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From Stage to Stream: How Present Communications Reinvent Events · Event Industry News Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News podcast with me, James Dixon,
• 0:11
  wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon or evening, whenever or wherever you tune
• 0:15
  into today's podcast from. Now I'm going to be very, very careful with today's podcast
• 0:20
  intro because regular viewers and regular listeners to the podcast will know that we've
• 0:25
  recently introduced you all to our new headline sponsor, Present Communications and there's
• 0:31
  a very, very lovely little bit of spiel that I do at the beginning of the podcast and it's
• 0:34
  more important than ever today that I get that absolutely bang on. Present provides
• 0:38
  broadcast quality live, hybrid and virtual event production, trusted by organisations
• 0:44
  where reliability really matters. From corporate town halls and conferences to high profile
• 0:49
  live streams, they design and deliver fully resilient systems that work first time. To
• 0:55
  tell us more about Present Communications and to thank them personally for coming on
• 1:00
  board as our headline sponsor of the podcast this year, I'm delighted to welcome their
• 1:04
  managing director, Kieran Garlick, to the podcast. Kieran, a very good afternoon to
• 1:08
  you. Hi James, how are you? Very well, thank you very much indeed. It sounds so strange
• 1:14
  having you read that out, like it's like, it's like about me before I find out. I didn't
• 1:21
  in no way, shape or form did I want to make you feel uncomfortable. A deal is a deal,
• 1:27
  you know, a deal is a deal. So regardless of the guest, that's what we say at the beginning
• 1:32
  and that's what we say at the end. So, no, genuinely, all joking aside, it's great to,
• 1:39
  you know, to have a sponsor on board. It gives a scope to, you know, to explore, you
• 1:44
  know, different guests, maybe to be able to actually take the podcast out on the road,
• 1:48
  which is how it all started years ago, you know. But, you know, we've got so used to
• 1:52
  sort of doing these things via the video platforms that we have available to us now, which are
• 1:57
  great, because, you know, the quality is great. I can set up at my piano in the living room
• 2:01
  at home with a microphone and internet connection and do these podcasts. But, you know, having
• 2:06
  you guys on board as a sponsor does mean that, you know, we can maybe look to take
• 2:09
  the podcast back out on the road and do some things in person, which from a content point
• 2:14
  of view is great for event history news. So, yeah, it's great to have you on board and
• 2:19
  thanks for being here. And of course, that's very much, you know, doing what we're doing
• 2:22
  now is bread and butter for you guys, you know, for our podcast followers who might
• 2:27
  not have come across you as a company before, tell us what you do.
• 2:31
  So, Present's been going for a while, 18 years, and ultimately we're an AV company.
• 2:40
  But for 18 years, we've specialised in what's now called hybrid and virtual events. And
• 2:46
  so we're a small business based in London, but very much focused on, you know, video
• 2:52
  and, you know, live streaming and all of that kind of stuff. So, historically, we would
• 2:58
  have worked for a lot of production companies and AV companies. I mean, COVID has changed
• 3:03
  the world, but yeah, that's us basically.
• 3:06
  Yeah, and I find that the lines are blurred in a really positive way over the last few
• 3:13
  years when it comes to content. I was having this discussion actually on or just before
• 3:18
  a podcast that I've done earlier today with the guests and just off air, I was saying
• 3:23
  that, you know, if you and I were sat at a live event right now on a stage with a couple
• 3:27
  of handheld microphones in our hand, chatting to an audience and having this exact same
• 3:31
  conversation, it might be billed as something like a fireside chat or, you know, or it would
• 3:36
  be billed as part of the conference programme. You know, we do it via this method, we pre-record
• 3:41
  it and then we put it on a platform somewhere, it's a podcast. But really what we call things
• 3:46
  now is it's such a grey area, isn't it? You know, recording content and capturing content
• 3:51
  encompasses all manner of things nowadays.
• 3:53
  It's so interesting that you say that because I was having that exact conversation with
• 3:56
  somebody last week as well, very much focused on, you know, how do you make the most out
• 4:00
  of your events and that was partly why we started doing this. You know, we've always
• 4:04
  done kind of corporate, you know, we very much come from the kind of corporate world
• 4:09
  and we've been working on corporate events for 20 years and like you said, you have a
• 4:12
  panel discussion of four people and clients would say to us, you know, how do we make
• 4:16
  more of this, you know? And I'm like, well, it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't
• 4:20
  have to get 500 people in a room or whatever, you can have 100 people in the room and then
• 4:24
  make a podcast, you know? And then what are you doing, you know, with those key points?
• 4:28
  Are you snipping that up into 30 second bits of content and, you know, that are really
• 4:33
  important and getting them out to the relevant people or whatever? And I think you're right,
• 4:36
  we get stuck sometimes in the this is a live event and this is a panel discussion and this
• 4:41
  is a podcast. And actually, there is so much similarity and there's so much more that
• 4:48
  I think people can do. But I think we're getting there. I think, you know, if you look
• 4:52
  before COVID, if you, you know, if somebody said podcast, you would have gone to a podcast
• 4:59
  company or even a video link, what we used to call video links or video conference, what
• 5:04
  used to be called video conferencing now basically call it a Zoom or Teams call. But before COVID,
• 5:10
  if somebody said to an AV company, video conferencing, you go to a video conferencing company and
• 5:14
  get it all and hire in that expertise there. And I think that's completely changed now.
• 5:21
  You know, your AV company is doing your video production and they're doing your video conferencing
• 5:24
  and they're doing your live streaming, you know, and they can build a podcast studio,
• 5:28
  whatever it is. So from that point of view, things have changed. And I think clients will
• 5:33
  catch up and they'll realize that it's actually not very difficult or expensive to have your
• 5:41
  event or your meeting or whatever and create content from it. And, you know, just leverage
• 5:48
  what you're already doing.
• 5:49
  Yeah. Well, leverage is a great word, you know, and again, go back to the, you know,
• 5:55
  what is a podcast? What is a conference program? You know, if you record all your sessions
• 6:02
  and then put them out, you know, on subsequent weeks, you know, you've got a conference with
• 6:08
  an audience for the day, but then you've got, you know, eight podcast episodes that you
• 6:12
  can put out there to promote your business or your organization or your event, whatever
• 6:16
  it is that you're doing. And I think we've just about got over this worry that we had
• 6:21
  10, 12 years ago. I remember in the, in the earliest days of doing this podcast, talking
• 6:26
  to people about live streaming their events, or maybe you could bring in one of these companies
• 6:31
  to set up a camera and live stream.
• 6:33
  And that was what we did. We were, we came in and did that for it for everybody. So yeah.
• 6:39
  And everyone went, ah, if we live stream it, nobody will come. Nobody will look at the
• 6:45
  event. And I think we've dispelled that, that myth.
• 6:49
  Well, so the research showed that actually by live streaming your events, more people
• 6:54
  would come to your event further down the line. So it was easier to sell a ticket for
• 6:59
  event if it had been live streamed previously, because people could look at it and go, Oh,
• 7:02
  I quite like that. I'd like to go. Because everybody knows being, being able to watch
• 7:06
  something online is great, right? You know, it opens up to a whole other audience, different
• 7:10
  country, country, people in different geographies. It's more accessible to people who perhaps
• 7:14
  can't make it to your event, but it doesn't replace a live event, right? No one's going,
• 7:20
  Oh, I'm going to sit at home and watch that. It'll be more fun. All right. But, but by
• 7:24
  opening it up, you give people both options. And like I said, the research shows actually
• 7:29
  more people will go to the event have they, if they've been able to see it online.
• 7:34
  The point that I always presented to people who I was having that discussion with was
• 7:39
  football doesn't seem to have had a problem. Yeah. You know, it's been, I watch football
• 7:43
  on TV, but if there's a chance to go to a match, I will absolutely. I love that. I love
• 7:50
  the, the feel that you get of walking towards the stadium on a match day with the fans,
• 7:55
  whether it be home and away, the pint in the pub beforehand or the fish and chips or whatever
• 7:59
  you have before, you know, when you get into the stadium and the atmosphere and the raw,
• 8:04
  cold, sunny, rainy, windy, it doesn't matter that that experience is completely and utterly
• 8:09
  something you cannot replicate sat on your sofa at home, watch it on the big screen.
• 8:14
  And granted what we can watch at home is its own thing. Now the quality of the broadcast is so
• 8:19
  great, but it doesn't replicate the feeling of being in the stadium. And I would say that to
• 8:22
  people when they were discussing their events, it will never, it will never can never replicate
• 8:28
  that feeling that somebody is going to get by walking through the door. But some people can't
• 8:33
  walk through the door or, you know, cause like I said, cause they're a million miles away or
• 8:36
  whatever it is. So, and also, um, it makes sense, you know, when you organise an event,
• 8:42
  there's so much work and money and effort that goes into organising event. Why wouldn't you do
• 8:48
  everything in your power to fully kind of make, um, yeah, to, to leverage that, use that word
• 8:53
  again, to, to make the most of, you know, you've worked really hard to get this keynote speaker on
• 8:57
  the stage or whatever it is, or, you know, your audience is like top notch. You're all the people
• 9:01
  you want in one room. Why wouldn't you do everything you can to make the most of that?
• 9:06
  And that's why we do things like build podcast studios in events, because why not? Like, you
• 9:11
  know, maybe there's like three guests that you've really been trying hard to get on your in-person
• 9:16
  studio podcast, whatever, and you can't get them. Everyone's just too busy. Well, you're now in a
• 9:21
  room together. Like, why wouldn't you do it? So it's about identifying those moments. Actually
• 9:25
  talking of, talking of moments, not to change the subject, but, um, we were talking to some
• 9:29
  clients about TikTok shops. Yep. It's the same thing. Like they want to live stream,
• 9:34
  they want to create a TikTok shop, live stream it. And we're saying, well, actually, do you
• 9:37
  already have an event or what they're calling shoppable moments and TikTok shoppable moments?
• 9:42
  Do you already have something that you can live stream? You know, why aren't you making the most
• 9:46
  of that first and then worry about creating something new? Yeah. It's, I noticed, you know,
• 9:52
  you are present communications in the, in the business name. There's no reference to kind of
• 9:59
  AV or media or we do filming or we do live streaming, you know, .com. And, and again,
• 10:06
  going back to what I was saying about the, the sort of the, the, the gray area between what we
• 10:10
  call one thing and what we call another now, you know, that it seems to me that that's exactly kind
• 10:15
  of where you sit in terms of service provider. I don't mean by gray area. I mean that you are
• 10:19
  set up to help people communicate. That could be by helping them to live stream. It could be by
• 10:24
  recording the content for use post event. It could be for creating pre-event content, pre-recording
• 10:30
  content that then is deployed in a live environment. All of those things are kind of ticked
• 10:34
  by what you do now, which all falls under communications, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean,
• 10:39
  that was, well you hit the nail on the head. That was why, I mean, even like I said, 20 years ago,
• 10:43
  when I came up with the name, 19 years ago, that was always the plan, you know, back then if you
• 10:49
  wanted to live stream something, we didn't do it online. It was very rare to live stream online
• 10:55
  because hotels didn't have internet and stuff back then. And if they did, it wasn't fast enough
• 10:59
  for live streaming. So you'd have to live stream from a data center. And if you remember, you know,
• 11:02
  we used to use ISDN lines and stuff like that. ISDN lines, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ISDN
• 11:07
  lines and, and the star phone, you'd be hiding a star phone on the lectern and all this stuff.
• 11:12
  Um, so that's, so that's where we started. So yeah, that's where the present communications
• 11:16
  came from because, you know, like you said, it's all about communication and, and, um,
• 11:21
  and most of what we did was presentations. So I've just had a flashback to working in a,
• 11:25
  in a sort of, you know, bar nightclub style venue, you know, in about 21, 22 years old.
• 11:34
  Oh yeah. I've got, I've got, I've got Bonnie sat here and Mabel. The two dogs are
• 11:43
  feature of the podcast. So, um, yeah, I remember, you know, radio, local radio station coming to do
• 11:48
  a live OB in the venue on a Saturday night and coming in and going, yeah, we need to check if
• 11:54
  you've got an ISDN line. And I'm like, what's one of those one ISDN line. And I had no clue
• 12:00
  how all this stuff works, but, you know, I hadn't heard somebody reference an ISDN line until
• 12:05
  you've just said it there in a long time. Eventually you got rid of them or they shut
• 12:08
  it down. So it's no longer a thing. You can't get them anymore. Oh, wow. I mean, yeah, pre,
• 12:13
  you know, internet or good wifi, you know, that, that, that's, that's what we had to use now. And
• 12:18
  I guess in some respects, is, is, is there a complacency that sets in now to people now just
• 12:24
  think that it's going to be, you know, standard that, you know, in any venue now you're going to
• 12:28
  be able to get some sort of internet connection that will allow you to do some sort of video.
• 12:32
  Yeah. I've really mixed kind of views on this because you're absolutely right. There is a
• 12:37
  complacency and people do expect internet everywhere you go. You know, how often do
• 12:42
  you walk into a coffee shop and go, what's your wifi? You know, you just expect it. And yeah,
• 12:47
  there is a complacency because now people think you can live stream. And of course, when that,
• 12:51
  you know, when you've got an event for a thousand people, I've got an inquiry the other day for a
• 12:57
  live concert. This is going to happen in a couple of weeks. You might see it on online for a brand
• 13:03
  and they want to do a concert on Carnaby street and they want it to be live stream. And I'm like,
• 13:08
  if you have 5,000 people turn up at Carnaby street, I'm telling you the internet is going
• 13:12
  to fall over on your, you know, your 5g or, or whatever. We, we tested it once with some,
• 13:19
  some broadcast companies and we were looking at football. So could you do interviews in the car
• 13:25
  park outside a football game, talking to football earlier. And so they would put these aerials on
• 13:32
  the back of the cameras. They've got the cameras on the shoulder, these areas, like the broadcast
• 13:35
  guys do. And it's all fine. And the football games on and they're wandering around the car
• 13:40
  park and everything's beautiful and everything's fine and whatever. And then the game finishes
• 13:44
  and everybody gets their phone out of their pocket. They call their wife. They upload a
• 13:48
  picture of the picture to Instagram. That's it. The second, I mean, within 10 seconds of the game
• 13:53
  finishing, the internet's falling down around the stadium. And, and yeah, people are complacent
• 14:00
  about that kind of stuff. And there's a number of things you can do to fix it. But, but, you know,
• 14:05
  I think we are starting to become more aware that, slowly but surely, you know, when you've
• 14:11
  got a lot of people watching a stream and it will come full circle, you know,
• 14:16
  um, last week that had 45 minutes and they had a million people, uh, watch it, uh, on Twitter
• 14:24
  on X. And, you know, in that scenario, people are less complacent, you know, on their share
• 14:32
  price. I think before they even started the live stream, I mean, can you imagine if that,
• 14:35
  if that went down, you know, or we should work with a fashion brand, they have 40 million people
• 14:40
  would watch their, their fashion show. Yeah. That, that can't afford to go down. And so,
• 14:45
  um, so in, in those scenarios, people are less complacent, I think, but you're absolutely right.
• 14:50
  We do expect there to be good internet and good wifi and all that kind of stuff in every coffee
• 14:56
  shop or hotel. And we are in some respects fortunate in that, you know, we live in a time
• 15:02
  that we do where I'm going to pick an example out, which I think I have referenced on the podcast
• 15:06
  before. So forgive me, regular listeners, if I've, if I've trotted this one out, but in November
• 15:11
  last year, I was sat at the front of the house calling an award ceremony that I produce, um,
• 15:18
  about 600 people, large venue, big stage, big production, big screens, like a local hero style
• 15:26
  awards. Um, and one of the winners was a soldier who was serving in Kenya at the time. He was on
• 15:35
  the short list of the three, three finalists for this particular category, the owner of the event
• 15:42
  and me and the soldier knew that he'd won. We were the only three people that knew that he'd won.
• 15:47
  And we knew that because I'd been asked, could we set up a live link to him in Kenya sat in,
• 15:55
  you know, uh, in, in uniform. Um, if, if he won his family, we're going to come up on stage to
• 16:02
  accept the award. And then we would have it scripted at the last minute to the bank only
• 16:08
  comes on the screen. Brilliant. Set up went great. We tested him during the day. Fantastic. He had a
• 16:13
  great sat, sat wifi connection, everything tickety-boo. I'm not joking. I had three minutes
• 16:19
  before we're going, putting them on the screen, the internet, the internet and the venue fell over.
• 16:24
  It fell over. It collapsed, you know, a wide, a wide internet connection.
• 16:32
  Collapse. And it went down that I had a speed test window open so I could constantly monitor it.
• 16:38
  And it just went down to like 0.5 download and virtually no upload. Couldn't get anything on
• 16:45
  wifi with 60 seconds to go. I tethered to my phone because I had a 5g connection in there
• 16:52
  and we absolutely didn't just get it works. It was rock solid. It worked. He was on the screen
• 16:57
  for three minutes. He spoke, he had a two way conversation with his family in the arena.
• 17:01
  And we were able to tether and, and, you know, as much as we have all this great technology
• 17:06
  available to us, you mentioned something at the very beginning now where the stuff that you do
• 17:11
  is so much more accessible than it was 10, 15 years ago now, isn't it? Because of the,
• 17:15
  the capabilities of, of, of what we've got available to us, both in hardware,
• 17:19
  software, you know, a laptop, a camera and a simple internet connection. You can achieve
• 17:24
  so much, can't you now? So it must give you a sort of a broader spectrum of who and how you
• 17:28
  can work with. Yeah, it does. But also expectations are quite a lot higher. I mean,
• 17:34
  we did a launch for a makeup brand who opened their first UK store a few years ago in Westfield
• 17:41
  and Hammersmith. And they wanted to do this kind of activation thing that had out in the car park
• 17:49
  or out on the road and they were filming it. And then there'd be a live stream. There'd be
• 17:52
  this influencer, she has like millions of followers and they were going to walk through
• 17:56
  Westfield and they were going to walk into the store and she was going to do some product demos
• 18:00
  with these products, which is great. If you know Westfield, you'll know that there's no phone
• 18:06
  signal in the shopping cart. And there's no Wi-Fi, obviously outside. And so I'm trying to explain
• 18:16
  to the client, well, there's no Wi-Fi outside, so we can't connect to the Wi-Fi, but we can connect
• 18:19
  to the 5G, but when we go inside, we're going to lose that. And it's like, I don't understand,
• 18:24
  you know, my phone works. Why doesn't it work? Why can't you live stream for four hours in a
• 18:30
  basement, you know? So you're right, the technology has changed and it does give us a lot more options
• 18:37
  and of course there's a way around it. And we did the event and it was very successful,
• 18:40
  that's great. But to your point about like expectations, you know, well, but I can live
• 18:46
  stream on TikTok on my phone, you know, or, you know, a Zoom call is free. Why do you want to,
• 18:51
  why am I, why have I got to pay you to come and do this, you know? So expectations are higher,
• 18:57
  but you're absolutely right. You know, we've got clients who, they'll be doing like a big event
• 19:02
  and like it's going to be 4K and everybody's got to watch it on 4K on their phones, they're going
• 19:06
  to be all over the world. I was working with one guy and he was, just for a laugh, was testing like
• 19:12
  fun things that you could do with live streaming. And so he would like live stream to Instagram
• 19:18
  while jumping out of an aeroplane, for example, you know, like I wonder if that'll work, so.
• 19:27
  Yeah, yeah, we need pioneers like that, go and do it.
• 19:29
  Well, yeah, I thought about pioneering it as a jump out of an aeroplane, yeah.
• 19:33
  Yeah, but I guess it proves a theory. It proves a theory, you know, that
• 19:40
  again, that there was a worry. And I've spoken to, you know, companies who do a similar thing
• 19:47
  to you. And, you know, there was for a period of time that, again, I think people have got over
• 19:54
  with, it was a certain sort of snobbery when it came to the advent of better iPhones and mobile
• 20:01
  connections and people's ability to be able to do video using their own devices, where
• 20:06
  some companies were guilty of saying, oh, yes, but you won't get the same quality as our,
• 20:09
  you know, all singing, all dancing camera. And they're absolutely right. Now, the quality is
• 20:15
  there. And you see that when you put it on big screens, particularly at events and stuff,
• 20:20
  and big LED walls, you know, you can really see where the quality is. But that doesn't
• 20:24
  change the fact that we can, we're more flexible in the content that we can produce. And I'm curious
• 20:29
  to ask whether or not you sort of adopt that level of flexibility within your own organisation now
• 20:33
  to sort of a meet a customer. Yeah, partly, you're right, there absolutely was a level of snobbery.
• 20:39
  And there is still to some extent, and, you know, I do, I have a bit of a thing for doing things,
• 20:44
  the proper way. But that said, the reality is that ultimately, like when you're creating content,
• 20:52
  or hosting a live event, or whatever it is, what you're really trying to do is have an impact on
• 20:56
  people's lives, right? You're trying to change something, or you're trying to educate people,
• 21:00
  or whatever. And if you can do that with an iPhone and a TikTok account, and so be it.
• 21:05
  And a lot of these, you know, kids now, Gen Z's, you know, they've got an iPhone,
• 21:09
  they've got a CapCut subscription, they're creating some great content that people are
• 21:13
  watching. And I have no issue with that whatsoever. It's horses for courses, you know.
• 21:19
  What I would say is that, you know, if you look at people like, actually, I won't say, but let's say
• 21:25
  a major mobile phone manufacturer, not the fruit, the other one, but they do a lot of events
• 21:32
  that they live stream from their phones. And I've seen concerts that they've done
• 21:39
  with some A-list celebrities and stuff, and they're all shot on their phones, and they look
• 21:43
  beautiful. What they don't tell you is that there's an entire production crew, full broadcast lighting,
• 21:50
  you know, everything's set up. And, you know, you can't do that on like Wi-Fi, for example.
• 21:55
  So, there are internet cables that run into those phones, you know, and there's 4K or HD
• 22:02
  video outputs from those phones. So, they might be using the phone, that is true.
• 22:07
  But there's not a 17-year-old teenager, you know,
• 22:15
  just holding it up like that, doing the filming on behalf of that major mobile phone.
• 22:19
  There's a broadcast camera guy with a Steadicam rig and a full broadcast lighting, you know, lighting designers
• 22:25
  and gaffers and everything else, so that it looks beautiful. But it can be done.
• 22:30
  It kind of defies the point of using a cheap camera, if you're then going to spend the money
• 22:34
  on everything else. This brings me to the point of what you cannot replicate, and that is
• 22:40
  the team of people who sit behind that hardware. You will have seen enough events in real time,
• 22:47
  and I've certainly seen enough of them, when you're working with a good team of
• 22:51
  technical operators and producers and people calling the shots behind. When that all works
• 22:55
  seamlessly, and you have these lovely transitions from VT back to live presenter at an awards event
• 23:03
  into lighting and sound as the winner makes their way up onto stage, you can't replicate those
• 23:10
  transitions unless you've got really, really good people behind it. And that's to me what's
• 23:15
  always been mission critical, is you've got those good operators make it worthwhile.
• 23:20
  You're absolutely right, and what I find quite interesting is that you're only really going to
• 23:25
  find out who the excellent people are when there are mistakes, or when there are problems.
• 23:29
  So it's when your internet falls over, or the screen dies, or whatever it is, or your
• 23:35
  presenter doesn't turn up, or he's not at the stage on time. It's when those things happen, when you
• 23:39
  find out who are the really good operators and who are the not so good ones. But yeah, that's,
• 23:46
  and you can only find that out just by trying, by finding out. So we try and build
• 23:52
  kind of a lot of resilience and stuff into our systems, but even so, you're right, it's a good
• 23:58
  team that really make the difference. Yeah, and I guess, is a lot of your work now, you know,
• 24:05
  when it comes to live events, is it not just delivering sort of the video and the streaming
• 24:11
  and the filming sort of production side of things, but you know, are you involved in the sort of the
• 24:15
  wider AV aspects of events now, because you can integrate it all together seamlessly with one
• 24:20
  team? Well, that was always our kind of USP, you know, back in the day, 20 years ago, there were
• 24:24
  only a couple of streaming companies, but I think we were really the only one who could do
• 24:29
  all the AV, you know, so we've got a warehouse here in Wimbledon with, you know, speakers and
• 24:33
  microphones and whatever. And for something like, I'm going to say podcast now, but like I said,
• 24:38
  15 years ago, we'd say panel discussion, you know, and so we do all of that, and it's a
• 24:45
  really useful one-stop shop. And the other thing is, because we do a bit of everything, if
• 24:50
  you like, it makes it really easy for clients sometimes to phone us and say, we've got this
• 24:57
  thing, and we're thinking we might do it this way, but we're not really sure, and this is what we're
• 25:02
  trying to achieve, and have you got any ideas? So that's quite handy, because it gives us a bit of
• 25:08
  flexibility. Yeah, well, you can't replicate or fake experience, you know, if you've been doing
• 25:17
  something for 20 years, you know, you've got the catalogue of work to reference, and to be
• 25:23
  able to say, look, here's what we did for somebody, here's what we did for somebody else, here's what
• 25:27
  we did for somebody else, do any of these solutions work for you? If not, we could also come up with
• 25:31
  something a little bit different. You can't replicate that. Also, like, if you're going to
• 25:35
  do this kind of event, you know, this is one we did before, and this is something that worked
• 25:39
  really well, you know, or I've seen this client do it this way, and that worked really well,
• 25:44
  and, you know, they wanted to achieve X, Y, Z, the same as you, and, you know, so yeah,
• 25:49
  you're absolutely right, I've been doing this a long time.
• 25:55
  How tricky is it to stay up to speed with developments, either in hardware, technology,
• 26:01
  styles, things like that, when you're juggling a sort of an event workload and a diary of clients,
• 26:06
  is it, do you have to almost put some time aside to make sure that you're kind of following trends?
• 26:12
  Yeah, kind of, I mean, but I would go back to what we were kind of saying earlier,
• 26:17
  that actually, clients don't necessarily always want the latest whiz-bang, you know,
• 26:22
  they just want it to work, and they don't have to worry about it, and they don't want their clients
• 26:28
  or their, you know, the people watching their live stream or whatever to be disappointed because
• 26:32
  something's not working, and if bringing the latest, you know, whiz-bang tech into your
• 26:39
  broadcast, for example, is going to make it fall over, they don't want that,
• 26:43
  and actually, especially, I mean, it's a bit different now, but before COVID, you know,
• 26:46
  live streaming used to make people really nervous, like we were saying, and the last thing they want
• 26:52
  is to have this new technology that no one's used before, you know, so yes, we do stay up to date
• 26:59
  with stuff, but actually, I don't think it's always about using the latest and greatest thing,
• 27:04
  you know, sometimes we have clients saying to us, oh, I've got a stream in 4k, I was like, well,
• 27:08
  why have you got a stream in 4k, well, because that's the latest thing, okay, but people are
• 27:12
  watching on their phone, and it's that big, right, so how does that work, exactly, so it doesn't need
• 27:17
  to be, for example, I mean, things like, I mean, even like, let's take like TikTok shop again,
• 27:26
  you know, that's a relatively new thing, it's certainly something that TikTok are pushing more
• 27:31
  recently, but the technology behind it isn't new, you know, the streaming into it, you know,
• 27:39
  the technology works the same way that we've been doing it for 10, 15 years, yeah, like it's faster,
• 27:44
  and the quality is better, and all that kind of stuff, but the actual workflow is the same,
• 27:49
  yeah, so I don't think we need to necessarily get caught up all the time with having the latest
• 27:54
  and greatest stuff, it's often about how you use things, you know, you can be creative,
• 28:00
  and, you know, in more ways than just using the latest technology, yeah, absolutely, I mean,
• 28:06
  sometimes it's the little things that are spot on, I've just remembered something that I saw,
• 28:09
  I mean, for context, we're recording this on a Monday, as so often I've recorded the podcast
• 28:13
  over the years, it tends to be on a Monday that I find myself, you know, sitting here talking to
• 28:17
  people, and I remember over the weekend watching something on TV, on Amazon, and
• 28:26
  anybody who watches Amazon knows now that unless you sort of pay for their next level up,
• 28:31
  you look as you get adverts popping up in the middle of things now,
• 28:35
  and for the first time over the weekend, I noticed that in line with the advert that popped up on
• 28:40
  screen for whatever the home appliance was, there was a link, there was a link to it on the screen
• 28:48
  that says add to my Amazon shopping basket with the price, and so I could have pushed the okay
• 28:55
  button on my TV remote, and it would have added it to the Amazon shopping basket on the Amazon app
• 28:59
  on my phone, and I thought what a simple, simple thing to do, you know, what is a TV now, and what
• 29:06
  is a smartphone, they've all got an operating system, they've all got a display, they've all
• 29:10
  got a means of interacting with the screen. It's that old second screen thing, I don't know if you
• 29:15
  remember the second screen trend years ago, it never really took off, but this is it, right,
• 29:20
  this is it coming to fruition, and this is like I was saying, you know, the brand that we're
• 29:27
  working with in a few weeks on this big launch thing, and the TikTok shop, same thing, you know,
• 29:32
  they've got this launch event, and it's that thing about shoppable moments, like why aren't we doing
• 29:38
  that and creating more content from that, and so that's exactly what they're doing, they're doing
• 29:42
  their launch event for their VIPs and whatever in the room, and then you'll see a TikTok shop
• 29:48
  come up, and then the links will come up, and not only will the links to the products that they're
• 29:52
  launching at the event come up on your phone, but you can buy them there and then, you know,
• 29:58
  it makes so much sense. It makes so much sense, and when I saw this pop up on the screen over the
• 30:03
  week, and I'm just like mind blown, do you know what I mean, like it's so simple, of course the
• 30:09
  technology exists there, my Amazon account on TV is linked to my Amazon shopping account on the app,
• 30:14
  you know, why wouldn't it be so easy to bang an advert in there, a link there to buy that product,
• 30:20
  and I just thought, could you imagine if you'd have presented this to something like ITV or
• 30:24
  Channel 4 30 years ago, you know. Well they did, I remember this, maybe not 30 years ago, but there
• 30:30
  was things, I think it was friends or something, obviously it never happened, the technology didn't
• 30:34
  exist, but they were talking about, could like Monica walk on the TV for the youngsters, they
• 30:40
  probably don't know what I'm talking about, but could she walk onto screen, and could you go, oh I
• 30:46
  like that blouse, and click on it and buy it, so that was an idea that came out a long time ago,
• 30:51
  but the technology is just not there, wasn't there to do it, I mean you could probably do that now,
• 30:55
  but like you said, it makes just as much sense for it to pop up on your phone,
• 30:59
  makes perfect sense really, they've really got your tone up haven't they. The other thing is,
• 31:03
  I read something the other day, something like 30% of online purchases are impulse buys,
• 31:10
  so if you can just get something in front of somebody at the right time, oh I like that,
• 31:14
  they're quite likely to buy it, and quite a lot of people will spend money that way.
• 31:18
  Absolutely, I picked up a new pair of trainers yesterday from Vinted, that were purchased
• 31:24
  after Seven Pints of Guinness on St Patrick's Day last week, so I can attest to the impulse.
• 31:31
  Last week I was on a job in New York, we were doing a live stream in New York, and the hotel
• 31:36
  was really cool, and they had their own branded trainers, I had to buy them.
• 31:40
  I mean there we go, you know, forget your branded notepad and a pen,
• 31:46
  well done to the hotel I say, you know, new merchandising ideas. For the teenagers amongst
• 31:51
  you may remember the film Spaceballs, Mel Brooks did say merchandising, where the real money is,
• 31:59
  any film buffs out there. It's been great chatting to you today, and I feel that this was what I
• 32:05
  call an unplanned podcast everybody, you know, usually when the guests come on there's a story,
• 32:11
  or something behind it, you know, which is why they've got in touch, which is great, you know,
• 32:15
  and we've generally got some talking points, and I said to Kieran off air, before we sort of hit
• 32:19
  record on today's episode, look, you know, great, we want to say thank you for supporting the
• 32:23
  podcast and all the rest of it, let's just have a chat about what you do, and so often they're
• 32:29
  the best conversations, because you think I could talk to this person for ages, and maybe we should
• 32:33
  extend this a little bit further, so why don't we do that, it's an open invite, come back on with
• 32:38
  no planning, no prep, and just have a chat, throw anything out there, let's have a chat, and keep
• 32:46
  this conversation going, and maybe I'll come up with a funny story for next time, something
• 32:52
  comical, it'd be amazing, and we need to get a some sort of definite sort of feature or ident,
• 32:59
  you know, done for full dog credit going forward, I often reference my dogs when I'm recording for a
• 33:04
  moment, generally they're no trouble at all, which is why, just as I speak, one wanders straight,
• 33:09
  one of them wanders straight into shot, no, it's been great speaking to you, to Kieran, and
• 33:15
  genuine, on behalf of the podcast followers, and me, who's had the privilege of sort of sitting
• 33:19
  behind the mic now for over 10 years, and hosting this podcast, it is great to have some support
• 33:24
  there, and knowing then that it gives us a bit of flexibility, and scope maybe to sort of do
• 33:29
  a few more adventurous things with it this year, is a really great position to be in, so
• 33:34
  thanks on behalf of the Adventure News podcast followers, and the team here to present
• 33:38
  communications for coming on board, and being the podcast sponsor, I'll leave my sort of final spiel
• 33:43
  wrap-up right to the very end, what I will say very quickly, in line with some sort of thanks,
• 33:49
  and things like that, is that we're just looking at the stats this morning from last month, and
• 33:55
  there were over 120,000 visitors to the eventindustrynews.com website in February,
• 34:02
  the stats are fantastic, so we just want to say thank you to all of the people who use
• 34:07
  eventindustrynews.com on a regular basis, who visit the website, who read the news that goes
• 34:12
  up there, who access and utilize the supplements, and the special features that the team work
• 34:18
  really hard to put together, simple things like the A to Z supplier directory, you know, if you
• 34:23
  work in the industry, you're looking for a product, service, or a supplier, you know, the A to Z
• 34:28
  supplier directory is a fundamental part of the event industry news website, always has been,
• 34:32
  always will be, and if you want to sort of find something in the industry that you're looking for,
• 34:35
  chances are you'll find it on there, and at the moment the figures suggest that that's exactly
• 34:39
  what you're doing, over 120,000 of you visiting the event industry news website in February, so
• 34:46
  a big thanks to you all, if you've started your journey today by watching today's podcast on the
• 34:51
  website, thank you very much for doing so, have a look, a little look at all that other stuff on
• 34:55
  the website that I've just mentioned, and do go over to wherever you get your audio podcasts from,
• 35:00
  and make sure that you are liked and subscribed, regardless of the platform, Spotify, Apple
• 35:05
  podcast, etc, if you've started your journey there by listening to us, do make sure you go in the
• 35:10
  other direction, over to the eventindustrynews.com website to check out the video versions, and all
• 35:15
  of that other stuff that I've mentioned, so it brings me to the end of today's episode, and it
• 35:19
  just gives me time to say thank you to my guests today, Kieran Garlick from Present Communications,
• 35:23
  Present provides, ah a pleasure, I'm going to launch into it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to make you
• 35:29
  feel uncomfortable one last time today, as I say, Present provides broadcast quality live hybrid and
• 35:36
  virtual event production, trusted by organizations where reliability really matters, from corporate
• 35:42
  town halls and conferences, to high profile live streams, they design and deliver fully resilient
• 35:47
  systems that work first time. Kieran, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much, it's been fun.
• 35:53
  Absolutely, we'll see you all on the next edition of the podcast everybody, take care, goodbye.