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Feature No one knows how


big hologram concerts could become. The entertainment industry is always evolving, because they realise that people want to escape. People want to be entertained, they always have. What venues can do, and what promoters and event owners can deliver, is huge. Even in the sporting


world, look at the opening ceremony of the UEFA Champions League final, it’s moved towards that Super Bowl sort of feel.


Q: What do you love most about your job? A: When you get it right, it’s amazing. Whether it’s a concert in the round, whether it’s an NFL game, it’s an amazing feeling, for the customer and the staff who work here. The staff buy into it, and you get the same staff coming back all the time. They work hard, they really do, but they’re in an environment where people are enjoying themselves, and there’s nothing better. To be around people who are having a brilliant time, it rubs off on you all the time.


Q: How important is the conference and banqueting part to your business? A: It’s huge. We’ve got a completely separate team who run all of that side. It’s incredibly important for us, it’s great revenue. People think we may be doing 35 to 40 events in a normal year, but we’re not. We’re never asleep because of conferences and banqueting. We have some huge clients that come in here, whether it’s for their annual conference or one-off events or a Christmas party.


Q: A lot in today’s live entertainment business seems to be about accumulating a bulk of business under one umbrella. Does that faze you at all? Can you run a venue independently in 2019? A: Right now, the team that we have set up delivers. So, I have a feeling that even if a facilities manager came in, or if the recent bid for the stadium had been successful, it wouldn’t have changed the team in operations, because they are at the top of their game, they’ve been handpicked over years now. There is a desire to work here, which is great for us. If we put a job advert out for the position of event manager, we’ll get anything between 800 to 2,000 applicants. You’re also able to headhunt.


I totally understand what’s going on


outside, and it’s interesting to us. What it boils down to is that this is a multi-purpose venue, effectively a large arena without a roof, and it could fall under that umbrella quite quickly. If you think about the type of events that come in, the conversion between events, we are similar to the O2. Coming up to the concert period, we will


have the Championship Playoffs here on the Monday, May 27. Kick-off is at three o’clock, if it goes to penalties it finishes around 7 p.m. The next morning BTS want to load in. So, Henry [Munro, senior event technical manager], has to take out all the seats in the pocket, where the stage will go, put a pitch cover down, so the trucks can all drive onto the pitch, so they can all start their process of building the stage to be ready for their event on the Saturday, and allow for enough time to put production days in. They can’t do that if we’re not a good, multi-purpose venue. That’s facilities management.


Q: You’ve worked on the promotion side of the concert business for 14 years. How does that experience help in your current role? A: It allowed us to build the right team, which has become a unique selling point. Because I worked in that industry for 14 years, I know what promoters want. Promoters and their production are moving from town to town, and everything’s different. They want to know that somebody understands their needs before they come in, like providing access for their trucks, somebody that can start to prep some of the things to make it a little bit easier, things that they can plug and play into. Only two, three years ago, we would have


said, that when the Championship Playoff finished at 7 o’clock on a Monday evening, you couldn’t come in until 24 hours later.


FSM


Now you can come in the next morning. 12 hours is huge to promoters, that’s a full shift of building a stage. If you’re suddenly able to give them one full shift back, they can stay ahead of time. We’re about


to


upgrade our kitchens downstairs. In the past, they had to come in with temporary kitchens, PKL units, kind of like festivals, and park in our broadcast compound. Not the best environment. So, we went to one of the chief tour caterers, Eat Your Heart Out. We’re now going to put a whole new


system in, plug and play for modular kitchens. We’ve started to go to the promoters and


say, ‘what can we do to make it better for you.’ And that’s what we’ve done with the help of our key personnel. We’ve turned around Wembley’s appeal. Wembley had an appeal from a selling standpoint for promoters. But the production teams would find it difficult because of some of the challenges they faced. We need to get every single level of an event owner wanting to come here and wanting that experience.


Q: How far along are you in the process of getting the whole concert production chain to recognise Wembley as a prime location for concerts? A: We’re very close to it. I’m delighted with the team that work with me now, who understand it. They’re going out to see BTS in the States to understand all of the layers that show is demanding. They’re arranging meetings with promoters. Once you start talking to these people


and understand what their working life is, you then can adapt your side to it. Once you do that, they feel an understanding. If any event owner feels that you understand their world, that’s a huge difference to them. At the end of every year I would say to


the promoters that came here: tell me the three things that I do that really annoy you. And I’d go to fix those three things. That’s what I do each time. Don’t try and pretend that you’ve got it


right, and don’t give yourself a slap on the back at the end of a brilliant event. You need to ask those ugly questions, what am I doing that annoys you, and correct it. Once you start to do that, they get that


you understand it on a base level, and once you understand it on a base level, you deliver an amazing event.


FSM 21


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