Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / Confex 2026 Live: The Training Department’s Hands-On Route Into Corporate Event Production

Transcript

Confex 2026 Live: The Training Department’s Hands-On Route Into Corporate Event Production · Event Industry News Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everybody and welcome to the Event Industry News podcast with me James
• 0:04
  Dixon wishing all a very good morning afternoon or evening wherever or
• 0:08
  whenever you join today's podcast from and as you can see I'm not in my usual
• 0:13
  home sat at an upright piano in my living room which is where I usually
• 0:17
  record these podcasts. I'm in a lovely Evolution Dome structure live from their
• 0:24
  exhibition stand at Confex 2026 here at Excel in London. We're on day two of the
• 0:30
  show here and a big thanks first of all to Ash and all the team at Evolution
• 0:35
  Dome for letting us hijack their lovely little inflatable pod here to record
• 0:41
  some of our podcasts at Confex today. So yeah great to be here great to be back
• 0:46
  out on the road and great to take advantage of the fact that we've got
• 0:50
  some you know event people well event people everywhere frankly today and
• 0:55
  talking a little bit first of all to kick off our first recording of the day
• 0:58
  about training and development in the industry. Events like this particularly
• 1:04
  on day two actually it's quite apt are often the days when students people
• 1:08
  coming into the industry are able to come to shows like this and visit and
• 1:13
  talk to exhibitors talk to professionals do a bit of networking so
• 1:17
  it won't be uncommon for us to sort of have a walk around the show floor today
• 1:20
  and maybe see some of those people and my guests today are going to be talking
• 1:25
  a little bit about that that subject and people finding their way into the
• 1:29
  industry training and development. First of all we've got Fran Starkey just to my
• 1:33
  right. Fran a very good morning to you. Good morning James how are you? Not too bad at
• 1:37
  all thank you very much thanks for being here. Fran is the head of talent
• 1:40
  development and producer is the job title. Joe Chilvers is to my right as well.
• 1:45
  So Joe good morning and you are the founder both from the
• 1:50
  production department and the training department. You tell me Fran
• 1:53
  let's kick off first of all where you guys from? Absolutely so obviously we're
• 1:56
  from the production department and the training department. The production
• 2:01
  department is a flexible resource agency that works with all of the big agencies
• 2:05
  across the globe to deliver events and the training department is our new
• 2:09
  initiative that we launched at the end of last year to get new people into the
• 2:13
  industry and we've launched a series of nine training courses for corporate
• 2:17
  production management specifically. Specifically for corporate production
• 2:21
  management quite a niche sector there I say niche it's a huge sector financially
• 2:27
  Joe but in the realms of sort of the wider events industry that's a very
• 2:30
  specific marketplace to concentrate on why the thinking? Yeah because I
• 2:34
  don't think there is anything else like this in the industry events industry
• 2:37
  which focuses on the corporate market. The corporate market takes up quite a
• 2:41
  huge percentage of the event overall spend especially for UK but globally as
• 2:47
  well and actually there's so much which is incorporated in corporate events
• 2:51
  it's huge it can be a music festival it can be a hospitality at sporting events
• 2:58
  it can be a conference but it also can be a big exhibition stand or it could be
• 3:02
  putting up 20 inflatable rooms in an exhibition centre. You're
• 3:09
  absolutely right to highlight that because now I'm familiar with corporate
• 3:12
  events I was working on one yesterday it was for a pharmaceutical company it was
• 3:16
  very much as well a corporate conference daytime for senior managers but I've
• 3:20
  also done evening events so Christmas parties and things like that and I guess
• 3:24
  for some younger people Fran who are coming into the events industry and who
• 3:28
  see there I say at the music festival the music side of things and say I'd
• 3:33
  love to work in events sometimes the corporate sector might not seem
• 3:37
  immediately as the most sort of glamorous thing that they want to get
• 3:40
  into but the reality is is that for a lot of people that's really where the
• 3:43
  bread and butter of making a living in the industry can be. Exactly and I think
• 3:47
  it's it's a really exciting place to be and we often get this when we're
• 3:53
  speaking to students that are looking for that next role that next job they
• 3:56
  want to do those sexy music festivals but actually corporate as Joe mentioned
• 4:00
  before like it is so varied you get to do all of that you know the Cisco live
• 4:04
  party is enormous it's huge it's still got that music element it's got corporate
• 4:08
  stands and actually some of the most of the time the corporates are the ones
• 4:11
  where that new technology is kind of tested and delivered first so you know
• 4:16
  it's it's really really varied so it's definitely an area that you should consider.
• 4:20
  Yeah absolutely how's the the structure of the course going to manifest itself
• 4:24
  Joe? So it's on a module basis so we've designed it so people can learn whilst
• 4:30
  they work as well it's it's what we're trying to do is reduce the barrier to
• 4:35
  entry as best we can and whether that's a transition from university into the
• 4:41
  corporate event market or completely fresh straight into the corporate event
• 4:45
  market our aim is to actually educate people and build a community for them to
• 4:49
  thrive so it's all a symbiotic relationship and that's why we've got
• 4:53
  partnerships with people like illusion with creative technology we've just
• 4:57
  signed one with the Excel Center to be our training training partner as well so
• 5:01
  everyone's on board to actually start bringing everyone into this industry and
• 5:05
  start setting the standard as we go forward. Is there a criticism of more
• 5:09
  academic institutions in the events industry that they offer very good
• 5:15
  academic pathways from a theoretical standpoint but very limited connection
• 5:20
  with the actual hands-on events industry is this you know part of the reason to
• 5:24
  drive courses like this? Absolutely and I think that's you know not to discredit
• 5:28
  obviously academic institutions at all because they do a fantastic job and give
• 5:32
  some of those foundational skills but actually what we're trying to do is
• 5:34
  deliver more hands-on immersive training which is based more in real life real
• 5:40
  world situations in specifically in corporate production management there
• 5:43
  isn't really many courses out there or if any that really focus on what we do
• 5:47
  as production managers in that particular space but so yeah so
• 5:52
  absolutely that's what we're trying to do is bridge that gap between what
• 5:54
  you've learned at an institution yeah into into real world practice. And there's
• 6:00
  in wider education now that there's there's always continued
• 6:05
  talk of vocational learning there's it will take a huge overhaul to change it
• 6:11
  permanently and in the manner that I think a lot of people would want to see
• 6:15
  it changed but I think it's fair to say that there is a generalized thinking now
• 6:19
  in education that obviously not every young person is going to be conditioned
• 6:22
  for the traditional academic pathways and over the last 20 years we've
• 6:27
  probably seen more vocational opportunities come into present
• 6:31
  themselves as opportunities for young people and I know that I work as a
• 6:35
  freelancer doing production in the events industry and I've been doing that
• 6:39
  for 16 years this year and everything that I did yesterday on my job I
• 6:43
  probably learned at some point on a job in the last 16 years I have got bit of a
• 6:48
  live music background I love playing musical instruments and plug-in
• 6:52
  amplifiers and stuff in when I was a teenager so I had like a basic
• 6:56
  understanding of that but a lot of my learning came later and on the job so
• 7:00
  this strikes me as a real opportunity to take advantage some of those young
• 7:03
  people who've got that desire to want to be hands-on and learn and give them the
• 7:07
  opportunity to do so. Yeah I think it's twofold really because you've got people
• 7:11
  who are hands-on and want to be able to educate themselves and move into an
• 7:16
  industry that which frankly they probably didn't know about yeah so we're
• 7:19
  trying to do that but we're also trying to build that network for them but
• 7:23
  yourself you freelance production manager not only you've probably learned
• 7:27
  that experience over that 16 years that work probably came from your network as
• 7:32
  well so we're trying to give access to people as well so we run we're running
• 7:36
  tonight we're running our supply first supplier night with TSL so that's about
• 7:40
  bringing new people who have signed up for the course and coming them
• 7:43
  introduce them to the right suppliers and bigger group of production managers
• 7:46
  so we're building networks for them we're building that education and giving
• 7:50
  them a pathway into our industry. And it's gonna be great you know when I
• 7:54
  think about any job that I've done I can you can trace it back can't you yeah
• 7:58
  kind of go oh yeah I did that job for them because they knew that person and I
• 8:02
  did that for them and they have to be doing a venue walk around when I was
• 8:05
  working for somebody else and you can kind of in this industry really sort of
• 8:08
  trace your pathway back not just you know for the last few jobs but I can do
• 8:13
  mine for years and years and it's exciting to think that you've got young
• 8:17
  people maybe coming into these things that in 10 years time can trace their
• 8:20
  pathway back to this. Absolutely I think so it's really good I still remember my
• 8:24
  mentor when I first came in about 20 years ago and she taught me everything I
• 8:28
  knew about events and I still use that now today and I think that's what we're
• 8:32
  trying to do is give those foundation skills that those foundation level
• 8:35
  skills are so important and when you've got the basis for that anything you can
• 8:39
  do you know on the job as you say you get different jobs they're so varied but
• 8:45
  you always go back to those foundation level skills. Yeah and what when we talk
• 8:49
  about foundation level skills what sort of person are you looking for let's look
• 8:54
  at actually some of the criteria is there an age specific first of all the
• 8:57
  course? No not age specific and we've been asked this question a lot especially
• 9:00
  with people who are career switchers people who actually look at our
• 9:04
  industry and go actually I fancy doing that what's my barrier to entry and we
• 9:07
  speak to them so actually don't let that hold you back you can absolutely come
• 9:12
  into this industry at any age all you really need is a can-do attitude and as
• 9:17
  long as you've got that everything else can be taught obviously attention to
• 9:22
  detail helps. You've got to be a certain type of person haven't you? Yes you have but I think ultimately you have to be that it's got to be driven by
• 9:30
  passion this industry isn't about a career without passion it's about
• 9:36
  actually I love this industry and everyone we work with has that in them
• 9:41
  they whilst yes they may work much more than the 40 hours of a standard work
• 9:46
  week for most of the population but not one of them complain about that they go
• 9:50
  actually I just love what I do. Yeah I forget the exact statistic but I
• 9:57
  remember reading a few years ago about how young people today particularly
• 10:02
  graduates you know typical graduate age 21 22 years old coming into the
• 10:06
  workplace now the days of people having a job for like 25 30 years have gone
• 10:13
  that those careers do exist but the way that young people are nowadays just
• 10:18
  because of their attention spans and things like that I think there's a
• 10:20
  statistic that most people you know will have X amount of jobs be it 10 or a
• 10:24
  dozen jobs in their lifetime does that affect your way of thinking at all when
• 10:28
  you're planning a course like this do you do you have to consider what sort of
• 10:32
  social trends may be in place with young people? To a degree but I think actually
• 10:36
  in this industry it's careers aren't it's not like a ladder it's more like a
• 10:41
  climbing wall you're going you're moving across you're going up you're down
• 10:44
  backwards horizontally before you kind of keep moving up so I think actually you
• 10:50
  know Joe mentioned it some of these courses are aimed at yes the newbies but
• 10:53
  also career switchers people that have got some events knowledge but kind of
• 10:57
  just want to go in a slightly different direction so we do take that into into
• 11:01
  account for sure but these are foundation level skills so actually it's
• 11:05
  the bread and butter it's the it's the basis of which you can then jump on and
• 11:09
  I think I actually sort of slightly disagree because I think I think the
• 11:14
  events industry is a career for life because there's so many opportunities
• 11:17
  within it and you could come in you can come in as local crew and be a exec
• 11:23
  producer in 22 completely different roles but because you've got that and
• 11:27
  you learn what an event is or you can be a managing director or you can be an
• 11:31
  account manager or you can be all of these things which are completely
• 11:34
  different which align with your life as you go through one thing we do at the
• 11:39
  production department is is support all of our staff if they have kids and
• 11:44
  whatever we got right here's a new role for you and this might be for not your
• 11:49
  ideal for the next couple of years but it's something that will keep you
• 11:52
  employed and keep you busy and keep your your foot in so when you're ready
• 11:55
  you can then come back in and start in the events industry on-site all the fun
• 12:01
  all the locations etc etc so yeah yeah what stage in the course do you tell
• 12:07
  people to be prepared for long hours day one busy week not seeing daylight
• 12:12
  sometimes four or five six days on and we do we do a first module we go we'll
• 12:18
  just we're in a live event announcement a live event announcement situation
• 12:25
  everybody this is somebody parked illegally it sounds like a registration
• 12:32
  and I hope it's not me there's another thing that nobody ever told you is is if
• 12:37
  you can speak even remotely clearly at some point on an event somebody will say
• 12:42
  can you quickly get that mic and do an announcement yeah I'm lucky I've got a
• 12:46
  South East London accent so I never get that so to your question where we set
• 13:02
  the outline from day one so we do a first free to attend module which I
• 13:06
  explain what an agency is what the event corporate event industry is what an
• 13:11
  event agency is where they come in where the clients come in and generally what
• 13:14
  to expect and even go through wage scales from from a full-time roles to
• 13:20
  freelance pay scales etc just to really set that tone from the outset of we're
• 13:25
  open and honest this is what it is yes it's hard work but it's so so
• 13:30
  rewarding that I speak to school dads on school runs and they go what do you do
• 13:35
  and I say this is what I do and I go wow I sit at a desk yeah yeah I mean there
• 13:43
  is that thing about it you know I love doing what I'm doing I work on my own
• 13:47
  boss and it's taken me a long time to get to a stage where I'm comfortable
• 13:53
  and there's work in the diary all the time but I love doing different things
• 13:57
  every day that's one of the main reasons I love working this industry the
• 14:00
  challenge of doing what I'm doing I'm recording podcasts today tomorrow I'm
• 14:04
  looking at some venues for another event yesterday I was working as a PM for a
• 14:08
  for a conference so every day is different and part that's part the
• 14:12
  challenge for me and why I would get absolutely bored and I guess that that's
• 14:17
  probably a common thing amongst anybody who works in this industry is that they
• 14:20
  they like that different challenge every day they don't want the mundane nature
• 14:24
  of going into the same job every day I think from a from production department
• 14:27
  perspective our retention rate is phenomenal it's up in a 90% and we've
• 14:33
  been operating five years people who started with us employee number one is
• 14:36
  still with us for example although it's a contentious issue because someone else
• 14:41
  thinks they're employee number one and I think that's attributed to the variety
• 14:53
  that we're able to offer yeah because we're able to go okay to tomorrow you're
• 14:57
  going to Amsterdam to do this next week you're going off to work in this car
• 15:01
  park next week after that you can go in this exhibition center and every single
• 15:07
  one is a challenge it's something to go oh how do I do this and we're there to
• 15:12
  support them and nurture them to help them grow I'm curious to ask about the
• 15:16
  sort of the structure of the course and whether or not is it entirely fixed so
• 15:20
  it's the same for everybody or do they reach certain point where they can
• 15:23
  choose sort of certain pathways how is the actual course structured well the
• 15:28
  course itself is it's modular based so you'll have for example one on
• 15:32
  fundamentals in audio-visual which we run with creative technology yeah so if
• 15:36
  they're sort of day workshops they can be done independently but actually if
• 15:39
  you do all of them there's nine across the whole piece the idea being coming
• 15:43
  it idea being is that as you do all nine of them you can come out almost at the
• 15:47
  level of a junior production manager knowing kind of everything you need to
• 15:50
  know yeah so it's it's it's you know horses for courses there's that you can
• 15:55
  just go and zone in on a particular element that you want or you can do the
• 15:59
  whole lot and I think just where it comes to when you talk about
• 16:02
  university so some of the university degrees from my experience really
• 16:06
  concentrate on a project management side of things give a little bit of a
• 16:09
  foundational level and then we're there to supplement that so in an ideal world
• 16:14
  and we're going through the process at the moment of being able to get the
• 16:17
  whole bank of modules accredited so you can then become a in our eyes training
• 16:24
  department accredited junior production manager so we're working with different
• 16:29
  agencies to try and see if they're beyond a board of accreditors working
• 16:33
  with a continued professional development point system and then
• 16:37
  actually get this accredited we're here to help set that standard of the
• 16:40
  industry that's an interesting point to raise because this industry is built on
• 16:45
  on freelancers isn't it it's built on people who job from place to place and
• 16:49
  in some respects you get jobs because people know and trust you
• 16:56
  that they've been recommended from somewhere else but for people if you
• 16:59
  were just going in cold to a new client there's not really much to actually
• 17:03
  dictate or say or give it some sort of guarantee or vouch for you that you've
• 17:07
  got a certain level of training and experience that gives you the
• 17:13
  credibility and the qualification I suppose in a way to actually do that job
• 17:16
  so actually it is the intention to to project to the wider events industry
• 17:21
  this qualification when people see it they think how we can trust that person
• 17:24
  absolutely yeah it's also about giving those people the opportunity to do that
• 17:27
  like you say because it is so based on reputation and networking it's actually
• 17:32
  really difficult to break into the industry in the first place and so this
• 17:35
  course will absolutely help do that and give you a first foot in the door and
• 17:39
  you know because we're doing not just training it's that social community
• 17:43
  aspect we're also then helping people network and find opportunities and jobs
• 17:47
  and that's what we're committed to doing yeah in some respects it's a classic
• 17:51
  chicken-and-egg situation because people in people want people with experience
• 17:55
  but you can only get experience if somebody takes a chance on you and gives
• 17:58
  you a job which is for a young person and that's why you often maybe see I
• 18:03
  didn't come into the industry properly until I was 30 years old I'd already had
• 18:06
  you know a career doing advertising and marketing and other stuff and and I came
• 18:11
  into it by accident by helping some people on a job doing a little bit of
• 18:16
  media stuff and then the next year it was well can you do this but can you
• 18:19
  also do that and then the next year can you also do this and take on a bit more
• 18:23
  and it and it evolved from there so I'd have loved to I've no regrets but I'd
• 18:28
  love to be able to sort of rewind 25 years and something like this be
• 18:32
  available yeah so somebody can really read it and go oh that really speaks to
• 18:37
  me because another point then how are you kind of promoting this how are you
• 18:41
  hoping that young people see and find out so we've been working with various
• 18:44
  different bodies so we worked last year with production futures we're now
• 18:49
  working with the elevate mentoring program we're sponsoring one member of
• 18:52
  the next-gen program within the elevate mentoring program to come in with
• 18:57
  sponsoring their mates we're working with all the different agencies that we
• 19:01
  work with anyway from from the production department so we're really
• 19:04
  trying to get these people in and then we're promoting and promoting and
• 19:08
  promoting we're just trying to get get as many people in as possible our aim is
• 19:12
  to I think it's 20 for this year to get through the courses it's a big ask I'm
• 19:17
  not gonna lie but as we as we grow we'll continue to do that we're working on
• 19:21
  online modules as well so we can actually reduce the barrier to entry as
• 19:26
  you probably now is a good time that we're we've released in a code which is
• 19:30
  EPS 200 which EPS 200 we'll put that in the description below the point as well
• 19:36
  which is 200 pound off each module as you as you go so it's a nice good 50% off
• 19:42
  for anyone attending just on the financial aspect of it then is there an
• 19:46
  opportunity for people who might be because you said there's no age limit on
• 19:49
  it restrictive as such so is it possible that you will explore the option of
• 19:56
  companies effectively sponsoring staff to come on this might have done what I've
• 20:00
  done which is just learned on the job but now they're going to go back and get
• 20:03
  some actually qualified experience that's exactly what we're seeing a lot
• 20:05
  of agencies doing that they're getting their junior members of staffing there
• 20:08
  I was with a group of young founders yesterday last night who were up for
• 20:13
  sponsoring people to do the whole course individuals as an industry the more and
• 20:18
  more people I speak to the more and more people like yeah I mean I'll invest I'll
• 20:22
  invest because exactly your experience James everyone wanted this years ago so
• 20:27
  why hasn't it be done I don't know EPS 200 is the code where do they need to go
• 20:33
  how do they sort of find out about you let's start giving up so go to the
• 20:39
  training depth dot live and we'll make sure we put that in the if you go on
• 20:44
  there you can see all nine courses that are available the next one coming up is
• 20:48
  the end-to-end event management done here at the Excel on the 26th of March
• 20:53
  and so yeah come and join and let's just clarify that the training depths that
• 20:57
  would be DEPT at the end of the training DEPT dot live. Someone nick the training department.
• 21:05
  They'll crop up in a years time and we'll sell you this. It's going to cost a lot of money I'm sure.
• 21:12
  We'll need somebody to sponsor that and find a company that's willing to back that one.
• 21:16
  Thanks very much my guests today Fran Starkey and Joe Chilvers and as I said all the links and bits of
• 21:22
  information that the guys are giving out today will be in the description and
• 21:25
  stuff underneath today's podcast if you're watching the video version you
• 21:29
  may of course be tuned into the audio version of this podcast today if you
• 21:33
  have thank you very much for doing so and listening to us today please
• 21:36
  remember to like and subscribe wherever you're listening to this from whether
• 21:39
  it's on Spotify or Apple podcasts and if you are listening please do remember to
• 21:44
  take a few minutes to head over to eventindustrynews.com where you can find
• 21:48
  the video versions of all of our podcasts and if you've listened to this
• 21:52
  today head over to the website so that you can see those links that we've
• 21:55
  spoken about today and check the guys out so it just remains for me to say
• 21:59
  thank you once again to our very kind hosts Evolution Dome to Ash Austin and
• 22:03
  all the team at Evo Dome we're on their stand at Confex 2026 in one of their
• 22:09
  lovely little inflatable meeting pods so do check those guys out just search
• 22:12
  Evolution Dome and look at some of the amazing structures and inflatable stuff
• 22:16
  that they do fantastic great to use modular stuff I mean they're funky aren't
• 22:21
  they to record a podcast and yeah thanks very much for everybody for
• 22:26
  tuning in today and we'll see you soon goodbye