Event planning and production

# Somebody has to hold the whole day in their head

Conferences, galas, launches and festivals. You tell us what the day has to achieve. We work out the rest and stand at the back making sure it happens.

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No charge to talk it through. We reply within one working day.

Conferences Award nights Product launches Charity galas Trade expos Festivals Team offsites Summits Conferences Award nights Product launches Charity galas Trade expos Festivals Team offsites Summits

What we run

## Five kinds of day, one way of working

The room changes, the running order changes, the job does not. Pick one to see what it involves.

Conferences and expos Galas and award nights Festivals and public events Summits and panels Workshops and offsites

### Conferences and expos

The hardest part of a conference is not the day, it is the six weeks of registration, speaker chasing and stand allocation before it. We take all of that, and on the day you get a floor plan that works and a schedule that holds.

- Registration, badges and a door that does not queue
- Stand layout, power and load in times
- Speaker liaison, slides collected in advance
- Breakout rooms turned round between sessions

### Galas and award nights

An award night lives or dies on pace. We build the running order backwards from the last award, rehearse the handovers, and keep the room moving so the speeches land while people are still listening.

- Table plans, place cards and dietary requirements
- Trophy handling, autocue and presenter briefing
- Room dressing, florals and lighting states
- A running order rehearsed, not just printed

### Festivals and public events

Outdoors adds weather, crowds and a licence. We plan for all three, write the documents the council asks for, and have a wet weather version ready that nobody has to invent on the morning.

- Licences, permits and the safety paperwork
- Site plan, fencing, power and water
- Stallholders, traders and their own paperwork
- A wet weather plan written weeks in advance

### Summits and panels

A panel is only as good as its brief. We work with the chair on the questions, get the panellists in a room beforehand, and make sure the audience microphone reaches somebody before the moment passes.

- Chair and panellist briefing, questions agreed
- Stage set, seating and sightlines
- Roving microphones and a plan for questions
- Recording and a clip list for afterwards

### Workshops and offsites

Smaller, but the fiddliest to get right, because the room has to change shape three times before lunch. We handle the layout, the materials and the food, so the facilitator only has to facilitate.

- Room layouts that change during the day
- Materials, boards, printing and packs
- Food timed around the agenda, not the kitchen
- Travel and rooms when people stay over

What we handle

## The list nobody wants to keep

This is the part of an event that is invisible when it goes right. All of it sits with us unless you would rather keep a piece of it.

- Venue search, site visits and the contract
- Budget, quotes and one invoice at the end
- Suppliers, from staging to florists
- Run sheets, call times and crew rotas
- Registration, guest lists and name badges
- Catering, dietary requirements and service timings
- Sound, lighting, screens and a technical rehearsal
- Risk assessment, insurance and licences
- On the day management, start to strike
- The debrief, with numbers, the week after

Anything on that list you want to keep, keep it. We will work around you and pick up the rest.

Send us a brief

How we think about it

## An event is a deadline with a room attached

Everything else is negotiable. The date is not. So we plan backwards from the door opening, and every decision gets a date by which it has to be made. That is the whole method, and it is why the last week is quiet rather than frantic.

How we work

## Five stages, and you know where you are in all of them

1. 01

   ### The brief

   You send what you know, even if that is only a month and a rough number of people. We reply within one working day with questions, not a price list.

2. 02

   ### Shape and budget

   A written proposal: what the day looks like, hour by hour, and what each part costs. Nothing hidden in a line called sundries. You can take any part out.

3. 03

   ### Booking and build

   Venue and suppliers contracted, deposits paid, and a plan with every decision dated. You get one document that is always current, and one person who answers the phone.

4. 04

   ### The day

   We are there before the first supplier and we leave after the last van. You are a guest at your own event, which is the point of hiring anybody.

5. 05

   ### The week after

   Final invoice, attendance numbers, feedback, and an honest note on what we would change. That note is what makes the second one better than the first.

Recent work

## Six from the last year

Click any photograph to see it larger. Arrow keys move between them.

Send a brief

## Tell us what the day has to do

Fill in what you know. A month and a rough headcount is enough to start with, and we would rather hear from you early than fully formed.

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Your name

Email required

Phone optional

Company or organisation optional

Kind of event

Date, or roughly when

How many people

Venue

Budget range

The brief optional

We use your details to answer this brief and nothing else. No charge, and no obligation to book.

Questions

## Asked most often

### How far ahead should we book you?

Six months for anything over two hundred people, three for a smaller day. We have taken on events with six weeks to go, but the venue choice narrows quickly and the price does not improve.

### What do you charge?

A flat management fee agreed before anything is booked, not a percentage of what you spend. A percentage rewards us for spending your money, which is the wrong incentive.

### Do you take a cut from suppliers?

No. Supplier quotes reach you exactly as they reach us, and you can use your own suppliers wherever you already have them.

### We only need part of it. Is that fine?

Yes, and it is common. Some clients keep the guest list and the content and hand us the room, the suppliers and the day itself.

### What happens if something goes wrong on the day?

Something usually does. A speaker misses a train, a screen fails, the rain arrives an hour early. The plan carries a version of the day for each of those, so the fix is a decision already made rather than one invented on the spot.

### Can you work with our venue and our suppliers?

Yes. If the venue is already contracted we work to that contract, and we will read it properly, which is more than most people do before signing.

## Have a date in mind?

Send the brief. You will hear back within one working day, from somebody who has read it.

Send us a brief