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From Broadcast to Hybrid: Stream7 on Adapting and Evolving in Events · Event Industry News Podcast

0:06
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Event Industry News podcast. My name is James Dixon.
0:12
And as always, it's a very good morning, afternoon or evening,
0:15
whenever or wherever you join today's podcast from.
0:18
And never more apt is that intro than today.
0:21
2025 marks the 15th birthday of Event Industry News.
0:27
And ground zero for Event Industry News, if people are not aware,
0:30
is the great city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire.
0:33
And that's where Event Industry News was very much conceived,
0:37
born and spent the first years of its life in little offices right in the heart of the city.
0:42
And 15 years on, we're back to where it all began.
0:46
We're back in the city of Sheffield. And today's podcast has been recorded from the HQ of Stream 7.
0:52
Today's episode of the podcast is going to be diving into a little bit more about what Stream 7 do.
0:58
We're going to be joined by one of their team. But yeah, we're in some great
1:01
offices right in the middle of the city. For more information on what these
1:04
guys do, visit stream7.co.uk.
1:08
And thanks again to them and their team for hosting the podcast.
1:12
So on with today's episode.
1:14
And I'm delighted to say that sat across the table from me with TVs and actual
1:20
branding and in something that feels akin to an actual studio rather than sitting
1:24
at the upright piano in my living room,
1:26
which is where I've got used to recording these from, is Mr. Andy Jeffries.
1:30
Andy is the head of projects at Stream 7. Andy, good morning to you.
1:34
How are you, mate? I'm very well, thanks, James.
1:36
And yeah, thanks very much for looking after us. Thanks very much for having
1:38
us here today. No worries. Welcome. Welcome to Stream 7.
1:42
And it's, you know, in the interest of full transparency, it's pretty local for me as well.
1:46
I'm only, you know, 20 minutes down the road in Barnsley. So
1:49
it's a nice local gig for me and uh genuinely great
1:52
to sort of get back out you know into a sort
1:55
of a live environment for these podcasts and we
1:58
spoke a little bit about ventures and who's been 15 years old and about
2:01
probably 10 maybe maybe 11 12
2:04
years ago now when we started the podcast they were always
2:07
recorded kind of in situ somewhere we would find
2:10
you know a company like you had a great office space
2:13
and say look can we come and record the podcasts and like a
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lot of things in the events industry it kind of went digital you
2:19
know and it became easier for me to sit at home and and
2:23
record them so yeah it's great to get back out but the reason I kind of mentioned
2:27
how we adjusted and how the podcast has changed over the years is I guess that's
2:32
shares a lot of similarities with what you must do here a lot of live events
2:36
and in-person stuff but inevitably with that period in the middle of this 15
2:39
years where everything went online yeah Yeah, absolutely.
2:42
It's kind of almost a slight irony there that you're coming to visit us and
2:46
we are kind of a company that is so kind of built on the digital aspect of what
2:50
we do, the kind of hybrid element.
2:53
But I suppose we've got the audience at home listening, so, you know, we've got the...
2:59
Digital audience and the in-person presentation today absolutely
3:03
yeah tell us a little bit about um stream seven for
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for any of the event institute news podcast followers who
3:09
haven't come across you before tell us a little bit about what the company's
3:12
set up to do uh so first and foremost event broadcasting
3:15
that is that was you know the initial offering and still is
3:18
the the core offering from stream seven but uh
3:22
as with anything as you grow a little bit you start
3:25
increasing the offering to encompass other elements of
3:27
the industry i think it's kind of often referred
3:30
to as that kind of can you just mentality you start working with a
3:33
with a client and their events get bigger or the oh
3:36
can you just could you just put in a screen could you just do
3:39
this and you know our team come from all aspects
3:42
of the live event industry and their skills span
3:45
many different kind of areas so yeah we we
3:48
can just and uh and often do so yeah the
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the broadcasting while still being at the heart of what we do is
3:54
now uh kind of uh supplemented by
3:57
a lot of the tech that you kind of see around you today yeah and
4:00
all these skills you know in sort of modern av modern broadcast filming etc
4:05
etc it's all transferable isn't it you know we've got you know tv sat here behind
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us now which you know you can put a bit of branding on but you know you'll see
4:13
that you know a live event you'll see those sort of dotted around the stage
4:16
they might have you know presentation or awards content on there.
4:19
And what you do as a streaming company is exactly, or a lot of the,
4:24
you know, 80% of it probably shares a similarity with an AV company or a production
4:28
company or whatever it may be. All of this is transferable, isn't it?
4:31
Absolutely. Yes. So we often, for a company of our size, there's many different
4:37
roles and many different ways in which you fit into an event.
4:40
So whether that's supplementing, large AV company.
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Kind of, you know, a huge event, kind of
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arena you know big kind of event
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like that or whether it's taking ownership of
4:53
all of the av something of a smaller scale
4:56
then you know the like you said the skills are all transferable
4:59
the team are absolutely fantastic and and because
5:02
of the backgrounds and the and the training that they've had in
5:05
all the different areas where they come from yeah yeah it's it works
5:09
really nicely for us tell us about some of those backgrounds what's let's start
5:12
with you you know but before stream seven you know what was what
5:15
was your sort of pathway like so after studying i
5:18
actually came to sheffield over 20 years ago now to
5:21
study engineering right i'd worked in
5:24
the event sector all the way through as since before
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i came to sheffield you know as a working on
5:30
festivals and stuff like that i think that's where a lot of people kind of get
5:33
the kind of first taste of it maybe then continued through whilst being at university
5:38
i came out of university and i was working for a venue in Sheffield and when
5:43
I graduated they offered me a role that was you know a promotion effectively and I.
5:49
I thought i'll just do this for the
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meantime just just in the interim you know and then i'll
5:55
probably go back into engineering and one
5:58
one opportunity came after another after another and i
6:02
found myself really really enjoying it and now
6:04
effectively i was i think i think my role was a production manager
6:08
one of the one of the live venues in sheffield and i
6:12
loved it i loved every you know i just love
6:15
the setup i love the it was technically challenging
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but also i got to meet people talk to people
6:21
which is you know it's not something that you typically get in you
6:24
know when you're still on a machine in a workshop or when you're sat there coding
6:28
up a cnc machine so and i really enjoyed that aspect of it and then i continued
6:32
working on the festivals as well but then my role became more stage management
6:36
and and and yeah i probably did that for about 10 years after university.
6:43
But, you know, I think with anything in that world, especially in clubs and
6:47
live music, three o'clock finishes, you know, four or five times a week, five, you know.
6:55
Sometimes you get to a certain age and you think, I wonder how long I can keep doing this.
6:59
So, and it was around about that time when I met one of the directors,
7:02
we were actually working.
7:03
So Pete, who's the technical director at Steam 7, we
7:06
were working together on some large productions at arenas we
7:09
were kind of we were local crew basically freelancing yeah
7:12
and we kind of got chatting and pete said you know looking at you know we've
7:17
just started a business streaming sounds really interesting yeah the more the
7:22
more we talked the more i thought i'd like to find out a little bit more about
7:25
this kind of a emerging industry as well you know 12 15 years ago.
7:31
And uh yeah we i came i came and darren and pete had a had an office actually
7:37
in this building where we sat right now, just in one of the small offices downstairs.
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And I came and sat with them, learned a little bit, and I thought,
7:43
yeah, this is pretty cool. And
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then they asked me if I could come on a few jobs and freelance for them.
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You know, it was just one of those natural progression things.
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It grows organically. Yeah, it grows organically, yeah.
7:53
And I think by the time we, I think sometimes these kind of things catch you unaware.
8:01
We didn't realize how much we were doing and how much, you know,
8:06
I was starting to work with my own clients. So I was kind of freelance just a couple of days a week.
8:11
But then we were like, oh, actually, this is gaining some traction.
8:16
And I think we went to a show in Amsterdam. We went to an IBC in Amsterdam,
8:21
a large kind of broadcast convention.
8:23
And I think it was at that point the boys kind of approached me and said,
8:26
like, I think that you might need to consider, you know, coming on board a bit.
8:33
Yeah. So, yeah. And to be honest, never look back. Like, yeah,
8:37
there was three of us at that point, and now there's quite a few more.
8:40
There's so many stories in the years, again, sort of referencing the fact,
8:44
you know, we're celebrating 15 years of Event Institute News.
8:47
And, you know, in some respects, almost as long as, you know,
8:50
me talking to people in this way.
8:52
You know, I started off talking to people for Event Institute News and then
8:56
writing up an article to go on the website. And that's how the podcast was born.
9:01
It was like, hold on, I'm having an hour-long conversation with these people.
9:05
Typing loads of notes. and then sitting down for another couple of hours,
9:08
writing up an article to then go on the website.
9:11
Why don't we just record that initial conversation and we get so much more content
9:14
out of it. You're not trying to condense that conversation down.
9:17
And, you know, one thing I've learned is having all these conversations with
9:21
people who work in the events industry, very rarely does somebody have an idea
9:25
or somebody entering something.
9:27
And years later, it's exactly what they started doing.
9:30
Everything morphs and changes and grows organically. And one thing that has
9:36
become commonplace is that people who've got quite a hands-on production experience.
9:42
Role as a background can often translate
9:45
to lots and lots of different things in the industry because those
9:48
key skills i suppose of organization of
9:51
planning of plotting what kit do we need where's it going logistics
9:54
etc etc is transferable isn't it whether it's a live event or a you know a streamed
9:59
production yeah you're absolutely right it's crazy the amount of times that
10:04
even my engineering comes back into into this job is yeah sometimes it does
10:09
take me again a little bit by surprise and just think, oh,
10:13
I'm kind of glad that there's that little nuggets back there somewhere,
10:17
you know, and like, I can't remember the other bit of physics or point loading
10:21
on a trigger or something like that.
10:23
Yeah. And you just like, oh, right. Yeah. Want to hang a light on that trust
10:25
or put a camera on it? Oh, right. Well, hold on a second. Yeah,
10:28
absolutely. Have we done the calcs? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
10:31
But yeah, I think that especially in, so now I sit in kind of in the operation side of the business,
10:37
but we're all firmly of the belief that you can't tell someone you can't ask
10:43
someone what to do if you've not kind of been through.
10:48
Similar yourself kind of thing. I don't think, and I think that was always,
10:51
I think that was probably a lesson that I learned in engineering as well.
10:54
Yeah. That if you do kind of want to make it to the top, you've got to have
10:57
a pretty good grasp of how these things actually happen, how the event comes together.
11:00
You know, the mechanics of it, the actual physicality of, you know,
11:05
of using the equipment, building the equipment, wiring it up.
11:09
Well, you know what their pain points are. You know, if you're coming in,
11:13
as a streaming partner to an event and they might have, you know,
11:16
other contractors working there you know
11:19
if there's a stage manager in an av company and a
11:22
production company doing other elements if you if you're
11:25
empathetic and sympathetic to what they're trying to
11:27
deal with it allows you to do your job easier smoother
11:30
work with the other stakeholders in a little bit of
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an easier way yeah absolutely and i think i
11:37
think some of that i think the team might might disagree with me
11:39
on this point but uh i think it certainly helps me
11:42
when I'm kind of quoting for a job building putting a
11:46
job together to kind of have a let's say
11:49
a basic understanding of I'm looking around the office at the team making sure
11:53
there's no there's no eyes staring you down we're going to shout nonsense yeah
11:57
yeah but having a decent understanding of how the job's going to come together
12:01
so that you know and obviously when I do when I do build the jobs and you know
12:05
once the quote's been finalised then that's
12:09
when it goes to the actual technical guys who then have to add about you know.
12:13
100 lines of supplementary equipment to actually make the damn thing work.
12:18
You've not considered this, you've not considered that. Well,
12:20
yeah, I think I kind of deal with the kind of the key aspects of what's required
12:25
and then they link it all together and make sure that what I've quoted is actually
12:32
going to produce an output.
12:34
Yeah, it would be remiss of me sat here today in a company called Stream 7 and
12:40
not look back five years ago on how the business,
12:46
adapted, changed, you know, I'm going to use the word pivoted.
12:49
We've not used pivoted on the podcast, I think in about three years.
12:53
And I used to have a sign, I used to have like a bit of board that said pivot
12:57
on it that I could hold up because it was such a buzzword.
13:00
But, you know, that happened. And inevitably for a company doing what you guys
13:05
do, as bad a time as it was, that was, you know, make hay while the sun shines
13:11
for companies like you, I guess.
13:13
It was yeah and it's it's it's
13:16
one of those things that you don't want to you don't.
13:18
Want to be too flowery about it you don't want to talk about it and you know
13:21
it was there's there's no getting around the fact that it
13:24
was a bad time for everybody yeah but like you say you've got
13:27
to you've got to do what you can do we were very
13:30
fortunate in the fact that a huge portion of our business was
13:33
built around the the transmission of
13:36
information online that you know the
13:39
by the very nature of us being on site at your event your
13:42
event is a hybrid event so when everyone
13:45
got pushed back into virtual it was quite a small sidestep for
13:49
us the only difference was the cameras were staying
13:52
on the shelves but the you know the the
13:54
it was what it was webcams now yeah so we're bringing
13:57
people in almost exactly the same we're using a very similar transmission
14:00
you know technology of transmission obviously there's a
14:03
ton of different options and variables and
14:06
and the guys already knew all about those and we were you know we
14:10
were familiar with your broad broadcast specific platforms
14:13
but also your teams and your zoom that you know
14:16
went from chatting to grandma and doing the pub quiz to all
14:18
of a sudden everyone's trying to host a conference on them yeah yeah i'd never
14:21
heard of vmix and overnight you know exactly read this
14:25
quickly yeah you know this is what i'm going to be broadcasting on tomorrow
14:28
so yeah we we're we're almost entirely tricaster based but uh yeah you know
14:34
the guys are familiar with vmix as well but the tricasters were there the kit
14:37
was all there so yeah we we quickly kind of pivoted to uh to to virtual uh
14:44
virtual only. And we're fortunate.
14:47
Sorry, go on. No, I was just going to ask, but one thing that.
14:51
Again, just from conversations that I've had with,
14:53
you know, other streaming companies, is that the ones that I've spoken to in
14:57
the past have said that one thing that helps them with going forward in the
15:02
events industry is overnight,
15:04
they had to suddenly work with a lot of these event tech platforms,
15:08
you know, like these platform providers that provide, you know.
15:12
Apps and event platforms for live events.
15:15
But, you know, a lot of event customers were wanting to stick with their kind
15:19
of platform provider and stream into that platform provider.
15:24
And yeah, I just wanted to find out if it was the same for you guys.
15:27
Did you suddenly have to work with a lot of new companies that you hadn't worked
15:31
with before and actually in the long term,
15:34
did that benefit you because you've now got this working knowledge of
15:37
them yeah absolutely and it was quite interesting actually because
15:40
i think quite a lot of those companies were still finding their feet around
15:43
that time absolutely yes there was certainly a lot of mutual learning
15:46
and and benefit you know i can remember working with
15:50
some of some of these platforms who you know we all with some
15:53
of the names we all know now are absolutely massive but we
15:56
were dealing directly with their you know
15:59
their ceos their their founders yeah because
16:02
they were much much smaller at the time you know and yeah
16:05
now i don't think you'd get a meet you know they've got however
16:09
many thousand employees you'd never get a meeting in with
16:11
with with uh with some of these folks yeah but yeah it was definitely early
16:16
days definitely early days and i think it was quite interesting actually with
16:21
regards to the platforms because we had we were very fortunate to have on our
16:26
books at the time a couple of the larger event organizers the larger the you know the.
16:32
The kind of event agencies. Sure, yeah. And one of them in particular pivoted
16:38
very early and came to us and said, we're going to do this.
16:42
And they were using multiple platforms that their different events and their
16:47
event directors for each sector had selected.
16:50
Right. So there was then almost a bit of a scramble between all the different
16:54
platforms, but we were streaming into all the different platforms.
16:58
So they were kind of aware that we were the ones that were streaming in for
17:01
multiple different sectors. Yeah.
17:03
So that was a really good learning curve for us, but also it meant that a lot
17:09
of the platforms were coming to us as a trusted streaming provider.
17:12
So they were saying, well... They know that you know the setup,
17:16
the tech setup, what works, what doesn't work, how to deliver into their platform.
17:20
And if it's good enough for them, then it'll be good enough for one of our customers
17:23
type of thing. That was their mentality.
17:25
Excellent. And that was great. And we got to know a lot of the platforms inside
17:29
out, the strengths, the weaknesses, and, you know, the flexibilities of them
17:33
and how much we could do, how much, you know.
17:36
In terms of a sort of a collaborative process, if you can call it that.
17:41
Was your experience and knowledge of what you guys do here at Stream 7,
17:46
were you able to then actually advise or offer any input to some of those platforms
17:51
as to how they could tweak and adapt?
17:53
Because again, one thing that I've realized is that a lot of these platforms...
17:58
Kind of in the early days went down the route of saying, you know,
18:00
we know best and we want to do it like this.
18:02
And the platform would say, well, we think we know best and we want to do it like that.
18:07
And if you've got a company like you providing the actual, you know,
18:11
content, the video output, the streaming service, is there a level of standardization
18:15
that has to happen across all of those platforms so that it works effectively for you?
18:20
Yeah, I think, I think it's offering knowledge and advice is a very polite way of putting it.
18:26
But yeah the the that was certainly
18:29
you could tell immediately the platforms
18:32
that were built by people from the events industry and the platforms that were
18:36
built by people with it background interesting if it's if it's event led and
18:42
then and then they bring in the guys to to this you know it was glaringly obvious
18:49
right from the outset what was effectively,
18:52
built by a bunch of guys that never stepped foot on site.
18:56
Great coders, great tech people. Absolutely.
18:58
It will do a million different things, but sometimes you just want it to do
19:02
one thing well, or you just want it to be simplified.
19:05
As we've, you know, we have always tried to remain platform agnostic.
19:11
The better ones will always come forward, you know, and you will start,
19:14
you'll get a client that comes to you and says, oh, we're using this platform
19:18
today and everyone goes up. Oh, yeah, you can't help.
19:21
You smile and wave yeah yeah yeah smile and
19:24
wave and we always find there's always a way to you know to make it work there
19:28
always is yeah but for me personally my favourite ones are the ones that are
19:33
really functional really functional have all the options but you can turn them
19:38
off you don't have to have them on all the time because a tiny you know.
19:43
Two-hour webinar for lunch for a single room don't
19:47
need you know taskbar with a million
19:50
different things on it and breakout rooms and and all you know and
19:53
and bios because you can doesn't mean you
19:55
should exactly exactly and you know don't get me
19:58
wrong for the majority of what we're doing they are
20:01
used unto the full potential yeah but when you don't need it it just you know
20:06
i almost feel vindicated in some respects because I've sat on this podcast many
20:12
times before and I'm fortunate enough to not only have the opportunity to host
20:18
this podcast over the years and do, you know,
20:21
jobs for event industry news, but be on the production team for Event Tech Live from day one.
20:26
And on this podcast, I've said before, you can tell the tech platforms that
20:31
have been built by people with a working understanding of the events industry.
20:34
I've said almost word for word
20:35
what you've just said. And it's so sort of refreshing, not refreshing,
20:41
but like I said, a level of vindication in some respects on a personal level
20:44
to hear another company in the industry saying, yes, that's exactly our experience
20:49
as well, because it has to be functional.
20:52
And I've seen so many that, like you said, that they've got menus and menus
20:56
and menus, and it's like, they've come up with another idea and kind of just
21:00
bolted it on and it's all clunky.
21:03
And, You know, the best ones are thought out from ground zero in a really clear
21:07
way, and they're easy to work with.
21:09
And of course, the easier you
21:10
can work with them, the easier the client ultimately can work with them.
21:14
Because at some point, the client will have to get hands-on with this,
21:17
won't they, regardless of the platform.
21:18
The best platform is the one that works and the most people can interact with.
21:22
There's lots of different barriers for interaction with platforms,
21:25
whether that be people's connection or people's capability.
21:29
You know, there's a lot. if I'm doing an event for living with dementia then
21:36
the last thing I need is a million different.
21:40
You know, barriers in the way of someone accessing that platform,
21:44
whether that be, you know,
21:46
and I know that multi-factor authentication is important, et cetera,
21:50
but sometimes, you know, like I said, the most important thing is for people
21:54
to be able to access it and be able to access the information that you're trying to transmit.
21:59
And that's, you know, that's what the selection comes down to really. Absolutely.
22:03
We've spent a bit of time talking about, you know, that sort of platform side
22:07
of things, which very much ties into the whole kind of virtual event.
22:12
And fortunately, after that sort of two-year period, really,
22:17
in effect, which it was, by the time we'd gone through the entire cycle,
22:20
depending on when events fell in a calendar year,
22:24
I know some events only missed one event because of when they fell in a calendar year.
22:28
They might take place in September, October, November time.
22:32
So they missed 2020, but come the end of 2020, there
22:36
were no restrictions others suffered much worse because
22:39
of where they fell but you know so beyond that two-year
22:42
cycle when things came back to to normal quote unquote
22:45
you know was it was it nice to then start getting back into events that didn't
22:50
require these platforms where it's literally a case of putting a load of stuff
22:53
in the back of a van and setting up an event and actually rigging some things
22:57
it was it definitely was i'm not the the the team were absolutely chomping at
23:01
the bit to get boots back on the ground and actually,
23:03
you know, get into some venues and stuff.
23:07
I think around about this time, or just before, in fact, my partner had had our first child.
23:14
So I was quite happy with the virtual life for a few years, you know.
23:20
That was great. But yeah, getting back on, that was always what everyone wanted
23:25
to do, really, you know, all jokes aside.
23:28
And yeah, very little point in having our tech sat on the shelves if we were
23:33
going to go to being a virtual on the business.
23:35
But yeah it was great and we managed to you know
23:37
during that period as i said we are all
23:41
from different areas of the live events industry we've all got
23:43
friends across across the industries whether they be
23:46
touring technicians sound engineers video engineers whose
23:50
you know touring life ended very abruptly
23:53
yeah of course it did yeah absolutely yeah and everyone
23:57
was scrambling to try and find work whether that be you know
23:59
whatever you know just all sorts i've you
24:02
know friends who were touring arenas that
24:05
were then delivering uh you know meals on
24:08
wheels and stuff all you know all sort of stuff so we managed to
24:11
manage to employ quite a quite a few friends
24:14
and colleagues from all of our previous lives
24:18
in in live in in live entertainment and quite
24:21
a few of them still with us to this day actually that that
24:24
was that was that was a really great thing
24:27
yeah absolutely and i think you know a lot
24:30
of people that listen to this will be able to relate to
24:33
what you've just said you know we all had friends people that
24:36
we know who because of their specific role in the
24:38
events industry meant that in some some
24:41
of us you know i i would consider myself to be fortunate in that you know i'm
24:46
a freelancer but my work for event is your news and event tech live they brought
24:50
their events into virtual spaces that still required a lot of pre-production.
24:54
A lot of planning a lot of you know work to prep you know we did a five-day
24:58
virtual event the first event tech live online.
25:02
But a really good friend of mine going back to when I moved to Yorkshire is a musician.
25:07
You know, he's a guitar player and he plays, I'm going to give him a shout out
25:10
because I've never done it before.
25:11
Andy Park, he plays guitar at the moment. He's in Australia as I record this with 10cc. Nice.
25:17
As rhythm guitar, percussion and backing vocal. And he does other jobs,
25:22
you know, session work and everything. And literally overnight, gone.
25:25
And when I spoke to him during the panic, he was out there delivering for Amazon.
25:28
You know, a wife and two kids. So he had to go out there and make some money and, and, and I.
25:34
It sounds sort of like I'm taking the conversation on a bit of a downward turn,
25:38
but the reason I'm saying this is because I felt,
25:41
and I want to get your take on this, that when we actually did come back and
25:44
we're 2025 now, so we're sort of three and a half years properly back into it,
25:49
there was a euphoria, but also there seemed to be a reinvigoration of actual live events.
25:54
The ones that i've worked on since the pandemic have
25:58
come back with fresh ideas they're always
26:01
looking to maybe innovate and look at how they can
26:04
do things a bit differently the ones i've worked on since the pandemic
26:06
have been so much better and livelier than
26:10
the ones pre-pandemic and it's almost like we got a bit complacent and
26:13
we needed something to hit the reset button for us
26:15
all yeah yeah and i think with the benefit of hindsight
26:18
now you know you can see no one's
26:22
saying it was a good thing but you can see the positives like you said that
26:24
have come out of it and i think it has given people it's reinvigorated
26:28
the the industry to a certain extent it's given people a bit
26:31
more enthusiasm for events and it's also
26:34
given it a bit of a shake-up with this kind of hybrid aspect of the events coming
26:39
people are finding markets and finding viewers that they never knew they had
26:44
before there's some you know really interesting studies that came out of that
26:47
period about the different demographics that have accessed events.
26:52
So a lot of the stuff, and I'm sure that this will be something that will be
26:55
discussed in a podcast later on,
26:59
is the amount of kind of state of heart mums, you know, that could access events
27:04
because there was that virtual aspect to it. Yeah.
27:08
That typically would never, you know, they're not going to go away for a weekend
27:10
when they've got kind of responsibilities.
27:13
Absolutely. That flexibility that it brought to people's lives. that
27:16
was still be able to engage that was a massive demographic that we
27:18
saw a huge increase in and then that continued after after the
27:21
pandemic to jump back to your previous question you
27:25
know saying you know what i was saying about how uh
27:28
keen the team were to get back on yeah on
27:31
the thing and i think because of you know what
27:34
was mentioning because we we brought a
27:38
lot of our friends and colleagues from the live event sector
27:41
that really reinvigorated stream seven as well
27:44
so when we when we got back on the road we were kind of a new team
27:47
with you know we were a bigger team we were stronger we had new skill sets involved
27:51
as well and that was really great it was you know once once everything opened
27:55
back up going back on the live events felt like we kind of had a new face and
28:00
a new kind of a new enthusiasm also that had been bolstered by the,
28:05
the the the the bond that i
28:08
think had you know because it was a tough time wasn't it
28:10
you know camaraderie there was a sense of camaraderie wasn't
28:13
yeah yeah so we got a really really tight bond with with the
28:16
with the team and we've been growing that since and you know i think that that's
28:22
not the reason i mentioned this is because i don't think that's unique amongst
28:25
the industry and i think that when the events came back i think you did see
28:29
the teams really knit together and people wanted to be with each other on the events and stuff.
28:35
It was really refreshing to them. I think that's what put a lot of the life
28:38
back into the events because people are so ready for it.
28:42
What's been your experience from a client perspective in how,
28:48
what's the right phrase here, is how accommodating or how interested they are
28:53
in ideas that you're bringing to the table?
28:56
Because again, from my own experience, sometimes this kind
28:59
of pivot and forcing down a certain route that
29:02
event organizers had to take because they had no choice to
29:05
you know if you don't do this you won't
29:08
have an event in two years it's that simple and so a
29:11
lot of them that were hesitant to adopt even simple things like basic
29:15
live streaming at their live events oh no we don't want people tuning on online
29:18
because that will stop people coming to the physical event yeah suddenly they
29:22
were more open to change and ideas and i'm just wondering whether since then
29:25
do you find that when you bring ideas to the table for a client that they're
29:29
now adopting a bit more of a okay, yeah, we'll have a look at this.
29:32
I wonder if it shaped people's thinking. I think it absolutely has,
29:36
especially at that time in virtual, the amount of event organizers,
29:41
and, you know, they were having to pivot there.
29:45
Their entire, you know, career had been predominantly...
29:50
Based around boots on the ground. Let's get bums on seats. Let's,
29:53
you know, that's how, that's how my success is measured.
29:57
Now, all of a sudden they're not having to think about physical branding,
30:01
stage building, you know, fire escapes, all the rest of the,
30:04
you know, important things that are involved in a physical event.
30:08
All of a sudden, now they're having to think, how am I going to entertain someone
30:11
who sat in their kitchen or sat in their living room, watching a screen? Yeah.
30:15
With a smart polo shirt and a pair of Hawaiian shorts underneath.
30:18
In the pants we were all there,
30:22
we all did it when Netflix is right there
30:25
or when the PlayStation remote's right next to
30:27
him you know as the delivery man's about to knock on
30:30
the door exactly yeah so they were they were definitely asking
30:33
us and do you know I think I think a real
30:36
common factor and event people event
30:39
managers are they're a proud type you know they've
30:43
got to be there they've got to be front and centre and they've got to take a
30:47
lot a lot of flack you know from whether it be attendees or you know sponsors
30:52
or whoever it may be they're kind of a linchpin aren't they yeah but these were
30:55
the people who were kind of saying to us well what are other people doing now
30:58
you know i would i want my event to be a bit different like.
31:03
And this is where i think a lot of the gamification kind
31:06
of comes in and all those kind of aspects just
31:09
to try and inject a bit of energy into it
31:13
should have got my event tech bingo card back out yeah exactly gamification
31:16
we've had today yeah yeah yeah so
31:21
and i think now we've come we've come
31:23
out of that and we've come back in this i think that the certainly the organizers
31:28
that we work with are far more open to asking that you know i think previously
31:34
there may have been you may charge headlong and you know it was very much my
31:38
way and this is how we're doing But now there's so many more moving parts.
31:42
I think the good event organisers that we work with are the ones that do say,
31:48
kind of you know in your experience so do you think this
31:50
is is there is there a different way to do this yeah i
31:54
think opening that discussion up to ultimately using
31:58
the specialist using the specialist knowledge that you've got at your disposal
32:01
whether that be regarding streaming or any other aspects of the live event it's
32:06
all important i think there was a change in trust you know amongst i sound deep
32:12
and mean for a humanity because you know that whereas big you know,
32:16
events or not even big events, but event clients would say, like you said,
32:20
my way or the highway, this is how we do it.
32:22
You know, we shall not change. We will die on this hill, but this is how we do it.
32:27
Everybody just became more adaptable and open to change and open to saying to
32:32
somebody else, you probably know a bit more about this than me. Could you help us?
32:37
You know, and that was a big, big takeaway.
32:41
Just one eye on time, Andy, before we start look at wrapping up,
32:44
just want to get an idea and give the podcast listeners and followers an idea
32:48
of, you know, what it's like sort of day to day at the moment,
32:51
you know, maybe give us a little bit of an overview about, you know,
32:54
what are you working on at the moment?
32:55
You know, we're recording this, you know, for context, everybody,
32:59
relatively early in August.
33:01
So, you know, a lot of live events are kind of on the, you know,
33:04
the trade and the business side of things tends to take a bit of a break,
33:07
but we've got the festival side.
33:09
What does summertime look like for Stream 7? yeah so
33:12
you touched on quite a few of the things there so a
33:15
couple of festival stuff bits that are coming up we've got
33:17
we do a really interesting festival every year we're in
33:20
the we're in the office everybody so don't panic because i said we are we're
33:25
in a working office at the moment so as important phone calls coming in someone
33:29
people listening to this going oh get them on the phone immediately questions
33:33
coming in calling on line one yeah so we've got a festival called Greenbelt that we do.
33:39
And Greenbelt every year over the past few years has had a stage that I believe
33:44
is sponsored by Christian Aid and...
33:47
And they bring people in, artists, presenters, globally.
33:51
It's called the no-fly zone. And the whole ethos of the stage is rather than
33:55
flying these people across the world, we'll create a live stream, bring our lead.
34:00
Okay, yeah, bring them to... Bring them to the stage, yeah. So it's an interesting
34:04
concept for a festival, but it's really popular and it's been growing year on year.
34:08
So that's a really good application of the technology and of everything.
34:14
We've got everything. you know we're throwing drones at it
34:17
there's there's all sorts of stuff going in going in there and it's
34:20
it's a dead exciting one well what's the what's the the location
34:23
the venue is it field yeah yeah it's greenfield greenfield festival
34:26
yeah it's yeah full out literally every box you have
34:29
to tick as a as a live streaming sort of av production
34:33
partner you know oh yeah power internet oh
34:36
yeah rigging cameras you know integration with
34:39
other you know stakeholders holders and suppliers yeah the
34:42
boys have definitely had you know we've been sheltering
34:46
however many thousands
34:49
of pounds of the TriCaster underneath a pop-up gazebo
34:52
before and you know proper festival stuff
34:55
like so yeah yeah it's it's a
34:58
cracking job really good so that that's that's the
35:01
kind of thing that we like you said the a lot
35:04
of the live events corporate stuff does quieten down
35:07
i find for me personally i'm the
35:10
one that's kind of dealing with the clients and the quilting and
35:13
that aspect of it i'm never busier than in
35:16
august you know this is when everyone's using trying to get a planning in they're
35:19
trying to get the the budget sorted for the back end of the year big big busy
35:24
autumn season of business events you know that about to happen absolutely absolutely
35:29
yeah and i can testify to that you know this is again start of august You know,
35:35
the team at Event Tech Live are busy prepping, you know.
35:39
Event manuals, exhibitor manuals, platforms,
35:42
testing stuff, you know, whoever's going to form the tech stack of that show.
35:47
You know, this is the time of year when we're on meetings with people,
35:50
being given demos, being tested and stuff.
35:52
So just because it's quiet in terms of the actual calendar of events,
35:57
this is, yeah, like you said, they are going to be the busiest time for that autumn season.
36:02
Yeah, and I think as you were chatting about when you arrived.
36:06
You know, the techs are all up there, pat-testing and checking every single
36:10
piece of equipment and making sure that everything's kind of logged correctly
36:15
for next time, you know, so the systems that we use will auto-generate us.
36:20
Things such as carnage and pat reports and
36:23
stuff like that so ensuring that everything's in the system and
36:25
just all the kind of housekeeping it's a nice time for them to kind of be at
36:30
home and in the warehouse and getting everything kind of if there's some fixes
36:35
made and warehouse managers using uh baby wipes to clean cables laid in a field
36:41
well yeah they'll be getting muddy again soon, I think.
36:46
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're bang on time here.
36:50
And for those, you know, listening today, once again, we are fortunate enough
36:55
to be set up at the home of Stream 7 in Sheffield.
36:59
This edition of the Event Engine News podcast is powered by Stream 7.
37:03
My guest on today's edition of the podcast has been Mr. Andy Jeffries,
37:07
Head of Projects from Stream 7. Andy, thanks very much for hosting us today.
37:11
Thanks very much to the rest of the team. And thanks for sitting across the
37:13
table and having a bit of a chat to us today. And always thanks for coming down, James.
37:17
Couple of little mentions before we wrap up today's episode of the podcast.
37:21
If you are watching this, thanks to the guys again from Stream 7 for a great
37:25
camera setup, far more sophisticated than the little camera built into the laptop
37:29
that usually perches on top of my piano at home.
37:32
So yeah, thanks a lot for the great camera setup today for filming this.
37:35
So if you're watching today's episode of the podcast, thanks for doing so on
37:38
the Event Industry News website or on YouTube.
37:40
Please don't forget to go in the opposite direction and make sure that you subscribe
37:44
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37:49
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37:52
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37:55
please make sure that you go in the opposite direction and make sure that you've
37:58
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38:03
And also while you're there, make sure that you check out the supplier directory.
38:06
The A to Z supplier directory over on eventindustrynews.com is where you can
38:10
go to find any product, service, or supplier that you may need for your event,
38:14
which brings us neatly and nicely to the end of today's episode.
38:17
My thanks once again to my guest, Andy Jeffries, and we'll see you on the next
38:20
edition of the Event Industry News Podcast.