Latest / The Backdrop Podcast / Episode 9 - Andy Fordham, Endurance Events Pioneer and Founder of Clear Path

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Episode 9 - Andy Fordham, Endurance Events Pioneer and Founder of Clear Path · The Backdrop Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the backdrop.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Joining me today is one of the industry's most experienced sports event operations leaders.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Andy Fordham has spent more than 35 years delivering major sporting events, venue operations, and complex event infrastructure projects across New Zealand, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Europe.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Having led more than 400 events, Andy has held senior leadership roles with world-class sporting properties, including Iron Man, the T-100 Triathlon World Tour, Dubai Ron, and numerous international cycling, endurance, and mass participation events.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: His expertise spans operational strategy, venue readiness, stakeholder management, transport security, medical operations, and the command and control systems that underpin successful event delivery.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's also worked extensively with the government rights holders and host cities to deliver safe, commercially successful events.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: More recently, he supported operational readiness for major sports venues across the GCC.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Alongside his events career, Andy also is the founder of ClearPath, a business born from recognizing a real-world problem and creating a practical, transparent solution to help people during a time of uncertainty.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: We will hear more about that journey later in the conversation.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: But for now, welcome to the backdrop, Andy Forta.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's very humbling when you've been doing this for almost three decades, and every time you get a guest, you feel like you're an amateur because everybody you bring on is has so much experience in in this industry.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And uh really happy that you could join us and share a lot of that experience with us.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks for joining us.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, happy to be here and uh share my experience and share my stories.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and your your perception of of where we're going with the events industry, and uh on the larger scale is really where you that's sort of your wheelhouse, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Where your uh your experience lies.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I wanted to ask you, um, and I I'm really I'm I've always been intrigued by large scale exhibit sorry, large-scale events, and when you you know, when you uh bid for them, luckily if you win them and you host them, so much goes into not just the bidding process, the budget, and then you go into sort of security, pedestrianization, zoning, and and and and everything, it's it's huge, it's huge.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it could really be a windfall for a city or a country.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: So having said that, in your experience, when is it worth it?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like when does sort of the operational cost and the governance of of bidding for and winning a large-scale event sort of outweigh sort of the the results?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um having me just having spent 18 years in the region, I think this region is very unique um compared to a lot of countries in the world.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'll use cycling as a particular example.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um when the what started off as the Dubai tour was first going to come here, and I've been involved in cycling all my life.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um it I think a lot of people uh internationally would question why would an international cycling event come to the Middle East when it has no profile?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that can kind of be aligned with why would the Football World Cup go to Qatar when it didn't have that kind of European South American filter, but it was still one of the most successful World Cups that was ever held.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, so when you're looking at cycling coming here, listen, there has to be a return on investment for um for the country in terms of whether it's exposure for the country.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're watching, whether you're watching the Tour de France or whether you're watching the UA Tour, the helicopter is always panning over to landmarks.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is why we finish on the Palm Jumera, this is why we finish on the Corniche, this is why we finish on Hudarin Island or why we finish in Jebujo.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: These are all landmarks within UAE that that accentuates what we do here.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: But also, if you take cycling as an example, what started off as the UA tour, the Dubai tour in Dubai, which then became the Abu Dhabi Tour and the UA Tour that that were one week apart, and then they got merged to become the UAE tour.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: You only need to look at where that's gone.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: You have the Abu Dhabi government owns Team UAE, men's team.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Abu W government owns the women's team, the Abu W government bought the Italian cycle brand Cornogo.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: The UAE government, well I say the UA government, one of their uh one of their um investment harms bought Wolfe's bike shop.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: They bought Wosh Cycling online platforms.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not just about putting on events, but they're putting on a wider infrastructure around this whole thing.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Tadi Podica, who multiple winner of the Tour de France, he writes for team UAE Miras.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a team that's been born and bred here in a non-cycling.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I say a non-cycling country, we're not we're not like France.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to the Tour de France.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Every day there's a million people that line the roads watching a tour Tour de France.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: We will never have that here, okay, because there isn't the passion around cycling late you would get out of Europe, but the events are still highly successful, and they're also part of the roadmap for the cyclist.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they're always at the start of the year, it's how they kick their seasons off, and and then uh traditionally the season always ends after the after the tour of Spain.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got about a nine-month season, and you you get the very best cyclists in the world coming here to compete.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a longer-term investment, not just from a Dubai or an RW perspective, but from the country to develop credibility about it.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you a few years ago, the world cycling champs were held in Qatar, and there was a lot of international criticism because the crowds were effectively non-existent.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to do these things and learn about how you make these things better and make them more attractive to the people that live there.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: You just can't say we can't do it, we're not going to bid for it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing a lot of this in Saudi, where there's a lot of events that are that you would never think that would have ever come to the region that are now being held.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: I know that cycling is a is a good uh context point for you.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Cycling is really a massive part of your life, it's a passion for you.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know that um if you are organizing a cycling event or any kind of event, because it's not just cycling, you spent 35 35 years or more um running events, large-scale events of every kind, and you need all of those sort of tethered um entities working together as one uh to make it work successfully.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's not a concern about poor delivery, sometimes it's poor integration from the beginning.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: So can you tell me what you feel will be like the early warning signs for you where some of the decision making is becoming from different groups is becoming fragmented or different are siloed and not really sort of unified to come together to make that end result uh successful?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'll start on the reverse of that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been had the privilege of being involved in some very significant events in Dubai.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was the founding event director for the Dubai run on Shagzad Road.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was the founding event director for the Dubai ride on Shagzad Road.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And often what I say to people is as much as they are incredibly complex events, they are actually a lot easier to organize because you get the reverse, you get an amazing integration of every government department because we know where these events started from.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: They started from Sheikh Hamdan's office in terms of the Do by Fitness Challenge.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, from a credibility perspective and a and a and an uh exposure perspective, they want these events to be perfect.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it becomes 50 ambulances and 100 police cars and and every possible integration, because not many people know this, but many, many years ago, um the the government formed an entity called the Event Security Committee.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that event security was designed around uh getting all these agencies to work together.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember in the really, really early days of when Duby Tour came along, I was asked to explain how cycle racing works.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you haven't followed cycle racing, cycle racing is very different to triathlon.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a triathlon, you have to shut down roads for three, four, five, six hours.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cycle racing, you don't have to because it's rolling road closures by where they're going past.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the person that headed up that event security committee from day one is currently the chief of police.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I've known the chief of police right from back in those early days, and you could see how how much he was passionate about linking police, ambulances, civil defense, customs, every government department to ensure that these events are streamlined.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously that's carried on to the fact that when he was promoted to become chief of police, he's incredibly supportive of all of these kinds of events.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the challenge that you have is that if you are a small private entity trying to bring international events, so in other words, you these are not government-initiated events, but they're private.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's where more of the hurdles come in because you have to convince these all these authorities on the value of the value proposition of what you're doing, and then try to get the same level of support of what it would be for a government event.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll give you a good example of when I was sort of doing do by run, and you're trying to talk about the agencies, you have to have the patience to be able to explain to the government authorities why you were thinking a particular way.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because I remember in year one of Dubai Run, we were handed Shageside Road 29 minutes before the run started, which meant that all the 80,000 people that were there for the run had to be housed in all the side streets around the Dubai World Trade Center.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that was quite a huge mission.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we relaunched the run after COVID in 2021, I petitioned for two things.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I petitioned for Shagzide Road from three o'clock in the morning for an event that started at 6.30.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I petitioned for both sides of Shagzide Road due to the sheer volume of people that were going to come.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: At first, they didn't understand why do you need Shagside Road at three o'clock when the run starts at 6.30?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when I showed them crowd models of how long it would take to get 300,000 people loaded into Shagside Road, yeah, they they they saw it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, closing down Shagside Road, whether you close it down at two o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning, has the least amount of impact on the city.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you need that time because also when you're dealing with massive crowds, you need to ensure that those crowds are safe.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when you've got 700 people arriving every three minutes on a metro, that's your flow of people getting onto the road.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it does take a long time.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: The actual start line of Dubai Run takes nearly two hours to clear.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when the gun goes, it's still two hours later, people are crossing the start line.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like major marathon.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about using your expertise and winning the trust of the local authorities.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And how you also win that trust at the back end, and if they say to you, I want Shakeside Road open by 10 o'clock in the morning, you give it back to them at 9.45.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Don't give it back to them at 11 instead it took longer to clear.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Have all your systems in place.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you would think, oh, that's good.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have no problem, we'll give it to you one o'clock next year.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because you because you give it back to us at a time that we need it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that it's that it's that sharing of experience because I come at it from a Western experience perspective.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So once you share your knowledge and you give them a reason why such a thing has to happen, then they're on board.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's causation.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I I even remember, you know, I remember being kind of chuckled about when I said, I would like to get both sides of Shagside Road.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Oh, that would never happen.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, George Bush did it, and that's a challenge for me.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually came about in 2020 because there was no do-by-run because of COVID, and we did do by ride.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the initial proposition is that the cyclists would ride all up D86 or Mustard Ball Street and then come down Hadika Street and down Shagzide Road.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, These are not pro-cyclists, these are just people out on their bike.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And our Mustard Ball Street with all its twists and turns and curbs and intersections and everything else is a recipe for disaster.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me both sides of Shagzai Road.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when you gave the argument saying that, you know, it's the safest thing, and they go, Well, what do you do when you get to the other end?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can't go around defense roundabout because that will create congestion.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I go, just take away 50 meters of medium barrier for the day.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you just open up Shagzai Road.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, so when you give them a compelling reason why something said it'll work better, and from my understanding, because I was involved in that event for the first three years, there's never been a major incident.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's never been a major bike crash, and you've got 30,000 people just going along having fun.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: But part of that is also the mentality where we pitched it as an event where this is not about Strava segments or or Lance Armstrong wannabes.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is about people that just want to go for a ride on a major highway and celebrate fitness in the city.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we managed to create that from day one, where it's not about a bunch of, you know, lycra-clad middle-aged men racing at 40 kilometers an hour, but it's about everybody going out, having fun.
• 13:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks for the image.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can be lyro clad, but you're just going along and you're with your kids or your family and you're in your and you're and you're having fun.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the government thing, when you're working on government type of events, whether you are the pitching agency or whether you are hired help to deliver the event, the government has in the country are incredibly supportive of making things happen.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: What I think that needs to happen is an evolution where international events are bought in by people and you get that closer integration with the government where they get they offer that same level of support to make the events a success.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But there's so many things that are happening in the region that I can think of that we could do really, really well at.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: In my opinion, I think that what people's expectations of it was as a as a as an event, but how how well it went, how smooth it ran, yeah, there's systems in place to make it because it actually just became a place where you would go and meet your friends.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think that the people that have been here for a while that have have been in the industry, have you know worked with with governments, it it's not a surprise.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to us, to us, and here I think it was kind of uh, yeah, it was it was it was over uh you know the the expectation.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: But we knew that they were really gonna deliver something special.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's always got to be a a bit get better.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's it's uh but for the international guests, it was just something else.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, really incredible.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you also look at you know the curveball with COVID that they had to deal with.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, if you talk to people that the attendance numbers in January 2021 were some of the worst because of the number of people that got sick with COVID and some pavilions had to close because they didn't have enough staff and because there was the the testing in place, but they still put people's health first before they did the expo.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think they had about 25 million visitors over six months, yeah, which is like a million a week, which is incredible.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it sets a very high bar for what Saudi is doing in 2030.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it also encourages the wider region that we we can do things like this, yeah, because that that was a significant event and a milestone for the whole Middle East.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I I just want to go back to something that we were just talking about before, and that was about the operational readiness for for the run.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, for all of the events that that you do, and you know, convincing the powers that be that you know you need this to to stop at this time and you need to be you need to be ready.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, how do you how do you define and you're probably the best person I can think of to be able to define operational readiness?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: How do you define operating operational readiness and what is the what is the biggest misunderstanding about operational readiness?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: So where do the pitfalls end up happening because you don't get it?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that from what I've witnessed over my 35 plus year career is operational readiness starts right back to when you're appointed to hold a senior position in the event.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And a good and again, I'm gonna go back to the do-by-run.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do by run is very, very unique.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've run many runs, cycling events, triathlons, all that kind of stuff.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, interestingly enough, that even though we do all our preparation before the event, our biggest focus on what happens is when you blow the start whistle to when the last person crosses the finish line.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: That that's your focus because it's a race.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you watch Yennethagon's TV, you watch a horse race, you're not there interested in what's happening the half an hour before the horse race.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're interested in what happens when they start racing and when they finish.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: But on the Dubai run, it was a very, very different environment because to a large degree, we had no control over what happened between the start line and the finish line.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: We did in the sense that the roads were closed and we had personnel on all the intersections, and we had medic spotters, and we had medics all over the place.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact is, how do you manage 300,000 people before a race starts?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: All our focus went into it before.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that meant uh convincing the local authorities that we need a drone, we needed drones with live cameras linked back to our control center so we could see every square inch of the course.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Combine that with the police control room where we also had a plan.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we had someone in the main police control room that saw all the static cameras that were there from the police.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So your operational readiness starts from when the first person gets off the metro.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you control that?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you engage as a company?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because yes, I have a lot of experience with crowd management, but I need to engage a company that has wider experience, and they are the people that implement the health and safety procedures, like from an event perspective with large amounts of people.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Worldwide, some of the worst disasters of mass participation events is with crowd stampedes or crowd pushing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we all know what happened in in Hillsborough many, many years ago.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because of bad crowd management as well.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're designing the whole flow of what goes on in Shagside Road, you just don't fill 300,000 people into a confined area, but you fill them in blocks of 50 meters and create fire breaks.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And think about the worst case scenario was if someone's standing there and they collapse and have a heart attack, how do you get them out of that area?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: How can you get medical care there?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: How can you deal with that?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now the things that happen between the start and finish line are outside of our control.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: If someone has a heart attack during the run, we respond to it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: But we've done all the preparation to get them to the start line as quickly as possible.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: But again, something like that, that event would not be possible without a metro.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because show me a show me a place where you can deliver 300,000 people in cars.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, 98% of the people that come to the Dubai Run come by metro.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: They leave by metro.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Expo wouldn't have been a success without the metro.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So Dubai has built an infrastructure that will allow us to do these kind of events.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: But but I was saying like the oper defining operational readiness is to also go through plenty of tabletop exercises.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like one of the tabletop exercises we went through with Dubai Run was what happened if something happens that's not related to our run?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say one of the buildings on Shagzai Road has a fire.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So even though the building is off the side of Shagzai Road, how would that impact our run?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: What happens if a plane crashed at Dubai Airport?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: How many emergency services would be called to Dubai Airport, let alone the police, to deal with that?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we had lots of tabletop scenarios of things that were not your sprained ankle or your heart attack during a run, but things that could potentially go wrong.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And even what would happen is if we had to cancel the event halfway through.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if there was a major skyscraper fire on Shageside Road, that could necessarily live.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we had to have systems in place that we had to inform people that the event is officially over and you were to leave Shagside Road as quickly as possible.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so operational readiness is not planning for what you think is going to happen, but you need to plan for what may never ever happen, but you need to have a plan in place.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't have a plan in place and there's a major fire at eight o'clock in the morning on a tower on Shagside Road, if you don't have a plan already in place, you're going to go into panic mode and 10 people are going to make 10 different decisions.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also you need to establish on the day what is your chain of command.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who determines them?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: The event is owned by the event is owned by Duby Tourism.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ultimate sayers of yay or no, whether the event will go or whether it won't go.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: But they are taking the advice of the health and safety professionals that are engaged, the event director, the operations director.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're collectively listening in control room on what is the best possible advice.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, it's their event, and they're the ones that have to make that decision.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Accordingly.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: So that actually that that leads perfectly into the next question because um and I'm glad you said that because holistically we're talking about operational strategy as well.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're talking about operational strategy, you're talking about potentially competing competing um priorities or competing ideas with potentially different stakeholders.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: How can you align all of those ideas and all of those priorities into one, whether it's a public sector or sorry, whether it's a government uh uh uh event or it's a private sector event, uh commercial event, any kind of event, large, small, how do you tie in into one aligning uh strategy, operational strategy, or can you uh to create the most successful event that you possibly can?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think how do you get people to see it the right way and and merge that idea?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the the you know, the balance if you take some Dubai run, it's an entirely government event.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and they hire people that are experts in their field, indirectly through an agency, but obviously through people that are very experienced in that area.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Another significant event that I was involved in that came to the city was the the Dubai leg of the T100 triathlon series in 2024.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first year it had come here, it was the first year the series had been run.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And also by default, we ended up being the being the grand final because what was meant to be the grand final in Oman, four or five months out for the event, got cancelled due to some uh unforeseen circumstances.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the ninth event got cancelled, Dubai became the grand final for the for the series, and we're talking about the very, very best pro triathletes in the world coming here.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it sat right within the in the window of the Dubai Fitness Challenge, so it sat in between Dubai Run, Dubai Ride.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: You had uh over three days, we had five events with 10,000 people taking part.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the event is not owned by the government, the event is sponsored by the government, by Dubai Tourism, the event is owned by the professional triathlete organization, so they've got a commercial arm to what they do, and they need to make sure that the event is commercially viable, but they need to work with us and the local authorities because they understand that in the context, let's say, for example, the swim which took place at Sunrise Beach, let's say, for example, a major storm came in on the morning of the race and the swim became untenable, then that affects the credibility event.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the the competitors have to understand the safety comes first.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So having all those contingency plans, so even to a degree where the government entities have less say in making those health and safety decisions, the organizers are the government entities still trust us in our decisions in terms of what we have to do accordingly, but we're still working within specific parameters.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So a good example of that event was, you know, we had a scenario where we'd given them the predicted last time that the swimmer would be out of the water.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: So where they would know what times the roads would be opening, because it was a from from Sunrise Beach back to Maidan, it was a rolling, it was a it was a road closure.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: But once that last person is gone, that road can reopen again.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about giving the government realistic expectations about when the city can return to normal.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the biggest challenge that any event faces is when you start to close down a city, believe it or not, your biggest opposition are local residents.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are shutting down a beach and having an event for 10 hours and it restricts their access to their home or their property, how you mitigate that?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is one area that event organizers, in my opinion, never score 100% on their sheet.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you a really good example of that, is um for many, many years, the the uh International Iron Man was held down in um Umsakim Public Beach, just down beside the Burj Alara.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in the early years when it started in 2016, and it still did the same course, it used to ride all the way down Umsa Kim, down Al-Quudra Road, out towards Baba Al Shams, and turn around and come back.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: But over the years, the the density on that road changed.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what was where I live in Town Square, which didn't open until 2017, and it and it got bigger and bigger and bigger as the years go on, it became a bigger community.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: But funnily enough, I and I was involved in that event for the first couple of years, I ended up becoming like the unofficial Iron Man spokesperson because there was no communication from them to the community's effective.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I found how would I feel as a parent that if I'd got up on Saturday morning or Friday morning and know that Johnny has to go to rugby and I try to pull out of my community and it's gonna take me an extra half an hour to get him to rugby.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna want to know about that in advance.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I found myself on that whole corridor posting upon every community that lived on that corridor, saying, Hey guys, heads up, there's the Iron Man this weekend.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is how it's going to affect you.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, plan ahead because you never try to plan events where you lock people into communities, but there are always going to be diversions, there's always going to be delays and everything else.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is kind of um uh important and not only putting on an event for the people that are actually doing it, but thinking about the people that are in the that are in the city, because in any city you always end up with what they call nimbies, not in my backyard.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, you know, that's right, and they just see it as a major disruption to their life, but it becomes less of a disruption if they knew about it in advance.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a bit like it's a bit like having friends in town and say, come and meet us on December the 31st down in down in down in downtown on the boulevard.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna go, that's a crazy place on New Year's Eve because everybody, there's a million people down there, and I don't want to meet you down there on New Year's Eve, or I'm gonna have to leave at three o'clock to get down there at five o'clock.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where am I gonna park?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you know about things in advance, you have the planning that you can actually because the worst part for an event is the social media backlash afterwards, yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where where people have complained three hours in traffic, yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but but if you but if you forewarn, I mean, I always like telling a funny story, is where my son goes to school, it always seems to be affected by the UA tour when it comes here.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the principal always, whenever she gets the official notice from RTA, she kind of messages me and goes, Andy, can you translate this and actually tell me how this actually affects our students?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I write a kind of I actually end up writing filter it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I end up writing the newsletter that goes to the parents that says, if you live in Arabian ranches and you're doing a pickup in this time, do this.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you live in Townsquare, you're not affected.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you do this, so it's actually in plain English because I can read, I can read the spreadsheets that they feel out about it.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I I'm involved in cycling, other people aren't, and they go, Can I go here?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can't I go here?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can I not?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I became I became the unofficial advisor for my son's school to say this is what you can do.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: And one time I said to them, just close school earlier this day, it's too complicated for people.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of closing at three, they closed at one.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and they removed the removed the challenge for people.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: So but a marathon and I mean these are a marathon, uh, a running event, a cycling event, they take over a city.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're uh in your 35 years of of running events, you can run a conference, an exhibition.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it has its own, you know, challenges and difficulties.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: But you're taking over a city.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's uniquely challenging.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're doing this and you, you know, it comes off, it's successful, there's gonna be a few things at the end that you're gonna say this needs to change, or it's just not gonna not gonna work.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: When you're doing your little postmortem for the uh for the power, whoever whoever's whoever the client might be, obviously be the uh municipality or the or government.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: Are you completely upfront?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you do you do you protect their regulations that exist that are in place, or do you say, you know what, as we have to be frank, this is this has the change and this has the change, and do they take it well?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I would speak from personal experience that the feedback is a real critical part of any event.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I can definitely say that the government has taken on board any recommendations that come out every time we do do by run and ride, so much so that it's you know, it's a fairly it's a fairly safe formula now.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um one of the reasons why we don't see Iron Man here in this region is that it outgrew the location where it was first held.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you've got 2,000 people running a half marathon on a public walking and running track with no demarcation between the athletes, it's not a great experience for the athletes because they'll get mums and dads with kids just wandering, doing the doing their everyday normal thing, not doing anything wrong, and just crossing the track in front of a runner who's already been exercising for five hours and may not have the highest level of concentration.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, so as an event organizer, you've got to be prepared to say, Well, that worked for a few years, we need to find a new venue.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: I want to close on something that I think is um very much not event related, but I think it's very, very interesting.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I won't I want to talk about something that you've created on the back of you know what's happened in the first quarter, two, you know, first two quarters of the year that is helping a lot of people and it's a really real practical solution, and it's called Clear Path.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Can you give us a little bit of background on that?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can actually.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I um started to sit on social media and read about what was going on, and I also run a couple of groups and I'm well aware of the laws that exist in this country.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I was also being conscious of monitoring what was on a couple of WhatsApp groups that I was on and setting some rules down for people and whatever else.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what I saw was I saw that there were transport companies charging people upwards of 20,000 durings to go to Oman so you could fly out of Oman.
• 32:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So my first response was this is just wrong on so many levels.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people are in panic mode.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they've got long-term expats that are a little bit more chilled about it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's got to be a solution.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I created an AI advert and said, listen, don't stress about this, da-da-da-da-da.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're worried about going.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, and I said, I get it, some people will just go, they'll leave their car at the airport, they'll figure out that later on.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Other people um want to get their car back here.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: So from the 3rd of uh March until the 25th of March, I traveled 14 times as passengers in people's cars, and I drove their car back to them for to Dubai for a fee.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't have to pay the exorbitant cost of someone else taking them there.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: They could go at their own pace, do what they needed to do, they would fly out and I would return those cars.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: But on my last 14th visit, and I was waiting at the airport for the people to give me the go-ahead to say that they're on the plane.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did a bit of a walk through the car park and I found 900 cars with UA number plates in the two long-term car parks.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, how are those cars all going to come back?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I pivoted my advertising, and then since that time, I've flown to Muscat more than 25 times and I've collected cars.
• 33:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Cars worth 750,000 serums, cars worth 50,000.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then it pivoted, and actually, the common denominator of those people that were leaving, 90% of them are young families.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: You must know, well, the immigrants shouldn't officers by name.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, trust me.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you you get to Omar and they go, How long are you staying for?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Today, an hour and a half.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's basically find the car.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: I said three hours if you take the time to go the bullet.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not staying, he says, No, I'm picking up a car and I'm driving it back.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Andy, I'm really, really grateful that you could come by.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you took the time.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was really, it didn't feel like there was a camera running.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: It felt like we're just having a nice chat.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: It really felt like just having an off-the-cuff chat and uh really enjoyed it.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to do something different with my day.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm really glad that you chose us.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a great believer in um, you know, sharing stories.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you'll see some of the stuff I post on LinkedIn.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, is is is sharing my experiences about what I've done along the way.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that, you know, if someone takes some enjoyment out of this, I will touch on one thing as well, is that, you know, I've been incredibly thankful because I've been here a long time.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: My business was able to get off the ground because I received incredible support from organizations that published articles and did stuff.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So my advice to anyone, if you're looking at starting editing, try to get the attention of someone.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because people like writing human interest stories.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people are are good at what they do.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because it amplifies.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: It does, you know.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and and I I'd say that, you know, it just helps and it helps to develop credibility, yeah.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in terms of what you're doing and because like anything in business, business is all about trust.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and but again, I'm really thankful that we live in this country because I can't think of any other country where someone would hand you over the keys to a half a millenderum car and said, Yeah, you try this.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it's you know, there's a certain sort of thing like breaking the law is gonna get you in a lot of trouble.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that other there's that other.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Much much appreciated your time.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andy.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: The backdrop was recorded live at One Central in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was hosted by Michael McClennan and produced and edited by Dan Powell.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.