They also talk about the task of ticketing the event with so many daytime/night-time options available and the meticulous level of detail that they paid to the quality of the audio production.

In the next episode of the podcast, host James Dickson will speak with the creator of ANDRODES, an hour-long live show that consists of a projected 3D animated film synced to an electronic dance music soundtrack, performed live by emerging artist SARTORY.

In the second of our live streamed Tuesday night podcasts, host James Dickson looked at the topic of ROI and whether traditional methods of data capture are killing exhibitors’ chances to analyse it successfully.

Joining the podcast was Captuvate co-founder Brian Anderson, a company that through its unique way of capturing exhibition leads has identified flaws in the way ROI can be measured. During the episode, Brian looks at the many different factors that affect how a company can measure ROI from an event, and how the process of lead capture and follow up is contributing negatively to the way it’s calculated.

In next week’s episode, the podcast will be joined by the founders of Sunfall, a brand-new festival coming to London this summer. Tune in to the live stream at 6pm BST via eventindustrynews.com

You can register for the live stream here.

This week’s episode of the Event Industry News podcast looks at the phenomenon of ‘persistence of vision’ and how it has been seized to help create an innovation in digital outdoor media technology.

The innovation in question has been created by Lightvert, a company that has developed a way to use persistence of vision to deliver branded messages. The company’s CEO Daniel Siden joined the podcast to explain more.

“Persistence of vision is a phenomenon that affects the human eye. It happens when you look at a bright light and look away from it. What happens is that you see a ghost of that light for just a moment. What we do is that we use that phenomenon to literally print an image in the human eye temporarily and safely.”

As Daniel explains during the podcast, the technology can be used to create images the size of skyscrapers that appear briefly to the viewer. Although the system has obvious applications in the world of advertising, Daniel also looks at ways that event organisers could use the technology once it becomes available commercially.

In the first Event Industry News podcast to be live streamed, host James Dickson was joined by Alex Lassiter from Gather to discuss five habits of successful event managers. For the first time, the podcast also welcomed a main sponsor, event registration supplier N200|GES.

Gather specialises in event management software for restaurants and venues, and in his role as co-founder and Vice President of Customer Experience, Alex offered his own take on the good habits he has observed when working with clients.

The live stream allowed viewers to engage directly with the podcast in real time, giving Alex the chance to respond to questions put to him by the audience as well as address the five main points of discussion.

Next week’s podcast will live stream at 6 pm UK time and will welcome Brian Anderson from Captuvate to discuss the topic ‘What’s killing your event’s ROI?’

You can register for free here

Lots of people will have heard the term ‘bots’ being used, but how much do we understand this type of technology and the capabilities it has?

In the latest episode of the Event Industry News podcast, CEO of Event2Mobile Siddharth Jhunjhunwala joined the show live from New York to look at the subject of bots and explain the basic principles behind them.

During the episode, he put the idea of bots into context by explaining how they have evolved steadily from other forms of technology that we are already very used to.

“Bots and artificial intelligence (AI) are very much the same thing. When a machine can take over a task performed by a human we enter the realm of bots and AI, the parameters of which are constantly changing. 30 years we would have looked upon spellcheck within a word processor as artificial intelligence, whereas now it is totally ubiquitous with the way we communicate.”

During the episode, Siddharth gives some examples of how the technology has already been used successfully at meetings and events, as well as pointing out the way that bot technology can integrate with an event’s existing technology infrastructure.