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From Solo Grind to Team Hustle: Inside Hippo Events with Steve Catling · Event Industry News Podcast

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Hello everybody, welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast
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with me, James Dixon, wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon, or evening whenever
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or wherever you tune into today's podcast from. And having
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had what I would say are a few framed episodes recently where
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we've had very sort of specific things that we wanted to, to talk about,
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messages to get across, which is great, um, I feel like today's episode
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is going to be a bit more of that kind of relaxed general event industry
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chat as we get to know my guest in a little bit more detail.
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Somebody who's not been on the podcast before, but I'm delighted to say, having had
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sort of a couple of minutes off air, I sense it's going to be quite
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a nice, steady, easy conversation. We're going to find out a little bit more about
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them. My guest today is Steve Catling. Steve is from Hippo Events,
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joins us with a very fancy looking headset from a very nice location.
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Steve, first of all, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so
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much for having me. I really appreciate it. And, uh, yes, steady and easy conversation,
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I'm all for. Love it. Uh, we were having the— a
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great sort of, you know, kind of a little off-air chat recently and chuck— uh,
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just before we came on today, just chuckling about, um, you know, 6 years
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on from us all diving into video links and video conferencing
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and it, you know, en masse, and still witnessing the
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people looking around the screen looking at which button do I push and
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how do I get my microphone on and everything. It's,
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it's, it, it, it is brilliant that we, we can still chuckle a little
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bit about stuff like this. But yeah, well,
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welcome along. Um, and yeah,
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I'm really pleased that we get a chance to just have a chat with somebody
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and find out about them because I was talking on, on an episode that I
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recorded earlier on today that may well have already gone out about the value of,
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you know, connections in the events industry. And I was actually talking to,
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um, one of the people behind IBTM Ignite, a kind of
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startup program that runs at IBTM World in Barcelona
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this year that helps to to sort of, you know, give startup companies in the
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events industry a pitch and an opportunity to pitch for investment funding. But we
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were sort of stressing the importance of connections in industry. So I always love sort
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of meeting new people and finding out a little bit about them. Tell us about
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yourself first of all, Steve. Who are you? What's your background in the industry?
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Well, firstly, I completely agree. And by the way, I think any help for startups
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is amazing because yeah, I've been there. So I
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know exactly how difficult it is and connections in our industry
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is everything. Relationships are everything, and, you know,
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we preach about that all the time. But, um, but yes, so, um, I am
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the owner and director of Hippo Events. Um,
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my background was working, um, well, I've been in the industry
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15, 16 years or so now. Um, so started
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initially, uh, working for a company running some Christmas parties, um, moved to
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the agency side of things Um, for a good couple of years and got
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that kind of foundation knowledge, um, ended up working
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on the corporate side of things, um, at Lloyds Banking Group. Wow.
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Um, as well. So kind of that, you know, 18 months or
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so there was just absolutely incredible
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in terms of the knowledge and the absolute foundation that I started Hippo on,
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um, in 2018. Um, so just
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kind of got to the point where I was like, right, which route do I
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want to take my career? Where do I want to go?
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And fundamentally, I love people, I love events,
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and I love to be challenged. So there is no greater challenge than starting
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your own company, basically. So yeah, as we
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say, any help for startups, I'm all for.
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And it's so often I get the privilege of speaking
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to people who have got a background similar to one that you've just described.
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You know, they've gone agency, they've gone corporate, they've worked in-house,
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and it is such a great foundation for then starting your
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own, you know, anything that's event production or agency related.
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Having had the experience that you've just described there really does put you
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on a good footing for that because you probably worked on events big
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and small, you know, conventions, conferences, uh,
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team building, more social events. You've probably covered every spectrum
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in that experience leading up to Hippo Events and no doubt looked at it and
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thought, actually, I could maybe not just do this but use that experience
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to improve on it. Exactly, yes, spot on. I think, you know,
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understanding things from a client's point of view has been fundamental
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to the way that we do things at Hippo as well. You know, you learn,
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you don't quite understand the processes, procedures,
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management of the internal stakeholders, all of that that you kind of sit
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on the agency side and be like, What's taking so long? Why can't you just
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make a decision? And now you've been on the other side, you're like,
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oh, I get it. I understand. I'm much more sympathetic.
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I understand the pain that you've got to go through just to be able to
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get the answer of XYZ. So yeah,
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the sub-management committee meeting are meeting next week
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to decide what should they go on to the main management committee meeting at the
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end of the month. You'll give us approximately 6 and a half years to come
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back to you on whether or not we'd like blue tablecloths or
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white tablecloths. Exactly, spot on. Exactly, exactly. And even,
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even down to just raising a PO, like, apparently it's not simple. So,
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uh, so yeah, things like that. It's, um, oh, I, I've been, I've been there
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with, with clients, you know, talking about sort of pain points, you know. Oh,
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we've noticed that, you know, I, I am, I am a sole trader, not a
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limited company, so it's largely irrelevant what I put on my invoice or what
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you put on your PO as long as my name's on there, you know.
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You could call me, you know, it's Squirrel, you know, Squirrel and Monkey
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Productions, and it wouldn't make one jot really from a legal point of view.
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But, you know, I've had, I've had POs get clogged in
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the system because, oh well, we noticed that, uh,
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you've put AV support, but what you actually did was some technical production.
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And yeah, exactly, no, spot on,
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exactly. Sometimes it's got to be like line for line identical wording,
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all the rest of it, and others are a lot more relaxed.
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So it totally, totally depends. Yeah. What was,
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um, you before you I'm always curious
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to hear what people's journeys are like and stories are like at the inception and
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the infancy of their businesses. When you started Hippo Events, did you have
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events lined up or did you very much start it and then have to begin
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the process of pitching to companies? You know, what was that, those sort of initial,
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I guess, you know, 3 to 6 months like of actually operating
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your own business? Yeah, it's— I'm not gonna lie, it was difficult.
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Like, you— I mean, I didn't start with a long client list of events
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that I'd you know, stoked up for 6 months beforehand.
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And I pretty much started cold and had to pitch for any work,
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which is quite difficult when you're saying you have to believe in me,
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not the company, because the company has no history, which is quite
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difficult in itself. You know, some clients need 3 years' worth of accounts and you're
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going, I'm really sorry, I can't provide you with that, but if you just trust
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me, you know. Yeah. So it's essentially you're selling yourself
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but as a limited company, I guess, in a way.
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But honestly, it's just grind. It's calling,
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it's sending emails, it's as much as you possibly can
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do to just generate as much interest in your company
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as you possibly can. It's hard work.
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I literally, in my first couple of months, I joined the Surrey Chamber
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of Commerce and called the entire list
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of members, which was hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds,
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because I was like, this is a way in. This is a ready-made list of,
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you know, companies I can go, hi, I'm local, I'm down the road.
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So yeah, it's, it's difficult, you know, but you've got to be creative. You've got
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to put in the hard work, and if you do, you will get the rewards
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of it. And I, I found, you know,
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working in this industry, I, I, you know, registered as self-employed in September
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2010, so I'm exactly 16 years into my, my life as
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a freelancer. And congratulations as a freelancer in this industry.
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And, and, you know, it's funny, I can take any job
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that I've ever done and I can do the kind of the Kevin Bacon,
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you know, join it in 6, you know, 6 steps.
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I can go, right, well, I got that job because I met so-and-so
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on that job and they had done this on this and we'd worked together on
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that. It's funny how you can just— I think there's only sort of one,
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one customer that I, I still work for today that has ever come completely
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cold, do you know what I mean, from me, from me responding to a post
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that they put on LinkedIn, actually. Yeah, bizarrely, I think, you know, everything else I
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can kind of trace. Well, I'm sure you're probably the
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same, you know, as much as you canvassed, but, you know, you'll look back
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now and go, right, well, everything kind of links. Yeah, exactly. That's just the spot
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on. I mean, word of mouth is the most powerful sales tool, right? Because you're
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getting, you know, they're passing your information on to somebody else and it's already somebody's
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verified you're good, you're really good, that you're being recommended. Give him a
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call, he's trusted already, all the rest of it. So a lot
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of it comes through recommendations and anything
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cold that we get, and we actually get quite a lot nowadays,
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but initially in the kind of those early stages, it was a lot
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of recommendations. And it's converting those and it's building that relationship
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beyond just necessarily, hi, I'm Steve,
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would you like to do an event? What event would you like? It's just building
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that deeper connection with people.
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And I think that makes a huge difference. And like
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I say, fundamentally, it's what the business, what Hippo is based on, is just
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having that insanely strong connection with our clients that goes above and
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beyond constantly. I've often asked event agencies,
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organizers, production companies, did you go into
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it wanting to sort of specialize or focus in one particular niche or area
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or industry that you feel strong in? I guess the better
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question to ask maybe while we've got you on today is, can you afford as
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a company like yours to turn business away? Can you afford to sort
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of say we would like to go down this route and do this? Do you
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work for, you know, any manner of events in all shapes and sizes?
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It's such a good question and such a good topic because there are so
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many arguments for and against, right? Because you
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could say on one hand don't refuse any business because
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even the small jobs can turn into big jobs eventually. And we've done
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that as well. Yeah, yeah. You know, literally a venue find which makes us £50
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commission has turned into £30,000 clients, you know, that kind of
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thing. But on the other hand, nowadays, now we've
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got bigger as a company, we're a team of
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5 now. We obviously, it was just myself in the beginning.
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The past couple of years, in the past 2 years, we've kind of grown from
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just me to a team of 5. So I've kind of push the accelerator on
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that front. But it's allowed us to be— I don't want to say picky,
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it's not picky at all, but it's more just, I guess, selective, um,
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or smarter in the way that we do things necessarily. And yeah,
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that we can now not necessarily turn away business, but perhaps
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work it in a slightly different form than what I otherwise would have done.
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Yeah, and it's just a one-man band. I found it important not to
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not to overstretch yourself. As easy as it is to say, yes, I can
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do that and I have a space in my diary, you understand
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after a period of time of doing it that actually, you know, it's not just
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are you available on that day, it's have you got the half day, the half
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day, the half day before that to do that prep, to respond to those emails,
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to do things like that. And I've always been sort
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of not careful in that respect, but you know, not to overstretch
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yourself because then you end up in this, in the scenario of, you know,
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underpromising, overpromising and underdelivering. Yeah,
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exactly, spot on. And I think, um, I was guilty of being
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in— well, I still am, to be honest— being a workaholic, um,
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where when it was just myself, I was working quite
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literally 7 days a week, 12-hour days,
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just to be able to service the inquiries, um,
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because You know, like I say, it's not just doing the job, it's doing it
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really, really well. Um, so,
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but I burnt out, I'm not gonna lie. It just got to the point where
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I was like, there needs to be a conscious decision here of, is this just
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me or am I trying to grow a company? Like, what is, what is
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the aim here? Because I started it, like I say,
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because I love running events and I wanted to be the maker of my own
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destiny and didn't really particularly think anything past that.
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Um, and then when you start, you know, falling asleep at your desk in the
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middle of the day, you start realizing, okay, something needs to change here, doesn't it?
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You know, yeah, yeah. When you have a beanbag with a nap, you know,
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in the corner for a power nap at 2 o'clock.
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So it, it, it is so true. Um,
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one thing I guess that, that what that will lead me on to asking,
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and I wanted to ask today, was about not just building
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the client base and building a client network of people you're doing business
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with. But even as a team of 5, presumably there will be events
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that you are working on as Hippo Events that 5 people— it's just impossible for
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5 people to actually deliver that on-site. So no doubt you will have a
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supplier network. How important is developing those supplier
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relationships as a business like yours and a network of people that you can work
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alongside as and when you choose? Because that supply chain in the events
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industry is talked about so often and it is so important. You're spot
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on, exactly. But, and I think that's so important for a team of our size
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where, you know, at times we do need to scale up, scale down.
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For example, next week we're doing an event at Wembley Stadium and we've got
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10 people on site. You know, we've only got a team of 5 in-house,
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so we've got a team of trusted freelancers essentially
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that we bring on, um, who know us, align with
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our values as a company I've seen, tried, tested them on site
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essentially at other events for these bigger events.
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And, you know, and they are a representation of Hippo
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at the end of the day. And just because they're not in the office 5
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days a week, I like to make them feel as much of the team as
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everybody else. And that's, you know, the pre-event
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briefing them, having calls with them, so they're not just turning up on the day
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going, I don't know anything that I'm doing. It's bringing them into
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the involvement of the organization a little bit earlier so
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they can feel part of the team on the day, which I think is so
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important. No, absolutely. From a learning point of view
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as well, something I wanted to ask you about today is,
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you know, how much ongoing, you know, and continued learning there
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has to be done running an event like your— a business like yours, because you'll
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have clients who see things happening in other events as well coming to
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you with ideas. Oh, we saw this happening, can you make that happen at our
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event? There's this platform here, you know, even going back to what we were joking
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about at the start of this conversation of video conferencing, you know, how many events
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now since 2020 say, oh look, one of the keynote speakers can't join us,
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so we're going to dial them in and we'd like them on the screen.
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All of those things require a certain amount of learning to take place. You have
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to stay familiar with it and you have to almost know
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it better than anybody else. So there's— people sometimes forget how
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much time you've got to invest as a business like yours in just staying up
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to date with stuff. Spot on. And that is almost a full-time job in itself,
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right? Like, literally, you could be at an industry event every single night,
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which is the beauty of our industry, but it's finding the time
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to, you know, attend the exhibitions, network at events,
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go see venues. And for us, we,
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as the team's grown, we kind of identified that quite
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early where we realized that actually we're sat there doing emails all the
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time, you know, or if not out on site delivering an
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event. So I introduced something called a continuous education
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program. So each one of the team has certain KPIs
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throughout the year, and one of those KPIs is to do with continuous improvement,
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which means that they have to go to a certain number of networking events
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or industry trade shows or research articles and present it
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to the team in our team meetings every Tuesday morning. You know,
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a new idea, a new concept, a new activation, something along those lines,
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because we have to be at the forefront. We have to be turning around
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to our clients and going, this is new, this is cool, and this
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is gonna make your event stand out. That's our job fundamentally.
17:05
Yeah, absolutely. And if I may, I've got
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a sort of a recent example I'm just gonna sort of throw out there,
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'cause I'm sure you'll have, you know, 100 more of these of what I'm about
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to say. But I was running
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a small conference last week up in the Northeast, up in Durham,
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and in a hotel, and 2 delegates
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walked through the door and they gave me their name names, and,
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uh, they were both deaf.
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Yeah. And nobody told me that in advance. Yeah.
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And they said, was there some way of us to engage
17:40
with what's happening today? And it was a fairly sort of what I call commoner
17:43
garden, you know, 101 conference. A room
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with some exhibitors in and 6-foot trestle tables, and a room with a, a conference
17:51
agenda and a screen and a projector and a lectern.
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And by good fortune, because I've
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worked with a lot of tech platforms, I've got a subscription to a tech
18:03
platform that does closed captioning technology and interpretation. And literally,
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I carry a spare laptop, a spare iPad just in case,
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and within 5 minutes I'd plugged one cable from a mixer into
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a laptop, set the thing running, launched it on the iPad,
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given them an iPad with some closed captions on. And within 5
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minutes, we had 2 very happy delegates who were able to follow the day in
18:25
its entirety on closed captions. And better
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yet, give them a full transcript of the day to take home with them by
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exporting it. And it's little tools like that. You've made a difference
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to 2 people. But I think, you know, just that ongoing learning.
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And as I said, I'm sure you've probably got 100 examples.
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No, honestly, that is— James, if you need a job, just let me know because
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that is exactly the kind of thing, you know.
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And that's why we stay at the forefront, because you've turned
18:54
essentially somebody turning up and going, oh my God,
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you know, why am I even here, I'm not going to take anything, to having
19:01
not just a great experience throughout the day but feeling looked after.
19:05
And, you know, and I'm always talking to clients about what
19:09
the questions we always ask, I guess, the very beginning when we're talking about objectives
19:12
is, you know, what do the clients see, hear, feel, taste,
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and and learn. But feel is my favourite one from
19:20
that because it's— everybody remembers the way an event makes them feel,
19:23
and you made them feel special that day, you know,
19:26
not an outsider. Yeah, and I
19:30
think that's the key. This is where I think some people get
19:34
lost a little bit in budgets and wild ideas
19:39
and, you know, huge elements of
19:43
production. I think when you boil it back down to the basics of it,
19:45
I always liken it to going into a really good restaurant, and forget
19:49
Michelin stars and all the rest of it. Yeah, if you go into a good
19:52
restaurant and you have a nice meal, but if the service is great,
19:55
if you're greeted warmly when you walk in with a smile and a how are
19:59
you and natural conversation, if the service is effortless,
20:02
polite, personal but not intrusive, all of those things that
20:06
everyone will have experienced at some point going to a good restaurant,
20:10
and you walk away going what a great meal. And sometimes it's not necessarily the
20:14
best meal that you've ever had, but you still go what a great meal because
20:18
of the experience. And I think that we overlook that sometimes
20:22
in events and get lost in the budgets and the technical things and how we
20:25
can make it look fancy and all the rest of it. But actually just having
20:29
people there who are willing to go the extra mile on that personal level,
20:33
and I'm sure I get the impression that's very much sort of a driver of
20:36
what you do. 100%, yeah, yeah. And we've got kind of a motto which
20:40
is, the answer is yes, what's the question? Which I think absolutely
20:45
underpins that mentality that you've just described, is,
20:49
okay, so what do you want to achieve? We will make it happen
20:53
in some way, shape, or form. And if you need an LED
20:56
set and stage but you've only got a budget of £5,000,
21:00
well, we'll find you a solution that gives you as much
21:04
of what you need as you possibly want.
21:09
And we'll find a solution in some way,
21:12
shape, or form. And here's an option A, here's an option B, and here's an
21:15
option C to achieve that. So yeah, exactly right.
21:18
It's about the experience that people have. And I genuinely
21:22
believe in that kind of positive attitude. I hate
21:26
it when suppliers turn around to me and just go, no. And I'm like,
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I refuse to do that to our clients where the answer is no.
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It's the answer is yes. Let's make this happen. How much time do
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you genuinely get to debrief post-event with people? Because everyone says
21:40
that they do it, everyone says, oh yes, we have in-depth conversations,
21:43
you know, and I think, you know, the brutal honesty of it is it's never
21:48
quite as in-depth as you'd like it to be because you're always moving on to
21:51
next. But, you know, how does that— what role does that sort of debrief element
21:55
play in your own business? 100%, yeah. I'm not gonna lie, it's like
21:59
an hour on a Teams call that you get with a client fundamentally, right?
22:02
I can't sugarcoat it. I'd love to be able to say we take the out
22:06
for lunch and this and that. I mean, we offer it, but the amount of
22:08
times that they never take it up is a whole different thing.
22:12
So it's about utilizing that one bit of time that
22:16
you've generally got and creating your agenda beforehand, making sure that it's
22:19
transcribed and you're following up with the action points and notes for next
22:24
year if the event repeats. It's actually coming prepared
22:28
because feedback is the hardest thing to get in this industry.
22:31
It's so difficult, and the amount of times that
22:35
we follow up every— whether a venue finder or event management, we follow up every
22:39
single time to go, please give feedback on us, on the venue.
22:42
So difficult to get. Yeah, I don't
22:46
really understand why, but it is. No, you're absolutely right,
22:51
and sometimes, you know, short of beating people around the head with a stick and
22:54
saying, please fill out the feedback form, we've tried to
22:58
make it as easy as possible. It's on a QR code. Yeah, it will take
23:01
you 30 seconds when you're on the train home. Like you said, you know,
23:05
getting feedback, you know, particularly from delegates, you know, and attendees
23:08
that they come, they go. We appreciate that it's
23:12
a day out of their normal job regardless of what event it is they're attending.
23:16
It's a day out of their normal job in whatever industry they work in.
23:19
So I understand that people have time constraints, but, you know,
23:23
it's frustrating, isn't it, when people say, oh,
23:26
that wasn't as good as it could have been as an attendee. Well,
23:30
you came last year and you didn't tell us what we could improve on,
23:33
you know. Exactly. I know. And that's the thing, like, the first thing you with
23:36
any event that's repeated is look back at last year and go, how do we
23:39
improve on this? You know, or look back at the results if you've got them
23:43
to do exactly that. But yeah, you're spot on. I always find the most
23:48
successful feedback that our clients get is when
23:52
they incentivize them in some way, shape, or form. It's amazing what
23:55
a £250 Amazon voucher can do.
24:00
The Amazon voucher has reshaped the
24:04
event landscape in many respects. I've never seen people
24:08
so joyously happy when you go, yes, we've changed the gamification
24:13
this year, it's now £150 Amazon voucher. And everyone goes, what did he say?
24:17
Did he just say £150 Amazon voucher? Oh great, I'm in!
24:21
Exactly, exactly. I know it's, it's bizarre, the human psyche sometimes
24:25
with stuff like that and why it should. And you know, we're both laughing about
24:29
it, but we're laughing about it not because it's, you know, we've been flipping about
24:33
it. It has— I've seen it in any number of events. Amazon voucher.
24:37
Yeah, I'd love to do a poll of the industry. How many Amazon vouchers
24:41
have been purchased in the last 12 months? How much has Amazon done incentivizing
24:45
the events industry and delegates within the events industry? Exactly. I think
24:50
the thing with Amazon, you've always got something you need to buy and you can
24:53
always buy it from Amazon. Well, that they've
24:56
reshaped the landscape of need and want, I think,
25:00
into new things.
25:04
When you look back now, sort of You said you're sort of 15, 16 years,
25:08
you know, in, in, into the business now. Um, have things—
25:12
I'm not going to say panned out as you expected, but I
25:16
look back on my own time of 16 years and I'm in a
25:19
significantly different position than the one I was in at the start.
25:24
But, uh, sort of aligned to that, I'm doing something actually
25:28
different than what I set out to do as a freelancer. Um,
25:32
When you look back on your own time at this point, is it what
25:36
you wanted it to be? Has it shaped itself and evolved in a slightly
25:39
different way over the years? Yeah, I'd say almost I've evolved,
25:43
if you see what I mean, um, with kind of where I was expecting
25:47
or what I wanted, I guess, also out of the industry.
25:51
Because, um, I mean, when I started in it, all I wanted to do was
25:54
run events, um, get as much experience as I could. And then when
25:57
I started Hippo in, like I say, 2018. I just wanted to be the
26:01
maker of my own destiny and run events and have fun, basically.
26:04
But now, over the past 2 to 3 years,
26:08
I've— I'm actually shifting away from the event manager
26:13
Steve and going into the business owner in the events industry Steve,
26:16
which is a very different mindset to have. Yeah,
26:20
a very different day-to-day role. You know, my role generally nowadays
26:24
is to run the business, run the team,
26:27
oversee, rather than doing the day-to-day detail grind emails
26:31
on the events. And that's a very
26:35
different role to being the event manager or the
26:39
event lead, for example. Is that— do you find that difficult sometimes?
26:42
Because obviously your passion would have been being
26:46
hands-on and being front— not front and center, but, you know, very much
26:49
being that first port of call for your clients when it comes to the actual
26:52
operations and the production of the events. Is that a difficult
26:56
position sometimes for you to be in, to actually have to take that step back?
27:00
It is, yeah. It's a funny one. It's been easier than I
27:04
expected it to be, knowing myself before, who was a natural control
27:08
freak like most event managers. It's actually been
27:11
easier than I thought it would be. I still do
27:17
a couple of events each year because I don't want to lose that touch of
27:19
what it's like to organize an event
27:23
I want to almost feel what my, you know, team are feeling on a daily
27:27
basis so I don't forget what it's like. And also just systems,
27:31
processes— are they working? If I'm using them myself, I can, I can see
27:35
whether they're working or not. But fundamentally,
27:38
and this is, this is a shout out to my team, I guess, is they
27:42
are so wonderful that it, it's almost— it's been
27:46
quite easy for me to step back and let them kind of take that role
27:49
because I just have full confidence in what they're doing and I can see
27:53
that the client's being looked after, number one, and they're going above and
27:57
beyond, number two, and the job's getting done really, really well, number three.
28:01
So it's been easier and it's different running
28:04
a business to running an event, but it's also quite similar in the way you've
28:08
still got a forward plan, you've still got to think ahead, you've still got to
28:11
contingency plan and so on and so forth. So in a way, I'm running my
28:14
own event in the business. Yeah. Where are the weak points?
28:18
Where are the blind spots? Where are the, where are the potential banana
28:22
skins where something could go wrong? You know, you are—
28:26
it does share a lot of similarities. It does,
28:29
yeah. And it's, it's— I mean, let's tick that box of constantly wanting to be
28:33
challenged because there's always a challenge in some way, shape, or form.
28:36
And that challenge over the past couple of years has been, you know,
28:39
from that conscious decision of, yes, actually I want to grow this into more
28:43
than just myself, um, has been going through that process and It's not been easy.
28:47
I've learned a lot, made mistakes along
28:51
the way. I'm sure I'll continue to make mistakes along the way,
28:54
but yeah, we're getting there. So it's a learning curve which
28:58
I've really enjoyed actually. But before we sort of start wrapping up,
29:01
I'm keen to ask how sort of
29:05
active you are in the industry itself, because,
29:08
you know, we've talked about, you know, the pitfalls of running a business, how busy
29:12
you have to be to do that. Actually running you know, a busy production and
29:16
events company, but do you actually ever get time to sort of,
29:20
you know, network and go into the industry, meet other companies
29:24
doing what you do, venues? Is that something that is kind of on your radar
29:27
and that you participate in? I'm not gonna lie, I am not nearly
29:31
as good at it as I should be, to be completely honest,
29:34
because my time is so limited,
29:38
I guess. It's something I'm conscious that I
29:42
need to be better at, um, because I'm not out there at these
29:45
networking events getting my face out there, my name out there as much as I
29:49
should be. Um, so that's, that's one of my improvement points,
29:52
let's put it that way. One of my weaknesses, I guess. Same here,
29:55
I'll put my hand up and say the same. You know, I,
29:58
I've in some respects, without sounding self-effacing,
30:03
I, I've said this on the podcast a few times now, really had imposter
30:06
syndrome up until sort of 2 or 3 years ago, whereas a one-man freelancer,
30:10
I think, well, what's the point of me going to one of these trade shows
30:13
or one of the big events in the industry because, you know, what's it actually
30:16
going to bring me, you know? And of course it's a, it's a, it's a
30:20
day out where you're not earning. So you have to— that, that,
30:23
and we shouldn't shy away from that, that, that's a decision you have to make
30:27
as somebody who either runs a business or is self-employed. You have to say,
30:30
well, if I commit to that, not only am I committing to the cost of
30:33
going, but I'm also committing to the cost of not earning that day.
30:37
Um, But, you know, it's only really in the last 2 or 3 years I've
30:41
seen the value of maybe putting myself out there a bit more into the industry
30:45
and, and, and meeting people. And, you know, I'm going down to the Showman Show
30:49
this year for the first time in— I think it's 12 years,
30:52
10 years maybe, since I was last down there. Yeah.
30:55
And it's always clashed with something else, and it's a bit of good fortune,
30:58
a job moved and XYZ. But, you know, I thought, right, okay,
31:01
opportunity to go, let's go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
31:05
and it comes back to what we were saying earlier. It's all about relationships,
31:09
connections, and people, and who you know as much as what you know
31:13
in this industry. A huge amount of it is who you know, and you only
31:16
really get that from going out and about, meeting,
31:20
networking, and putting faces to names. You know, that's where a relationship is
31:23
built. And on the subject of that, this is exactly
31:28
what you and I have done today, and hopefully we've introduced
31:31
you by way of of, you know, a podcast to a lot of other people
31:34
listening and watching today. And that's some more connections. And,
31:37
you know, that's exactly what we facilitated. As I said at the start of the
31:40
episode, it was going to be a relaxed chat. We were going to find out
31:44
a bit about Steve, find out a bit about Hippo Events. And, uh, I like
31:47
to think that sort of, you know, 31 minutes into this chat, we've, we've done
31:51
exactly that. But it would be remiss of me not to, to ask you while
31:54
you're here, if people want to extend this conversation further, if they want to find
31:57
out a bit more about what Hippo Events does and who you are? How do
32:00
they find you? I'll start with the website.
32:04
Website is www.hippoevents.co.uk.
32:08
We've got some really useful free tools
32:11
on there as well, by the way. We've got a Hippo Hub which you can
32:15
download your own templates or our templates for budgets, project plans, all the
32:19
rest of it. So we've tried to make that website more than just our shop
32:22
window. It's an actual helpful tool for the industry. Whether you need
32:26
our service or not, to be completely honest. And if you want to get in
32:28
touch with me, again, Hippo is all based on personal
32:33
relationships, so feel free to email me directly.
32:36
My email is stevecatling, so just my name,
32:39
@hippoevents.co.uk. I'd rather give you that than our generic
32:44
email, to be honest. Fabulous, I appreciate you doing that. And the final
32:47
question, maybe the most obvious one of all, why Hippo?
32:53
It stands for our company values. So this is,
32:57
uh, it's basically I wanted the company to, to mean
33:00
something. Um, so it's hardworking, inspiring,
33:04
personable, proactive, and open, which is literally the core of
33:08
every single interaction. It's an acronym. I thought it was going
33:12
to be some wonderful analogy,
33:15
the psyche and the mannerisms of the well-known jungle animal.
33:20
No, do you know, it's only after that I realized when I Googled them after
33:23
I'd registered and started the company, I'm like, turns out hippos are really aggressive and
33:27
territorial. I was like, oh my God, this is not— it's
33:31
not good. But as I learned from the radio just yesterday, extremely fast
33:35
moving. They certainly are. Exactly.
33:38
Which is a nice way to end this conversation about the events industry—
33:43
extremely fast moving. My thanks for your time
33:48
today, Steve. My guest on the Event Industry News Podcast is Steve Catling from
33:51
Hippo Events, who's joined us today to chat a little bit about his life
33:55
and their life in the events industry, what they do. It's been
33:58
great to chat to you today, Steve. If anybody joining the
34:02
podcast today wants to find out a little bit more about what we're up to
34:04
at Event Industry News, please do make sure that you head over to eventindustrynews.com.
34:09
If you've been listening to today's podcast, check out some of the news
34:13
features, special supplements, all the good stuff that's on the Event Industry News website,
34:16
video versions of all of our podcasts, as well as the
34:20
A to Z Supplier Directory. If you work in the events industry and you're looking
34:24
for a product, service, or supplier, the chances are you will find it on the
34:28
Event Industry News Supplier Directory. Of course, you may have started
34:32
your journey there today by watching the video version of the podcast on the website.
34:36
If you've done that, thank you very much for doing so. Please do make sure
34:39
that you like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your audio podcasts from
34:43
to make sure that you stay up to date with the latest episodes as they
34:46
land. And a couple of very quick mentions, depending on when this this podcast goes
34:50
out. We're currently working on, um, an event that will
34:54
take place at Somerset House in London, um, in the autumn,
34:58
uh, Unique Venues London Showcase, a chance for people who work
35:02
in the events industry, organizers, agencies, to go along and meet a huge
35:06
array of fantastic London venues all under
35:09
the roof of the amazing Somerset House. Information about that is available on
35:13
the Event Industry News website. Similarly, we're back at the
35:16
Allianz Stadium in Twickenham with Event Industry News in the autumn to
35:21
do a menu showcase there. We did this last year, it was a huge success.
35:24
We really enjoyed our time down there. We'll be doing some live episodes of the
35:28
podcast as well as giving organizers, agencies the opportunity to
35:32
see and experience the facilities that are available within the Allianz Stadium
35:36
down at Twickenham. Again, go to the eventindustrynews.com website to find
35:40
out more about that and sign up. Which brings us neatly and nicely to the
35:44
end of today's episode. My thanks again to my guest Steve Catling from Hippo Events.
35:48
And we'll see you all on the next edition of the Event Industry News Podcast.
35:51
Goodbye everybody. Thank you, James.