Niche website to global event

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Lee:
Welcome to the Event Engine podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, we have the one, the only. It’s Adam Parry. So how are you today?
Adam Parry:
I am very well. Thank you very much for asking. And yourself?
Lee:
I am tip top and champion, as they say. So given your accent, mate, could you let us know whereabouts in the UK you’re from?
Adam Parry:
The beautiful north.
Lee:
The beautiful north.
Adam Parry:
Originally, born and bred Sheffield lad, Sheffield Steelers. And then met my wife, 18 years ago, in a dark dingy club on Deansgate in Manchester, and never left.
Lee:
So you’ve been stuck in… Well, not originally, but I lived in Didsbury for many years.
Adam Parry:
Well, I’m Gatley. So just the other side of the M6. Is it the M6? The M6 Circular? Yeah, Manchester Circular.
Lee:
I hate the M6. It’s the worst place. But Didsbury is now posh. It wasn’t posh when I was young.
Adam Parry:
Very posh, actually. A very It’s a inspirational place to live in Manchester.
Lee:
Absolutely. So you are one of the cofounders behind the Event Tech Live. Could you give us a little bit of a potted history of how the event got started?
Adam Parry:
Yeah, sure. So never organised an event before Event Tech Live, not even a birthday party. So as most people did, just wanted to do something cool and bring people together. What it actually was born out of Lee is we saw a lot of people gravitate towards content on event industry news, the the implication that we run around technology. So we knew there was interest there. And we decided to launch an awards programme because, well, for multifaceted reasons. One, it was really hard to find out what companies were developing and innovating in. It was really hard to find out what the planner, organiser, agency, end user was doing with that technology. And selfishly, we wanted to learn a lot more about it. And a great way to do that is provide an awards programme. So you get lots of people sending lots of information, sensitive information in some cases, and you can glean a lot from that and then reach out to them for the content. What was also apparent to us, though, at the same time was that if there was a category in another rewards programme, respective of event technology, it was a catch all category.
Adam Parry:
So you could have everything from registration solutions to drones, to the latest in AI, to I’ll be careful to say boring and mundane technology there, but technologies that didn’t have pizazz and wow, right? And we felt that was very unfair because it was always those entries that were the glitz and glam that seemed to get the accolades. And we felt that was not a great indicator for those actually looking at award programmes, which many, many buyers do. They look towards the award programmes to say, Who are the recognised companies? Who should we be speaking to in the category of registration? We launched the Event Technology Awards. And being from the north and being tight, we had the venue for the entire day. We wanted to maximise the value out of that. So on a win, we decided to launch, originally it was called the Event Technology Awards conference because we were like, we spend lots of time thinking about the names.
Lee:
Quite a mouthful, though, isn’t it?
Adam Parry:
Yeah, it was. It didn’t roll off the tongue at all. And what was, again, what was really interesting about that event, we had about 150 attendees, all really high level from organisations like George P. Johnson and UBM, Trade Show Organiser, and we had Adidas in the room and we were like, Hold on a second. You don’t generally go to an industry event where all of these different types of planner, organiser, or supplier interact with each other. You tend to have the trade show events and the agency events and the end user events and stuff. We knew we were onto something because that was a great a way to bring lots of people together under this banner event technology. But when we did feedback, the biggest barrier that our industry or our attendee said was the sign off or the justification to spend 150, 200 quid to go to an event for a day for education. And coming from Event Industry News, which ultimately that is funded through the opportunity for companies to market themselves to that audience, we decided we knew that better than trying to showcase the value of a ticket. So the next year, we rebranded it under EventTech Live, and we went out there and started talking to event technology providers about would they be interested in coming and having a presence at a trade show.
Adam Parry:
Well, it wasn’t a trade show, actually, initially. The idea was we’re going to do slightly more content, do two streams of content, and maybe we’ll get 15, 20 companies involved. Year one of EventTech Live under that brand was 60 event technology companies, three stages of content, and about a thousand attendees.
Lee:
Where was that? Was that the one at Truman?
Adam Parry:
Yeah. So the Truman Brewery, the most amazing It’s a great venue to help individuals like us get started. It’s a great venue. It’s quirky. It’s got lots of different rooms. You can do lots of different things with it. The team there are fantastic, very cost-effective on the grand scheme of things when it comes to hosting events in London. It is a blank box, so anybody that’s thinking they can roll in there and it’s going to be brilliant, no, you have to do a lot of work to pull everything together. It was a fantastic venue for nearly a decade. We had our exhibition there in one-day formats, two-day formats, and expanded in the venue up until the first year back of the pandemic. So that was what, 2021? Yeah. And it was a fantastic venue for us. Unfortunately, just for two main reasons, logistically, as the event grew, it became a nightmare to work in for our team. We were rolling down into London on the Saturday before the event started and opened on the Wednesday, and team members weren’t leaving until the following Sunday in terms of logistics and build and things like that. It also restricted our exhibitors in terms of what they wanted to do.
Adam Parry:
They couldn’t do certain scale of activation. They couldn’t bring things in. We were having real challenges with some of the hardware providers that we wanted to bring into the show. Actually, what also happened, because the event ended up being split over essentially four rooms on a single floor, every year we had companies who felt they weren’t in the mix of the main action. They felt like they were the second-tier exhibitor, shall we say. That wasn’t the case because we use technology We’re to track people around the show and we did things to push people around the show as well, like content stages and things like that. But just human nature was like, there is a big main room over there and we’re not in there, so therefore we’re not part of the action. So that was another reason for us to move.
Lee:
That makes sense. And you moved to the Excel. What was the thought process around that?
Adam Parry:
Excel, for a number of reasons, believe it or not, an event of our scale, there’s not a number of venues to move to. There are some fantastic venues that we did look at, like magazine in London. We looked at the print works when that was open to host events. We looked at the BDC, but that was just a little too small for us in terms of overall square metres, so was magazine. Olympia, which is another option, it was going and is still going through its redevelopment. On top of that, what also attracted us to Excel, not only a great relationship that I built up with Caroline Gaule, one of the team there, but it was well connected. They were just about to finish the Elizabeth Line by the first time we were going in there as a show, so that made it a lot easier for individuals from across London to get to. It’s got City Airport and obviously through the Elizabeth Line connected well into Heathrow, isn’t it? So part of our growth strategy for the event is to start to look to European countries to bring in buyers from those countries. And that’s even going…
Adam Parry:
That strategy is now filtering down into how we translate content on site and actually translate it post-event from an on-demand perspective. It’s got good infrastructure around in terms of hotels. It’s got lots of parking, so if people want to get there, it’s very easy to get into and build. It’s got our main contractors offices there, GES. And in addition And in addition to that, it’s sustainability credentials. It does a huge amount and continues to invest in sustainability, which by proxy helps us to be more sustainable as an organiser. So they’ve got a bio recycling plant, which has got little live creatures in that eat all the stuff up and turn that into energy. There’s so much on Excel. The list is endless, but they do a lot. So that was another because we felt that by choosing a sustainable venue, that allowed us and helped us on our own sustainability journey as well.
Lee:
Just from my own experience of being there just this last year, I keep saying this year, but we’re in another year already. Life is just flying by way too fast. But the venue was a really great experience for us because like you said, there was no feeling of being out of the action, as it were. No matter where you were, you felt like you were a part of the event. You had your stages everywhere. You actually had two events events going on at the same time. It was like a two for one ticket. It was amazing. I got to go to Sustainability Live and Event Tech Live. Actually, I walked around regularly, had some amazing conversations with some of these stands in both of those events and also listened to some fantastic content. What was the thought process about doing them both at the same time? When did Sustainability Live join in your portfolio of events?
Adam Parry:
Yeah, sure. When it comes to our events, we’ve always focused on niching in on a particular topic. Events at Live is what it says on the tin, you are coming to learn about technology, software, hardware, innovation, digitization, the latest AI, this, the AI, that. And that’s done as well because a number of things, it’s very clear to the attendee what they’re going to get. So the value proposition is there. Either you want to come and learn or you don’t. You don’t waste your time coming to an event and it’s not what it says. And That also makes it very good for our exhibitors and sponsors because they know that everybody is there for the reason that it says, and they’re not there just to be there, or they’re not looking at venues, or they’re not looking at catering, they’re not looking at all of those other things that could go into an event. So they know there’s a good chance that everybody walking past their stand is a potential conversation. It also creates another ecosystem, which we’ll talk about, which is the opportunity in the partnership and networking that comes between the supply chain. There’s a lot of business done at EventTech Live between the suppliers and a lot of partnerships formed.
Adam Parry:
And Event Sustainability Live was born out of that same ideology and framework. But actually in 2019, we launched the sustainable breakfast briefing, which was our first test into what does this look like? Is there an appetite for this from an audience perspective? And in 2019, that was a really huge success. Then we went into the pandemic, but we continued to publish and talk about sustainability. And then post-pandemic, we brought that brand back and straight away people had a huge appetite for it. And it will actually take place, depending on when this podcast episode goes out, it will have either taken place or will be taking place on March sixth, again. So we still got that event as a part of our event portfolio. But again, we only have a short amount of time with those attendees, and it’s a small number. So this year, we’re probably in the region of about 150, and we’ll only have time with those attendees to focus in on one topic around sustainability. So what event sustainability live allowed us to do was, again, expand on that content. We had three stages of content across the two days, as well as other formats of meeting parts for people, round tables for workshops, that stuff.
Adam Parry:
But again, the idea was that to give the industry, and I say this in the broadest sense, We had people from the festival market, from live music, from trade shows, from agencies, from corporates, from brands, all coming in and discussing how they were approaching sustainability. Because our belief is there’s lots of opportunities to learn from each other and take that away and implement that. And having that event co-located with EventTech Live, one, obviously made it a more sustainable event delivery for us because we use the same venue, it was the same amount of logistics, we used the same suppliers for attendees. It was only one set of travel rather than two sets of travel and impact and things. And actually what it also did was give a bigger opportunity for both of those sides in terms of the exhibitor portfolio, because for Event Sustainability Live, which had 1400 attendees to it this first year, they already had a potential two and a half thousand from Event Tech Live as a potential crossover. And therefore for the Event Tech Live exhibitors, what that also presented is another 1400 new attendees that they could potentially tap into in terms of business.
Adam Parry:
And from an audience growth strategy, that’s a lot easier than trying to find another 1400 in one year for just one event and stuff. So that worked really well. We didn’t track people across the event, so we didn’t scan them backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, because I personally find that hella annoying. The only metric that we did look at other than individual registrations for those particular events was who turned into a lead, who turned into a scan lead for an exhibitor on the other side. And across the board, it was about 10% or so. So we managed to deliver a lot more value there. But event Sustainability Live is its own event, it’s its own brand, it’s got its own agenda, on set of speakers, on delivery. But the benefit there is that you’re not having to make a separate or another journey to London to come to another event at a separate moment in time.
Lee:
Absolutely. And I can assure you I was one of the people who kept going over there, simply because if the coffee place was an Event Tech Life, it was an equally good one over event sustainability life. So I was over there grabbing my sandwiches. Now, you arranged for us, in fact, and you are a part of this season, in fact, arrange for us to have some incredible speakers come on our show. And as of recording of this episode, we’ve already released four or five of those episodes that we recorded live and some great feedback already. Content, therefore, is super important to you. That’s been a part of your journey right from the very beginning, with the news platform that you started off with, which then became the Awards, which then became a conference, which then became an exhibition, which has also now sparked event sustainability live as well. Everything’s all gone from there. I noticed that during the events, not only just this time around, but also when you were at Truman, you really did focus on putting on those content stages. I guess this is a twofold question. Does that help add more value to a conference?
Lee:
Because I’ve been to… Sorry, add more value to an exhibition. I’ve been to many exhibitions that won’t do that. It just stands everywhere. Secondly, what do you do post-event with all of that content?
Adam Parry:
You are right that there are two very distinct ways that trade show organisers tend to put their events on. Like you said, there are those that are just about the exhibitors and the stands. In all, honestly, I believe they tend to be more membership-led, association-led. There’s a driver there for those things to come through. Or maybe they’ve just not got anybody that can speak very well on a topic. I don’t know. Maybe there’s this not there. But it is a huge investment for a show organiser like us to put that content on. We are not only reducing the number of square metres we have available to sell to a company, then there is the logistics, the infrastructure. To give round figures, you could be looking at easily north of 50K per stage in terms of build and time and crewing and things like that. That’s before you even get started on live streaming any of that content like we do or capturing that content for per show. But we believe in content. It’s obviously in our lifeblood. That’s what we’ve come through. We’ve built an audience up on event industry news on LinkedIn. We’ve got 85,000 followers there or something like that.
Adam Parry:
And we believe that’s a really good strategy from an audience acquisition perspective. So we believe in the power of content on giving people that want to learn and educate themselves. But it also does, when curated in the right way, it provides those that are helping to fund and support the event an opportunity to engage in thought leadership content. So whether that’s them speaking themselves, they go through a call for papers, they get approved by our team based on their submission session, or maybe they host a panel session, or maybe they are part of a panel session. And I think companies generally really value that opportunity to engage and help and also generate awareness about what they’re doing in the industry. So there’s value there. There’s value as well, I think, from the attendee perspective. So we often get the attendees, the buyers, also involved in content because they get the opportunity to share how they approach, let’s say, technology or sustainability. And then in terms of another reason for us to do it is, and back to your second question is, we record everything. So we partnered this year with Interprify to actually translate using AI into German, Spanish, and French.
Adam Parry:
Again, back to our original, back to our earlier point of wanting to attract a bigger European audience, just to make it a little bit more comfortable and a little bit more natural to hear things in their first language. But by collecting that content, what that gives us is a content plan, first event. And you’ll see that content, just like you’re doing with the podcast now, that content is going out on a regular basis there for people on our newsletter, for past attendees, hopefully for future attendees to try and capture their attention. As a lifeblood to those companies that I’ve supported as well and giving them extra exposure. And that’s worked. I think that’s worked consistently in maintaining the event tech live brand in front of the industry in a relevant way that’s not just like, don’t forget about the dates, don’t forget about next year’s dates, don’t forget about next year’s dates. So we do that. Sometimes that also generates sponsorship revenue and income because companies want to put their name against that and and also have that exposure. So there’s a business case for it as well. But like I said, lots of companies don’t do it because it’s not a small undertaking.
Adam Parry:
Capturing needs one, then you’ve got to edit it, then you’ve got to put it into a content plan, then the marketing team have got to get it out there, then you’ve got to track it. So it’s not one thing to do lightly, but I would absolutely recommend it. If I could just… The thought that I had when we were talking about you and and Event Engine and the podcast and the way that you came in. Not everybody’s got a podcast, but there’s more than that as an opportunity. I love it when a company can think slightly left of them just standing on a stand waiting for people to come to their stand and talk to them about what they do. Actually, software is really hard. Even services that go around that are really It’s really hard to showcase from a stand because what do you show, right? Unless you’re going to get a massive LED screen and have a fancy video that’s on roll and showcases what you do. And you’re still trying to capture people’s attention. And I don’t think companies really utilise that space effectively when doing that. I think doing something at the show, which is capturing content, that could be a podcast, that could be a video interview, that could just be a selfie, I don’t know, selfie or something that’s attracting people to the stand is a great way of maximising value from the show.
Adam Parry:
You’re not just relying on the conversations of the people that are going past, you get an additional value. And the strategy we did, Lee, wasn’t it? It was to go, right, who would make for a great guest for you? What does that client look like? We went out, we worked together, we attracted some of those to the podcast. We also targeted some industry influences and people with big reach and big brands and things like that. So I think, I don’t know where I’m going with this, but that’s my advice to anybody that’s thinking about going to a trade show. It’s like, how can you eke more value out of it? What can you do? And ask the organiser, right? Ask the organiser, we want to do interviews from our stand. I’m trying to encourage some of our exhibitors to just think about their as a micro-stage that they can host content from themselves and with other people. We can put that in the agenda. We can market that out as content to the attendees. That’s a huge opportunity to attract people to your stand, to your brand, to your team, whatever it might be. And if I’m honest, I don’t think 95 % of companies think about that.
Lee:
Well, for us, in our experience, you connected us with some phenomenal people. And one of my favourite conversations was actually with Dax because he was We were having a conversation that went against the green. People assume that you need to build a community alongside an event, and I’m one of those people. I’m like, yeah, yeah. And I used to have a massive Facebook community of 4,000 people in there and bled myself and burnt myself out trying to continue to run that alongside my event. He actually just threw in to the mix that actually deliver an epic event that people will remember and focus on what you’re good at, which is the event organising rather rather than draining yourself all year round to try and eke some online community out all year. That hit home. But that was a really good example of, A, the people and conversations that you can have at these events. For us, though, having a stand where we were just stood awkwardly hoping people would walk past and that awkward conversation of, Hello. Yes, this is what we do on the wall behind us. We had none of that. Instead, we had people like, What’s this podcast all about?
Lee:
What are you guys up to right now? Can I be on it? So we ended up actually having three extra guests because people just wanted to be on the show. I was like, Well, great. That’s fantastic. So you connected us with about six or seven epic people. And then we also had another three who just joined us. In fact, speaking on the Europe thing, it definitely worked because a couple of contacts for us who are suppliers based in Denmark, et cetera, just decided last minute to jump on a plane same day, were able to go to the airport, get straight to the venue, spent the day looking around, et cetera, then just jumped back on the train and flew home and were back in the evening in their homes all the same day. They came over on day two. So that was phenomenal. So that’s some good feedback for you, mate. Now, you’re not just looking at Europe, though. You’re looking at global domination. And you guys, I think, are in your second or third year out in Vegas. What sparked that?
Adam Parry:
This will be our second year.
Lee:
Second year. Was it just a trip to America?
Adam Parry:
Yeah, just I just wanted to redeem my obvious miles, mate. That’s all it was. So technology, the events industry is global, but it’s also quite small and niche. So it’s not that big in terms of the network and the community around it. And what we found was a request for it in twofold. One was from the reach and the readership and things that we have across North America, about 30% of our audience on event industry news is based in America on a month to month basis. And consistently getting asked, when are you going to do something like EventTech Live? There’s nothing in the US like EventTech Live. There’s nothing supporting event technology like EventTech Live. That was on both sides. That was both from the user-buyer end and also from the supply chain. We got customers who, see Ventures as an example, have exhibited with us for a decade. They exhibit lots of events all over the country. But the one thing they say about our show is it’s the focus and it’s the community and it’s the technology and everything around it that makes it valuable to them in terms of making sure that they’re part of it.
Adam Parry:
But that doesn’t exist in North America. So we decided to take the brand there. Ultimately, it’s unrealistic to think that we can attract a two and a half, 3,000 person event to fly over from the US. As much as I’d love to pay for everybody to fly over, the commercials just don’t make sense on that. And you’ve also got some companies who the North America market is big enough for them, right? So they don’t need to come to London to grow their business. They’ve got enough to go out in America and Canada, but still loved what we did, still wanted to support the event and things like that. So the make-up of the event formats look very similar in terms of the experience when you get on site. There are some quirks and features about EventTech Live that are different to London. We bring in food trucks to the front of the venue because we’ve got access outside so people can go and…
Lee:
You didn’t mention this. I may have to revisit my plans and come over.
Adam Parry:
It’s not too late, mate. It’s not too late. Do a podcast again. We took the brand over because it made much more sense to generate over there. The most challenging thing about geo-cloning event is building that momentum with audience. America is a big place, Canada is a big place, and it takes time to build up that audience in terms of new visitors to the show, people just realising it’s there, people getting the dates in the diary, realising it’s mid-year and getting that. And ultimately, what’s easier about London is there is a lot of event community based in and around London. So it’s a short hop on a train, a commute on a two or whatever, where it’s a two-hour train from London to come in or a little bit further in Europe. To go from New York to Las Vegas, it’s the best part of four and a half, five hours on a plane. We would be in what? Italy? That still blows my mind. Croatia. So there’s a little bit more challenge there in terms of getting people over to it. I think a very special, not very special, but a tactic that will yield us dividends going forward is we are one of the few industry events that are free to attend.
Adam Parry:
Without naming any other names, there are well Unestablished industry trade shows, conferences, and things like that. They range anything from $2,000 to $4,000 a place to go. I mean, some shows charge attendees just to walk the show flow, never mind access the education. Our belief has been always that that should be free to access unless it’s a conference model or it’s an additional track of education or something like that, something very specific, then that’s fair, that might need a ticket to it. But That in addition to also travel and things like that, some attendees are probably facing three, four, five thousand dollar bills to go to an event. So we’re going to keep EventTech Live free to attend for as long as we see for it, forever, hopefully. And I think that will pay us dividends, because then I think people will realise that if they want to use technology to enhance their events, to level up when it comes to their businesses, to understand more about their attendees and the customer journey and things like that, then why not come to Vegas and stop in the Golden Nugget, 50 dollars a night, and hang out with us for two days?
Lee:
Is it really 50 dollars a night?
Adam Parry:
It’s 35 quid a night at the moment.
Lee:
You really are selling it to me.
Adam Parry:
And we have an amazing… I’m doing the sales pitch now.
Lee:
Who doesn’t want to stay at a place called the Golden Nugget? Is that really what it’s called?
Adam Parry:
Golden Nugget. Yeah, the Golden Nugget. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the fanciest of places, not Caesar Palace or anything like that. It’s a great name, right? It’s decent. And Saker across the road, that’s a very, very nice hotel. I think that’s sub-a hundred dollars a night at the moment. So you can get some nice hotels down there. And we also do something in the evening called the Royal Crawl, which is a bar Crawl. That’s not even going to be something like that. All downtown down Las Vegas.
Lee:
The word Crawl gave it away.
Adam Parry:
Yeah. And we even do that. So that’s 35 dollars for the event and five drinks across five bars on three properties on Fremont Street. The average drink on Fremont Street is $10 to $15 a piece. So we even try and do things like that where we’re trying to negotiate good rates on that night time networking activities. And the best thing about that event is if you don’t drink, you don’t buy the ticket, but you can still come along.
Lee:
Yeah, even better. So I currently am not drinking.
Adam Parry:
Yeah. So you could…
Lee:
I’m on day 81 of not doing it. That’s it.
Adam Parry:
I mean, I’ve been to events where you’re in charge for a ticket. It’s like, well, all the booze you can drink. I’m like, well, I’m not a foster, but I still want to come.
Lee:
I’m also a terrible drinker. I’m a little bit tipsy. And I can’t stand it. I’m just getting too old. So, I mean, with regards to, you said you’re in the second year. I mean, it’s pretty scary putting on an event in the UK, there’s a lot of cost, there’s a lot of risk. How did you basically get the bravery, I guess is the question, to actually bite the bullet? Because there’s a lot of money to invest. You’re not there. Try to organise an event remotely is a lot of work. How did you de-risk? How did you bite the bullet, as it were, and go for it? What pushed you to do something so significantly, to me, at least scary? I assume it was scary for you, at least the first year.
Adam Parry:
It’s still scary, really. We don’t rest on our laurels when it comes to Event Tech Live London. Events are very transient. There is no commitment to them. It’s not like you’re not a commercial business where you’ve got a history of orders and you can see it bubbling along there. And if one month dips a little bit, it’s fine. You can pull it back, maybe do some paid ads or something like that, whatever. Events are fine. I think what gave me the confidence… Well, confidence comes after taking action as far as I’m concerned. You don’t get confidence before you’ve done something. We had delivered 10 nine fairly successful years. I think the other thing as well that helps give me that confidence is I’m quite close to a lot of my customers and the community around EventTech Live. And while EventTech Live Las Vegas might not be for them, we still use those as a sounding board. Got a very good team. There are four of us on the commercial side that look at those relationships with the supply chain and the companies that exhibit and stuff like that. They’re all experienced, they’re all very good. And then we’ve also got a very good operations team.
Adam Parry:
Paul, my co founder, leads as the event directs around the event. And then we’ve got James Dixon, who is his second in command on that stuff. And then Kizy, who deals with a lot of the event from the design look, feel, theming, that stuff. So we had all the building blocks for it, right? But don’t get me wrong, It has and it still is very challenging building that event up. We used to come out of the… We used to come out of Event Tech Live and we had a fair amount of breathing space to reassess things, look at what we were changing for next year, re-engage with people and built back up to November. One event is hard, but it’s fairly straightforward. Kind of like kids, right? One event is challenging. Two events is like having four events. We come out of EventTech Live, you blink, it’s the new year and you’re X number of months away from delivering the event in May. So it’s a lot of work. You need to be very, very efficient or try to be as very efficient around the time invested in the event and the managing and the project management and the sales cycle and things like that to make it work.
Lee:
Well, for everyone out there, especially our USA audience, please consider popping down to Vegas for the Food Carts, to stay in the Golden Nugget, to meet the one and only Adam Parry, and to network as well. The networking opportunities, mate, that we had in EventTech Live in London, I know will also be available there. It’s not just about the people who come and show up. It is very much about being with those other suppliers because that’s where some long lasting friendships are formed, but equally, some epic partnerships and business can be passed around. So I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what happens, mate, watching it live. If I can get over last minute, I will. I know we’ve currently got plans, but hey, things can change and I might jump in a plane. I just want to stay in the best name ever.
Adam Parry:
Bring the mic in the suitcase, mate, and we’ll find you somewhere.
Lee:
I will. I’ve got it down here as well. That’s the desk I had. It’s on my desk here, so I will do. Well, as we come into land, mate, as you are a wise sage, could you give us a prediction? Just going to throw this in now on where you think AI is going in the events industry, mate, because everyone’s talking about AI. I think I’m actually sick to the back teeth of it, to be honest. But I’d love to know if you have any predictions about AI and the events industry.
Adam Parry:
Okay.
Lee:
Also, it helps the algorithm by mentioning AI several times in this episode. Ai, AI, AI. There you Perfect.
Adam Parry:
I think at the moment we’re probably, and this is the events industry when it comes to technology, we’re at the fascination stage, and I think there’s slight overhype on it. When we’re still not massively adopting the technology that’s out there, then I don’t know how much difference AI is going to make. If you’ve got a piece of event technology, it’s got AI in it, but you’re still not adopting that, then it’s irrelevant, isn’t it? My honest advice to the events industry is if you want to really harness the power of AI in your event business, look outside of event tech. Event tech company is not going to love me for that because they want to use event tech. But I’m currently using a number of tools with AI built into them that are helping me as an event organiser. So these are things like Tango, Textblades, Dripify. These are all little tools out there that on a on a day to day basis, just make my job that little bit easier and that little bit more streamlined. Grain, I’ve just started to look at Grain as a version. It’s similar to Otter AI and things like that.
Adam Parry:
I think that’s where the events industry has got the biggest opportunity to leverage AI, we are one of the most stressful industries because of impending deadlines, immoveable deadlines, things cannot move, projects need to be delivered on a day or the event doesn’t happen. We also tend to be one of the most global industries, so we’re dealing with people on other borders, other time zones, and things like that. I think ultimately, AI can help streamline and automate some processes to really make time efficient. That’s the biggest prediction, prediction if you want to call it. But I think the industry will get the most out of AI from an operational and logistics perspective.
Lee:
Rather than necessarily the gimmick stuff that I’m thrown at with YouTube videos, etc, we’re talking about it being practical and helpful to the day to day streamlining communications, streamlining organisations, removing some of that stress from… And perhaps if AI had have existed a few years ago, I wouldn’t have lost all my hair.
Adam Parry:
We’ll all have AI headpieces, mate.
Lee:
AI is moving your camera.What’s going on there?
Adam Parry:
There we go. It doesn’t like it. The overloads are coming for There we go.
Lee:
He’s doing it himself.
Lee:
Well, if you’re not watching us, if you’re not watching on YouTube, if you’re listening to the audio podcast right now, the AI has just taken over his camera and moving it all around. Well, on that, thank you so much for your time with me. It’s been wonderful. Thank you for being so honest, for being so vulnerable, for sharing what goes on behind the scenes, sharing those numbers as well. Absolutely fascinating. Folks, if you are thinking of going to Vegas, sign up, get involved. To reach out to Adam. It looks extremely exciting. If you want to stay in the golden nugget, so do I. Don’t blame you. Adam, what’s the best way for people to connect with you? And then we shall say goodbye.
Adam Parry:
If you’re on LinkedIn, Adam.Parry, I think it is, and on Twitter, Punch down Parry.
Lee:
Nice. Well, we’ll make sure we put those in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, mate. Have a good one.
Adam Parry:
Thank you
Lee:
Take care. Cheerio..