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Live from Scale España: The Conversations That Matter in Spanish STR · STR Unpacked

• Ben: ⁓ How's it going for you? Yeah, ⁓ ⁓ intense. a long, day. ⁓ is, ⁓ to this point, one and half days like... ⁓ for war room. It's so fun. And there's the prep the day before and everything like that. So there's a lot of work that goes into it. But it's very rewarding. It's all for this. I would say this is the first bit we've had, but no, we did have a couple last night. We did have a few. It's you indeed. Yeah, yeah, Thank It was a nice bar. Although too much food, to be honest. We did, but that was Casey's order. Yeah, yeah. didn't have much to do about that. But I think we could. Have you finished? I've loved it to be honest. So the tables are new now. Yeah, yeah. No, why not? I mean, like, it's my first, which sounds terrible, because you've invited me here, but it's the first Gale event I've been to. ⁓ And it's amazing. I've got the bug, I think. Because you guys focus so much on one country and all the other ones I've been to are very, either global or area based. the area being Europe. ⁓ It's very general. You never really know who you're going to talk to. And that can be really good and it can be really bad. But I think what I like about here is it's just been about Spain. It's just been about Spain and nothing else. All the conversations on that have been about Spain, what's happening in Spain, the future of Spain. And I think the other conferences I've been to, it's all much more broad, much more open. So from my point of view, it's amazing. It's also the first conference I've been to where there's more energy on day two, which I don't understand. not for the tea. But I mean, like I was talking to Georgina at Lily Ho. Is that right? And she was saying that day two for her has been like way more fruitful than the first day, which is amazing, right? How long have you done that, I'm not sure if we can take credit for that. Look, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes people do. There is fatigue on day two for sure. We always lose people in the afternoon, people at home. And that is more natural. But that said, think people are, it's an intimate event. It's not, know, 1200 people, 1500 people coming. It is generally 200 to 300 property managers that we have. they want to meet the same people, the same partners here a couple of times over the few days. So that's what kind of lends itself to a two day experience. Now, that's not to say we may not change that. We may reverse one of two of our events back to one day. next year. ⁓ But we'll see, you we're constantly evolving. Yeah, and it's whatever people want as well, right? Yeah. Which is like the main thing. I think as well, like I was talking to, obviously, I've been trying to call people for interviews all of yesterday and today. ⁓ And a lot people I've been speaking to today have been saying like, how fruitful. It's like I haven't come across one person that has been like, you don't really get a return on investment, which you do sometimes here at some of the other conferences. So I think that's another. Yes. I mean, there's two angles that we consider that it's the sponsors who join us, pay the bill, but also the attendees, is hugely important. And I think both have really reacted well to this. think we've had amazing feedback. Yeah, the last couple of days. For the attendees, it's not just learning. You can hear some sessions going on on the main stage still, but it's connecting about meeting with people. Yeah. And just for some, it's their first time coming to not just scale, but it's coming to any conference. Yeah. Wow. This is amazing. We'll be again next year. And it's a really unique experience just to meet similar people to us. That's always what we want to achieve. and with their professions. So it's been great so far, the feedback. yeah, hope it's been interesting. Yeah, I think one of the things I find amazing, I think it's the advantage of having it so like country-specific is that you have actual politicians in the room. And I think like, I know you had to put a lot of strength to make that happen. Louise has done lot of what John has done in the few weeks. think she deserves a beer. Yeah, yeah, I don't doubt it. But it's a bit, it's genuinely amazing that you've been able to do that and obviously the conference was open, because I think a lot of people here, they seem somewhat untouchable. And what they say is kind of put on us as an industry and to actually have them in the room and actually have them where you can go up and talk to them is amazing, like one incredible opportunity. Well, I think you're a really well placed to talk about that. Obviously you comment a lot on regulation at the moment. Changes and what's coming next month in Europe. This is a really important time in our industry. Important doesn't even go anywhere close to explaining where we're at, the crossroads we're at. To have the politicians here to be supporting this event I think is huge, it's really important. we're absolutely delighted. It's not easy. Yeah, I bet. But it's a... Yeah. And also you have five politicians as well, weren't there? I should know that exactly. I'm not entirely sure. Roughly, let's say, yes. There were five people on stage. So let's assume it was five. They might have been four. I'm not sure. ⁓ Yeah, that for me was a highlight because I think it's the first conference I've been to where you actually... you actually see that rather than other conferences I've been to, talk about the subject without any kind of willingness to or without actually being able to, you know, ask the people directly or have any kind of influence of change. It's more like, isn't this annoying? Oh, well, we have to just crack on with it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is the norm. We have had politicians join us at some of our conferences in Bulgaria and in South Africa. OK. Which has has been difficult. Quite often. we get a last minute cancellation, scrambling around to try and get substitutes. So it can be very difficult in that respect with politicians, senior officials. Nice. ⁓ been the highlights for you of this one? ⁓ than the bit? ⁓ can't say that Damian For me, it's ⁓ just during the breaks, just seeing people just with smiles in their faces. That for me is it. ⁓ be it a drink or lunch or whatever and just connecting. That for me is always the highlight, regardless of the actual sessions. We worked very hard on our content curation, but for me it's just seeing people together. It sounds corny, but it's every time that's there. I've seen that experience. It's the whole point. I think one of the things I love about this industry and why I'm so keen to stay within it where I can is that we're such a friendly industry. We are hospitality, right? In our nature, we want to host and be welcoming and everything. So I think like when you walk into a room at one of these conferences, everybody is super friendly, super happy to see each other again. I always say it's just like a group of old friends selling to each other. So do genuinely feel like some of them, that's what it is. you know the bigger some of these events get that you see that more and more each year as well yeah people get to know each other and and it's really you know really forming a community and people that come from all over the country yeah Spain's not a small country and they come from north to south it's phenomenal the commitment that many of make to this event yeah because we all know taking two or three days off from a property management company that's not easy you know we don't take that for granted Exactly. And you can always tell, I can't say I've missed being a property manager while working here. I've seen a few people while watching the talks at the round tables, phone going off constantly. like, better know what that is. The next disaster. Yeah, exactly. Which you can't help. Yeah, no, it's good. So the next one for you is Brighton. Brighton in about five. weeks, yeah, five weeks, which will be good. We've got our scale with AI day on the 9th of June and our scale UK day after that. Nice. That's going to be fun. Brighton Dome. So lovely, lovely venue. Really looking forward to that. Hopefully we get some sun and enjoy it. It's June in the UK. Well, you're a local boy then. I am a local boy. So I can tell you that it's... questionable whether you'll get sun. But we're in Spain and it's cloudy today. So maybe that means it'll be sunny in the UK. Well, we have had some of our shows in Barcelona have had torrential downpours. But the weather in Barcelona is never as good as people think it is. Well, you can comment on that more than me because you're fan of it. Yes, yeah, It likes raining and in a way that no one can predict. So yeah. This year, no one's predicted the winter that we got in Spain. That's Yeah, look, fingers crossed. And then we'll be rocking back in Barcelona for the Scale Fest in October. Can I ask you about this? to my knowledge, you're the first event in the space that are doing a festival. I'm not sure of that 100%. I'd like to think we are pioneering. We thought about the Barcelona event and we had one in the past and it was we kind of went a little bit too big in the space that we used in 2024. We thought let's go back to the World Trade Center one that kind of worked well but constantly aware of the balance of experience between partners, speakers, attendees, sponsors. But we just thought the overriding thing is that it should be fun. Yeah. So we've hired a whole space, the whole World Trade Center for two days over weekends. It's not a small building either. No it's not. It's huge. For those that don't know it, it is massive. We've got a lot of spaces around. We've got the courtyard in the middle. We just thought, okay, let's get the run of the place. Yeah. And let's treat it as a blank canvas. Okay. So we thought, okay, consider it like a half festival, half conference. So we're going to have things like food trucks, music. We're to have a friend of mine's coming in from Italy to play during the day. We're going to have most likely Steve from my getaways and biking. did DJ set in the evening. just a lot of- I didn't know you did DJ sets. Yeah, he used to be quite a famous DJ. I'll ask him next time I see him. He's been to the Stuyvesant's some people. Good on him. So he's going to do a set and hopefully, and just a lot of fun things throughout the day. We've got Emma Cole, who's going to do some... Nice. ...neutralistic sessions like breath work and stuff. just different things for people to do over the course of those few days. not necessarily just talks as you might expect. And even the talks that we're gonna have on stage, they're gonna be quite different. We're gonna have, in fact, Steve might be doing a DJ set in one of the talks on the main stage. ⁓ TBC. We've got a session which is called the Strider Cup. I know if I told you about this. No, I don't know about this. So it's kind of like US versus Europe. ⁓ and what we can learn from each other in terms of how we do vacation rentals, short term rentals. So we've got some big speakers. We have Steve Shroff is coming, Amber Hurdle is coming, we've got, ⁓ my goodness, shouldn't know, Verad, ⁓ Marcus, hello. All the big names basically. Big heads, yes. Big headline acts. very excited to have more. So we just need to... to work out our schedule now, but I think it's going to be exceptional. So I'm excited about it. Yeah, that's it. We're going to make the sessions fun. Not too stuffy. think people are going to like it. Well, I think you have to, right? Because you're selling it as a festival, you have to expect a festival. Yes. It's not going to be cubicles for toilets or anything like that. People will be camping, but it's... when they come in for those two days, there's going to be lot of unique things happening. So you can choose what you want in terms of your content, terms of your bit of fun for the day, networking. We're going have a lot of different things. ⁓ wow. That sounds amazing. I'll have to make sure I'm there for that one. And then we got any others? You've always got them. ⁓ and still go ahead because that will be our third and that's really grown into a very solid and really great show at the Hilton. ⁓ So that's June 30th to September so I it's still going to go ahead. We're quietly confident it will. Yeah. We should know in the next couple of weeks. We've got a Scale France event which is one of our biggest. We had over 600 people there last year. That's twice the size of this one. Yeah, the venue was kind of similarly sized, just the way it's set out, we can fit more people in. Okay, yeah, yeah. Now it's tight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that more like the festival? Where's the mosh pit? I really don't like that being referred to a mosh pit, but it's, let's just say it's tight. Okay. But it's very good, very good. People love it. yeah, a lot of partners, a lot of speakers. Yeah, I think it's very... reputable, credible show now in France, probably the leading ones. We're really, really proud of that. And we got a Milan show as well in December. You don't stop, you? We really don't stop. It's pretty much incessant. We're kind of addicted to this. We say we're going to reduce them down and we end up doing more. Yeah. So we got a one day Milan show in South December. Mr. Chen Pallava started curating already, so yeah, then we do it all again in 2027. Amazing. So how many events this year? that six? Seven? I'd say seven or eight. Again, I should know exactly, but I don't know. Do you think you'll ever get to one a month? do you... You can't even think of that. you know what? That's not the goal anyway. It's to produce good events that really are worthwhile for everyone involved. There's no point in... in launching into a market where we really don't know. And we have kind of done that. The Central and Eastern Europe one in Bulgaria has done really well and we were able to attract some plenty of Polish and Czechs and other nationalities to it. We had an event in Germany last year, which was really tough. didn't, I would say we succeeded with it. It was a nice event for two days. we struggled to bring the amount of attendees that we'd hoped. Maybe like 120 or so, and it wasn't, it was disappointing. well, you know, sometimes we try, I don't think we failed, but we maybe didn't succeed as much as we wanted to, but that's okay. But that's the kind of beauty of doing what you're doing, like kind of find out what works for you, doesn't. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But we stick, certainly stick with the ones that work and, you know, Spain and the next two, Spain and the UK are really really good established events. think we've got a good template now. You've obviously like playing with being a bit out of Europe with Dubai and South Africa. Are you thinking of maybe more overseas or? don't if it works. We've had some conversations about South America here. Oh really? I don't know. And certainly not this year. It's the same language, eh? So that's fine. We'll see. But again, we'd be going in blind. It's very difficult. when you meet in the source venues and you need to do field trips and preparation. But that's all part of the fun. It's all part of the fun. Amazing. But thank you so much for inviting me here to set up and interview a whole range of really interesting people. I really appreciated the opportunity. And just to basically be a part of your team for the last two days, even though it's like four days, but that's not because of you guys. It's just a lot, isn't it? It's quite intense. Yeah. Cheers! Thank you.