[Interview] Adam Barber - Why You Should Build Your Own Studio

So, Adam, you know that we've had various conversations around this subject. It's a deep passion of mine. And we recently published a blog featuring about six organizations that have done. Have taken all these steps and they all share certain commonalities, certain traits. And my aim with this session today is to inspire that, like with the audience in here today gets inspired with your story. And I know that you have a really good, interesting things to say. So let's just begin by kind of understanding a little bit more of the context. Why do you do this? Tell us the why and how did this all begin?

Well, I think it's probably fair to say, Ricardo, that, you know, if you spin the clock back, you know, 10, 11 months to January, and you'd asked me then, you know, would you like, how do you fancy building a virtual studio? You know, I would have laughed you out of the room. Right. So, you know, it was clearly born out of necessity and sort of, I guess, sort of to go a little bit deeper than that are from our perspective, you know, we've always, you know, we've developed over the last few years through our community. We were community first, so we were always a membership first business and sort of. We built that off of strength of editorial and strength of insight into our. Into our market, which is the renewables market. But the events for us were really something that, you know, we only kind of, I guess, discovered over the last couple of years. You know, we're very new to it. In fact, I. I'd say that in many respects I'm an accidental event owner really more than anything else. And so we were kind of. We spent many. We spent the last few years really kind of stumbling through the undergrowth, trying to work out how to build an event and so forth. And we got to January and we were all set to run a physical event in Boston. We had the sponsors loaded against it. We were booking out the delegates. We were on that classic path. And then Covid struck. And from our perspective, we really had a choice at that sort of very early stage, which was do we effectively rebook everyone on to the following year, or do we look at a way to draw down that revenue and to make it happen? And I knew pretty early on that, you know, the energy that we got from that event was really important, you know, to be able to drive that energy and that sort of. That sense of theater and that sense of that sort of emotive connection that for us was really important. And it felt that. I felt very strongly at the very beginning that to do that. You couldn't do that necessarily through a traditional zoom call. You know, my sense was that, you know, we were going to get. We were going to get zoomed out on that. And the idea that we could perhaps bring it to life through a sort of a TV studio concept was very appealing. And, you know, full disclosure, 20 years ago, you know, I studied theatre and performance at university, and I distinctly remember my parents at the time saying, that's wonderful, but tell me when the hell you're going to ever find a use for that degree. Well, you know, I like to think that maybe if this year has taught me one thing, Ricardo, it's that, you know, there was possibly a use to that kind of that theater and performance background. And it did certainly help with the studio, but for us, it was an obvious choice. It was like, do we defer those events because I just couldn't see them working as a flat environment, or do we try and do something different? And I guess because I never read the rule book for how to run an event or how to build a conference, naivety wins, right? And it was kind of like, whoa, what could possibly go wrong with building a studio? Surely we can do that. And we very, very quickly took that decision to do it and communicated that to our sponsors before we knew how we were going to do it. I mean, that's the truth. But, you know, there's a lot of reasons why that was important, but for us, it was about engaging with our sponsors really early and finding out what they wanted and understanding why they wanted to work with us. Ricardo, that was key. And really that was the start of it. It was the fact that they were looking for something different. And I thought that that was something we could do.

And I think that what I like about this is that you did not have, or you do not have what we call the event industry baggage that we highlight all the time. Because many entrepreneurs, as I call them, they are now or have been in the process of, okay, how do we transfer this to digital? How do we. And then there are certain boundaries that, rightly or wrongly, they all have been kind of framed under these boundaries, and then that creates a lot of problems. And I like that a lot when you say about. Is about the emotion and is about how you're going to foster that kind of interaction, even with the viewers. And I think that's a really, really important part that I wanted to highlight to the people out there, is that having a studio in a studio environment, then you have that element of interaction. Yes, probably people are in lockdowns and all that. But then there will be ways in which you can keep in a safe distance, kind of have that kind of studio environment. So I want to look into a little bit, let's just delve a little bit into the logistics. So then you've made that decision to let's just do it, let's just build this studio. Let's just go ahead with that. So tell me about the logistics, because many people here, especially if we've got about 90% of our audience, which reflects the situation out there for the events and media and media business industries. What about the logistics? Tell us about the logistics. How did it start working timescales and everything? I think you've done something very interesting, which to me, I was just baffled and I said, okay, their event is in September. They already built the studio, kind of. How did that happen? Tell us about it.

Yeah, so it was interesting because anyone that knows me well sort of would, and I'd freely admit it would suggest that, you know, I'm very much a big picture guy, you know, so it's kind of like, hey, we've got this idea, we're going to build a studio. And I distinctly remember the conversation behind the scenes where we'd had a conversation with a couple of our key sponsors whereby they'd sort of back the idea and they were excited about it. And we then had a team briefing afterwards where they said, okay, great, what next? And I remember that moment where it's kind of like it's a blank piece of paper. Where do we start? But for us, the. We actually, we spent about. So this was originally, we were due to host the event in May and we'd already pushed the event back till September, but when we pushed it back to September, we knew when we were doing it that we weren't going to host it in Boston. It just wasn't going to work like that. So we were looking at that studio build from. I think we had a 90 day window, something like that ahead of it. And I remember having a couple of conversations early on with, with a couple of production companies where they would traditionally stream an event or they kind of, you know, they work behind the scenes and that sort of stuff. And you know, we sort of communicated that vision and we were very clear on the vision that we wanted from the outset. The idea was that we wanted to be able to build a kind of a studio in a box. So it was a, you know, it was a sort of a large, a large stage area, you know, fully dressed as a Sort of theatrical TV studio set, so set up like a morning show. But the thinking was that we would basically bring the tech into the room and ultimately once we'd done this, we would then use that thinking to be able to kind of take that studio quite literally and over the course of the next couple of years use it to scale up that event. Because we'd always looked at can we stream, can we start bringing in more tech into the event? And for me, I saw that as an opportunity. And in that tech briefing we kind of realized that actually there was a model that kind of worked in that environment in television. And the model was kind of like that live morning show or kind of, I think possibly the best example, I don't know how well it will translate to your audience, was almost the Top Gear model, you know, so it's the idea where you've got a live studio set, you've got that interaction with the audience and you've got that ability to be able to kind of like, you know, to broadcast to many and you've got, you've got a panel that can feed off that environment. So for us, that's where we wanted to start. The challenge was who to work with and how to start unlocking that. And to be quite honest, the production companies that we were talking to, who will remain nameless, I saw some very big numbers against that. And we knew from the outset we were going to invest in this and we wanted to invest in this because we weren't looking at a 12 month cycle, we were looking at our membership platform. So I was really looking at a three year cycle on it and I was looking at the rebooks. But even so those numbers just didn't stack up and I wanted a fresh approach. And that's where that supplier was key.

I just really wanted to highlight this for the benefit of the audience. So Adam have seen this not as a short term aspect. And then I really wanted to kind of underline that. Then Adam and his team saw this as a mid to long term investment. So that's kind of one of the key traits. The second element is that they have seen that they wanted to, yes, invest money. Right. And obviously how much that money is at that point in time is unknown.

Right.

And the key interesting story obviously from our previous conversation is that like you did what everyone in their sane mind would have gone is go and speak to their AV guys, go and speak to their traditional kind of organizers, people that have been kind of walking the path along with you. And then you say, now we want to do virtue, we want to do studio. Tell us a little bit more about that story because I think there's something really very interesting about that with that links with big numbers, financials. How can we do this differently?

We really thought about it in terms of the sell was actually less around each individual sponsor. Actually, Ricardo, it was more around the phrase, the thinking for us is around the lifetime customer value of our, of our community and of our audience. Right. So I was more interested in how what I think the event world calls delegates and for us as a community. So they don't buy a delegate ticket with us, they buy a membership and it renews every single year. And that membership concept we've played with for a long time. And we've played with the kind of the content side and the networking side. The networking side has really helped ramp up that kind of that value. But the key is actually on kind of the renewal. The key is looking out with a long lens and saying, okay, what happens in 21? What happens in 22? What happens? And I'm looking at that. And so the studio for us was really key because that's what differentiated us. We didn't have the long term event experience to be able to say, here's how you produce that event, that sort of slick and smart as a traditional event. We focused on the quality of the content and the quality of the people in the room. And it was how you reflected that in a studio. And what was interesting was when we started talking to the supply chain and the contractors, that was an alien language for a lot of individuals. It was kind of like, well, what do you mean? Normally you've just got a fixed budget for production and you kind of rinse it through. It's like, well, that wasn't the case. And it was for us. It was this kind of left and right brain thinking, right? It's the emotive and the logical buy. And that's what I'm looking for. It's like, how do I get my sponsors and my community, my delegates, my membership? Call it what you will. How do I get them all excited about this? How do I get that energy into it in this new environment? And to be quite honest, I talked about the theater early on. That was where really out of desperation more than anything else, we actually said, well, there's got to be a better way who can produce, you know, and build sets effectively, who can inject that kind of that, that live theatricality and who can work with a very tight budget, you know, to be able to deliver something of high impact. And that's where we started talking to theatre producers and that changed it.

So, for the benefit of the audience, is that. So you went and took this obvious steps and speak to these kind of production companies. And then, as you were saying, big numbers were coming, coming in, like, wow, extremely expensive, extremely everything. And then you kind of have to think about it with a team and then you then take that decision to think outside the box and then theatrical and everything. And that's kind of when you started talking to these kind of all the different production companies.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it wasn't that. Just to be clear, it wasn't that we were averse to spending or investing. You know, my view, you know, and I still find this interesting now, Ric, because you'll look at an event that's coming up and you've got sponsorship revenue loaded against it, but there's suddenly, when you move to a virtual, is this propensity not to invest? And I find that quite curious because it's kind of like, look, you've got to be able to invest in that same way, or you've got to be able to invest in a different way, but you've got to be able to invest. And for us, that was the key. It was kind of like, look, I'm not averse to investing with one of these sort of the kind of commercially loaded production companies. The problem was they weren't listening to what we wanted. You know, they had a. It was a. It was a very. It was a. It was a very set way of.

Being cookie cutter approach. This is exactly the way we do it. This is the way we deliver it. We kind of take it or leave it.

And that's not.

That highlights the element of wanting to be different from the outset. You see what I'm saying? It's not. Okay, how do we translate? What can these people provide? It's. How do. How do we find a partner that helps us deliver what we're expecting to deliver? And then one thing that I wanted to also highlight, because I think there's just so much stuff in my head, is that the longevity of having the studio ready from way before you do it is because you also thought about, because you were bringing along your sponsors, your partners to the journey. Along. Bringing them along to the journey. That's why you have the studio built from earlier on, because you wanted to show some, I guess, tangible stuff. Am I right saying that or that wasn't the case?

Yeah, no, that's. That is completely fair. And I think we. We wanted our sponsors to be excited about it. You know, this was the point where, you know, there was. There was this sort of, you know, it was the. It was timely that we're doing this now in many respects, you know, when the UK goes into sort of a second lockdown. But this was, you know, this was when we were in the teeth of. And we were dealing with U.S. companies that kind of were behind the curve with the dreaded C word, as it were. And it was kind of like, well, if we don't excite them now, they're just going to want to pull. They're just going to want to pull that cash or defer it, as it were. So one of my core metrics up front was how do we get them bought in at a meaningful level now with that event? And. And how do we also focus them on the event itself rather than, again, on kind of all the stuff that, you know, like, you know, like the virtual booths and stuff that, you know, I have a fairly strong view on, as it were, and I just can't, you know, it's. They're a different model. So for us, the studio was a great way of kind of getting everyone focused around one, you know, one issue, as it were, and bringing them on that journey. And we were really clear. We set up.

I think it was.

By fortnightly, I think it was about every 14 days. We had a briefing call with each sponsor just to let them know how we were going with the studio. And we actually even shared some shots with them as we were building it, because it got them excited about it. You know, it was kind of like they could see it coming together.

And I think that's a true gem in here. That what you're talking about, and I think, again, for the benefit of. Benefit of the audience, is that like you're using the studio as means to get people excited, to get your audience excited. You were doing video updates as well with your audience, with your community. And I think that's kind of amazing because many of these things that happen happen in the background and then everyone is just trying to scramble and have everything ready for when the event takes place. And I really admire that element that you've had there. So we're. We've talked about the aspects of the logistics. So you went with a more theater production company that led you to find, I guess, optimization in terms of creative resources, because you have people that were outside, they were happy to play again, to come along with the journey, to learn. They accepted that there were some things that they were not good at specifically from the technical side of things and everything, which you guys were prepared to fill those gaps in that sense. What about the. So there is a barrier within media and event organizers that they say, oh, a studio that's too expensive. Right. And I'm not asking you to share specific numbers and everything, but I think it will be helpful if you can share some context around that label. Oh, is it too expensive? It takes too much. It's too much work. So, yeah, can you talk us a little bit about that kind of element, how you would advise someone to overcome that barrier, that label?

Yeah, so, I mean, I'd be really interested, actually, from the audience perspective, just for them to potentially throw some numbers into the Q and A and what they think we would spend in terms of kit and production. I'd be really intrigued by that. Ricardo audience, do you want to put.

It in the chat panel? How much do you guys think. Think Adam spent on tech building his studio?

Right.

When you say tech, are you referring to, okay, sets, chairs, lighting and all that?

Exactly that. So I would say. I'd say lighting, set build, cameras. What else have we got? Yeah, like, you know, sort of vision mixers, etc. I'm not including the behind. I'm not including the. We put Spot Me behind the scenes. So we integrated our studio with Spot Me. We had that as our networking platform. I don't include that because I think that's.

Don't include any event, like any event logistics, like the usual virtual tech. Just talk about this stuff. Okay, so we're saying someone's saying 125k. Anyone else wants to have a punter?

There's a 50. There's a 50k from Oliver McCourt. 85k. Any other numbers coming through? Still 10. There's some big variants. 10. Yeah. What's interesting is that the sort of. The hidden cost here, I'll just let. I'll see if there's a few more before we. I will talk about it. But what's interesting is that the sort of. The hidden cost was time. Team time. You know, our sort of. Our events team, which is a very lightly staffed events team. Their time really was. The way they used their time changed materially during this. You know, they spent a large amount of time working with the sponsors. And actually we ended up bringing in a lot. We brought in our events producer for our awards program to manage that and work with our own event operations manager because we felt like the. Our awards program is a very highly choreographed, you know, evening that works to Time and we felt that that that was close to how that studio worked, as it were. We got any more numbers coming in?

Yeah, no, we've got. Basically we've got anything from 10 up into 125. But yeah, probably the majority of people kind of think that was around. Yeah, let's say north of 30k, 40k, 50. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was. You know, there's going to be a lot of ways to cut this budget, but we spent roughly 20k on that kit tops. And that was. That included a rehearsal day, full build, and of course we now own a lot of that set as well. So, you know, we invested. Some of it was. Some of it was kind of leased in, some of it we bought, etc. So, yeah, about 20k, which.

About 20k. There you go. So it doesn't really have to be that high.

That high.

And then he was saying it include rental of the space. Actually it would be. It's fair to clarify that you build a studio in a warehouse in Oxfordshire.

So we did. Yeah, we built.

Did that include the rental of the space?

That did. That included the rental of the space. And actually the way we built the set was that we built a sky. We built a window into the set with a. With a live stream from a Boston harbor cityscape. And we only had. Because it was obviously a North American panel, we only had North American panelists. You know, we had a live North American palace in the studio and the rest was all videoed in with us with a screen at the back. So actually most of our. And we never. We were never asked the question, are you hosting this in Oxford or in North America? But the assumption from our audience was that it was in Boston, which we kind of, you know, we kind of enjoyed, actually.

Amazing. That's kind of pretty good. So you've touched on the. So I hope we've removed aspects on the. On the element about the financial. It doesn't really have to cost a lot. As long as you're creative, as long as you kind of think outside the box and how you could undertake that, you've demonstrated that. Amazing. For clarity purposes, the studio still is still sitting in that warehouse in Oxford. Then you're now ramping up to your event in November. And again, you're going to be using that again now.

December 10th. December 10th.

Sorry, sorry about that. So now let's talk about interview highlight, because I think the hidden cost and then just we'll move into the logistics aspect about the team, the time they took and tell us a Little bit about that. What undertaking is required here? Because if someone's here that wants to do this, which I take it that they are attending this particular webinars because they want to, they have thought about it. What about the logistics in terms of the staff training or the staff skill sets and everything? Give us a. And tell us about the. As you said, the hidden cost is the team time spent on certain areas.

So the hidden. So the hidden cost in terms of the areas that kind of ended up being time sucks, correct? Yeah. So, I mean, I guess the areas that we thought were going to be real time sucks perhaps didn't quite transpire. So it's worth just sort of flagging that sort of those kind of those expectations on where we thought we were going to be investing time that didn't quite play out so much, although we did see a heavier sort of heavier areas and some unexpected areas. So where we thought we would be spending a lot of time would be in physically, you know, working with that production company, which, don't forget, you know, it's a theater production company. Right. So they're not, they don't have the commercial nuance that a sort of a, you know, an event production company would have. So we weren't clearly ever going to put them customer facing. And we thought there was going to be a kind of a lot of work there. There was less work there than we thought. And that came through from kind of, you know, using what we've learned through our awards program and kind of managing that process through sort of. That was actually more manageable than we thought. But the areas where we spent more time than anticipated it was in working out how we were integrating the studio with Zoom, which is where we had some of our live panels. So it was like, how do we make sure that we. Because what we wanted was we wanted a sense of immediacy in the studio. So we wanted a point whereby the studio was broadcasting live and the audience were interacting with it and the speakers were interacting with that studio as a hub. So we were like building it like a news channel that was, you know, it's cross between a news channel and a morning show. That's what we wanted. And the technicality is about making sure that that worked and that the interplay between, you know, a pre recorded panel session where we wanted them to have that sense of urgency in the panel. You know, when a, when a panel session is prerecorded, your panelists act very differently because they can't see the attendees scrolling through and you know, they're kind of they're doing it late at night or whatever it was. So that for us was, was something that took time to be able to kind of coach them around that. And there was also, yeah, there were also challenges re working out how much could be live and how much would be pre recorded. Because getting that balance right, in an ideal world, we'd make the whole thing live. But the risk in that is very, very high. So we needed to strike that balance. And the other thing that took time, frankly was literally scripting it and actually building out the studio. The sort of the run order, minute by minute, it's done to such an nth degree that you don't do in a live event. In a live event you've got the kind of walk off stage and it doesn't matter. You've got, you know, you've got hosts with earpieces and you're kind of down to a like 3, 2, 1. We're moving to this next segment. It was very, very closely coordinated and choreographed and that was unexpected. You know, that requires an element of almost military grade discipline that I think took us all by chance. And getting sponsors on board with that, Ricardo, is hard, right?

I think you highlighted a couple of things. One thing that you said that like your team spend a lot of time working very closely with the sponsors to align them to that process. And I think also talking to other to other leaders. That's what I'm talking about. The other six organizations that we've featured recently, they all said the absolute fundamental key when you're doing this live broadcasting, whether you're having virtual, sorry, some, some pre recorded and some live, is the scripting. You need to know the detail of what's gonna happen at every single time. And it's been highlighted again and again. And that's kind of where event and media business don't have experience in that is. And you know, we've had it in situations where we need to understand, we know writing word for word what is going to be said and the timings and it's very difficult. So one of the key takeaways that I want you guys to think in terms of the audience is the running order needs to be always, if there's any doubt, look at the running order and everyone needs to be aligned with the running order. So that's kind of pretty interesting. So in what sort of way did you guys spend time, so much time with the sponsors. And was there anything in particular that they were going to do that required that kind of more?

Yeah, there was so two of our major sponsors would traditionally have obviously done an opening keynote and were then kind of prominently featured in various panels, etc. Throughout. And there was a challenge there. Re how do we get those, how do we, you know, with a high production quality on the event, how do we make sure that if we are passing across to them for a keynote that we've not got them on an open MacBook, you know, tucked away in the corner of their house type thing? Because it just. The thing jars. It's how do you make that work? And I remember we went through a number of sort of edits and sort of recordings, as it were, to get that right and really persuading them to perhaps invest a little bit of time and also a little bit of money on their side to do that properly so that they could kind of understand the benefits. That was really important. And you know, there were some battles that were won and there's some battles that were lost on that. But where it. What. One of the real plus sides was that for one sponsor in particular, we actually used it as an opportunity to kind of elevate our point of contact with that sponsor and we ended up with their CEO doing the piece who we wouldn't have had access to previously. And that kind of then unlocked an internal video budget or whatever it was with that client. So we ended up with a higher quality piece. So it was an unexpected win that reflected well on the event and reflected very well on the sponsor and it certainly helped the read.

Now I think that's kind of very good. So let's move on from the logistics and I hope that too many in the audience, people that have asked the questions and I think Gian Liciota, I hope that we've answered the questions on the prerequisites for the studio in terms of the tech and space. I think Adam already covered that aspect there. So let's move. And then we've talked about the financials. I want to delve into the learning as to. Okay, you've got one event behind you. The good, the Ugly, I guess if. Is there anything ugly that you.

I don't know, plenty.

Is there anything that you want to share with us on the Ugly that probably the audience can learn from?

Yeah, it's. So I think there's. I guess it sounds like there's. There's small points, there's teething points on it. One of them is quite, quite literally, you know, if you think about it in terms of building a studio, you know, at the very beginning, I should say Apologies if there is screaming behind the scenes. Welcome to lockdown. This is my children arriving home from school somewhere. But we, yeah, we, we actually, we struggled with, obviously, because of the restrictions in place in the UK at that time, having too many people in the space working on the project and that, that created a problem, you know, because we had to be very focused around who was, you know, who was working in that studio space at one time. And that stopped us from having sponsors in the building, which was a challenge. So that was a problem. And also, you know, again, I don't know, this is probably a separate discussion, but I said we use Spot Me. You know, broadly speaking, the Spot Me platform for us worked as it should. But the, as we all know and as we've all worked out through, you know, live event software, you know, they've all been sort of developing it as quickly as we've been looking for it, as it were. And we had challenges there on immediacy and response times on the customer service side, which did reflect on the event itself. The other small issue was redundancy on Internet lines and bandwidth. We had a team in a sort of separate room prepping sort of speakers and sponsors. We had three people at terminals kind of prepping speakers and briefing them, ready for their panels, etc. And that with the studio at some points created a problem with, you know, broadband. And we had, we had a, we had a line drop at one point for 15 minutes, something like that, which it was, it didn't come out, it didn't fall out entirely, but it created a problem that we then had to work through. And we get, we used it to our advantage in the end, but at the time, I mean, I think, you know, I went gray rapidly during that period. So. And it's a small point, but that was, that was a big worry.

Many, many events, media business kind of say, oh, that they miss the buzz and the adrenaline that happens in a live event. Well, that's kind of adrenaline for you at a very big dose if they miss that. So, okay, so that's great. And also I think you've mentioned as well, and they're getting kind of links. I just want to reiterate the fact that you had your own in order, you had your teleprompter and ready, but. And then it just drop at some point and if you want, it did.

Yeah, so actually that was, that was a cute story, which I've forgotten we talked about offline on that. Yeah, the tech team had, had, had been working with us in advance on a teleprompt system. And you know that it was the first time they'd used it, but they said that, look, there's no problems with it, it'll all be fine, etc. And I just, having worked on like in a stage environment before, you just know that you kind of, you know, don't trust tech animals or children when you're working with them. Right. And it was kind of like, well, there's going to be, you know, there's going to be something that goes wrong here. And I remember being sort of mocked slightly for sort of saying, well, you know what, I'm going to have a copy of the script just close by with me on set, just in case it falls over, as it were. And true to form, I think it was day two, everyone was slightly more relaxed. You know, we knew that when we were walking back onto set, you count down and there was a good buzz in the air. But there was that moment where for whatever reason, the tech that was controlling the auto cue hadn't quite kept pace and we were at the wrong point. So it falls over and there's that moment where it's like, well, it's only because we've got a script to hand that we can use that. It's a small point, but I remember thinking, if I hadn't had a script with me, that would have been a problem.

Okay, I think that's kind of, again, very funny because not many of us in this industry are used to using teleprompters and all that kind of sort of stuff. And it is always the pre planning that highlights the fact that this is kind of extremely critical. Now let's talk about the good, because I think ultimately, as a business owner, you're doing this for a reason, right? And we have discussed in various forums and the various groups that we probably share that we belong to LinkedIn everywhere. The key fundamental aspect is that an organizer will take the. Will go through this massive undertaking because they want to build barriers to entry for competition. They want to raise the bar with the quality of what they do. Again, you are very, very true to your values on creating tremendous amount of value for your audience, for your members, for your community. And so this is kind of. You've taken two, three, five steps forward to make sure that this happens. So the good. What is the good of all this, Adam? So why spend X amount of money? Why spend X amount of energy, effort, brain cells and everything when you could have done Zoom? Although you already clarified that, that you just, it was just boring, you Just want to do something different. So what are you going to take from all this that many people in the audience can take as well?

I remember being asked that question by multiple people throughout the process, not least our team and my project manager lead, who was sort of, you know, he was, you know, absolutely saying yes to all these crazy ideas along the way for us. Really. Again, you know, we talked about this sort of briefly before, but, you know, it was. I'm a firm believer that, like, you know, this, this, you know, while this, while Covid has been. I'm trying to put this sensitively, but while Covid has clearly created absolute turmoil in the events industry, I'm always a glass is half full kind of person. And I do believe that out of that there is a lot of opportunity that, you know, has to come from it. And for us, it was about how we level that playing field. It was like, how do we wind that clock Forwards however far? 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, whatever. Like what? You know, it's almost like when we walk out blinking into the sunlight, you know, and start meeting in person again in whatever way that that happens. What are the events that are going to sort of. That are going to survive, as it were, and perhaps not just survive, but thrive in that kind of next era. And, you know, what are, you know, and why. Why are they going to do that? And my sense was that, like, for us, you know, our community, that the event series we run is called Financing Wind and the membership community, that sort of. It's underpinned by, is a word about wind. And as I said at the beginning, it started with a membership base, but really, if you scroll it right back, it started with a newsletter that I wrote on a beach years ago to build a community with an audience that I didn't know and I wanted to get to know better. And if you kind of scroll all the way through those scenarios and you scroll through, building out a membership platform, investing in an editorial team, building out an events program, building out an awards program, doing all these sorts of things, our membership has grown and stayed with us because they've always given us the benefit of the doubt. You know, they've always recognized we've been transparent with them about what we're doing and that we want to try new things. And they've always recognized the power of being part of that community and that in order to be part of something like that, they've got to be prepared to. To kind of take the good with the bad, as it were. And for our events that's really how we. How we viewed it. My sense was I kind of want to roll the dice a little bit on this. It's a managed risk, right? It's the same reason why we set up in business at the very beginning, because we felt like we had an idea and an opportunity and we wanted to back it. And, like, if we can't back our own ideas, I mean, crikey, like, right now it's like. It's like betting the stock market, right? I'd rather not bet the stock market. I'd rather bet our own business, because I have far more control over what we can do than anyone else. And that was really the opportunity. It was kind of like, how can we give back to our community and give back willingly and give back to our sponsors so that they see that in a really positive light? And that's where I wanted to get to. It was like I wanted them to get to a point. We're in November now, whatever it is, November 4th, 5th. This is the point in the year where everyone starts looking at those budgets for next year. And I want to be at the top of that list because there's gonna be competition for it, you know, and it's. We want to be in the rebooks. We want to be in the thick of that. And we. You know, that for me was that. That was actually really what was at the heart of it. It was kind of like if I spent. If I'm investing, you know, whatever it is now in this event, great. I would almost write that off as BD work, as marketing work effectively. I viewed the studio as a giant marketing campaign that just so happened to deliver some exceptional results for our sponsorship. And that was key. That was really, really key. And it was about turning everything to our advantage. It was all about flipping it on his head and thinking about what we wanted, what happens when we get to December 2020.

And I think that's amazing from the point of view that, as you said, this is a big marketing campaign. I want to be top of the list when discussions in 2021. And I love the fact that you thinking even 2022, so that we're looking at our rebook strategy all that long in advance, and we want to be at the top of that conversation because we would have already delivered some tangible value that is beyond what. Because what we were. The talk with all eventrepreneurs right now is, okay, the barriers have come down. Anyone can just launch an event business, or it can launch on a virtual event from the back of the room from their apartment, in their flat. Now doing all this that you've done, then that just basically, again, raises the bar and it makes it no one, not. Not many. And then we've seen that reflected in the. In the statistics, both from this audience, but from what we've seen out there, 90% of the people have not done something like this. So this means that, like, you now have a massive advantage. You have a seat at the table, or at least on the top of that pile that's going to differentiate you among the crowd. What I love the most about what you've highlighted, Adam, in our offline conversations, is that you wanted to build a Trojan horse, right? Tell us a little bit more about it, because I think this kind of highlights the key, the good that has to come about this. And so the Trojan horse, investing in the long term, the rebooks, and how does that all fit together in that context?

My view is that kind of like the reason that I got excited about it, to understand what our trade, from the Trojan horse perspective, what I was really looking at is how do we basically load the dice, right? How do we load the dice so that when those business development managers and marketing managers, who are the ones that are responsible for kind of saying, actually, we want to invest in your event next year, kind of putting us at the top of the pile, you know, that was what I was looking for in that Trojan horse. But the key element really is kind of like, why did we think. Why did we think that the event was going to do that? And why, Crucially, it was almost. It was more a sense of, like, what would happen if we didn't do this. That was my kind of underlying fear. It was like, if we didn't build a studio and we did just broadcast live from our bedrooms, as it were, we were just going to look like everyone else. And I mean that with the greatest respect, because there are some awesome, incredible events that are doing just that. But in our space, in the renewable space, we're fortunate to be in a growth market, right? And that, you know, there's a lot of competition coming in there from what I would describe as traditional conference and events organizers who can produce an event, as I say, far more effectively than we can, you know, in many respects. But I think what we had was we had an edge on creativity. We had an edge on being able to do something different. And my sense was that if we didn't do this, it's. We would just become another line item in a budget, as it were. And, you know, someone's asked on the, on the, on the, on the Q and A, what's the structure of our business? I think that's kind of important to understand as well, because that plays into that Trojan horse. We're a team of 25. The Tamarindo group has kind of like three core divisions, right? So it's got a, it's got a membership and a media business, it's got kind of an events arm, but it's also got a consultancy, you know, and the consultancy is for us really, where there's very high value of kind of consultancy service that's playing into our space. We're focused exclusively on the renewables market and by coming in and demonstrating in one division, in one area in our events business how we can think differently and how we're prepared to really put our money where our mouth is, it drives a far deeper customer relationship than we would ever have had by saying, can you join a Zoom call at 2 o' clock type thing or whatever, you know, like that's what got them because they start asking questions and they want to know more about us. And, you know, that's why now we are looking at much more engaged briefs with them, whereby we're, yes, we're working with them on sponsorship deals for next year, but we're also widening that and looking at content stuff and managed networking and all sorts of interesting stuff that kind of started from that creative hub.

Totally, totally. And I think this is kind of the key aspect that from, again, as we're saying, the baggage of the traditional pure play event industry that they used to kind of beginning and end like a campaign for the event, now what were going to happen, the way they build their teams and structure their sales teams and everything. It is important also to highlight that, like among the Tamarindo Group, your team kind of sells across the whole spectrum. So all this has increased tremendously the value of the conversations that you're having with your sponsors. And I think that's kind of where the real benefit is, which to me, highlights for eventuals out there is just that little bit of a change in the mindset is hard. And don't get me wrong, the industry is facing the most difficult time of their lives. And what I really want to highlight today with the audience is that for this to be an inspiring element, many are looking into subscription models, many are looking into the report and insights and data aspects and they're playing around with this. And I think that's kind of what the, the interesting story that we've got there.

Ricardo If I can add to that as well.

Yes, please do.

If we listened to the tech supplier base, as it were, that what they were telling us that we needed six months ago, we'd all be walking around with avatars around digital virtual booths and stuff. And with the greatest respect to that world, that doesn't excite me. That's not what got me into events. And I suspect that's not what got you into the events world either. And I suspect that's what didn't get, sort of got, you know, our audience in. It's the ability for us to be able to walk around a room and tap someone on the shoulder and have that immediacy. And I think that, you know, it was a question of where you put effort, Right. It's like, do you want to put effort into building a digital booth and doing all that sort of stuff, which has value, but you lose control of, or can you put effort into something else? And that was a very. There was a crossroads there where it was kind of like, where are we going to invest our time? You know, and, you know, which way does it go? And I think that's a really important question that doesn't often get answered, you know, by the event organizer.

Exactly. And also a big part that I want to highlight as well was that you have this conversation with your sponsors, with your stakeholders, saying, look, we're taking this journey. And then again, going back to the very beginning, you took them on the journey, you already told them this is not. Things are unlikely going to go back to what we used to deliver for you in a physical event. This is now the road that we're taking. You're coming with us. Yes or no. And if you're coming with us, let's think about 2021, 2022, which I think is very clever because you're like locking in the conversation. You extend the longevity of the conversation, and by default, I suspect, is the longevity and the size of the potential opportunity deals. Opportunity, that might be one. You know, it's like eating a little bit more of that budget pie that they might have internally. And I also want to kind of bring into the picture here is that when you were involving the sponsors so that they could invest in better quality presentation or quality everything, then that got escalated to be at the sitting table or have that attention of the CEO of that potential partner now, then you're going to be, you know, and again, that longevity, that long conversation is great. And I think that you've hit a score there. We only have five minutes now. To go. And we have, I think with the audience, answered many of the questions as we've, as we've gone along. I know, David Sansom, I will probably link you up with Adam so that he can answer those specific questions directly to you. Maria mentioned that what is the prediction value today compared to nine months ago? And what is the balance between production and content value?

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, you know, I was, you know, clearly our production value is far higher. There was a, there was a concern that, there was a concern that if we focus too much time or emphasis on production that we'd lose the content side. And that is an ongoing concern in the future. You know, it's, how do we strike that balance? Because again, in the past, I think the bit that really held up our events were the quality of the speakers which then pulled through that quality of attendees and then, and the quality of the content that kind of came off the back of that. And production really was, you know, fifth, sixth, seventh down the line. I mean we produced great events in my humble opinion. But it wasn't, that wasn't our, that wasn't kind of our primary goal as it were with this. It did shift because we had to put production higher. And that was kind of. And then I think there will be a period of self adjustment effectively. But the real key there is about kind of. It's about making sure we've got the right people in the room. Like that is the first. And it's, and for that it's a double edged sword, right? Because at the moment, you know, a lot of speakers, you know, you know, a lot of people are getting zoomed out. You know, they get, they're kind of like it's another virtual event. You're seeing high registration and then a very high drop off. And you know that, that balance, that dynamic around kind of where that goes in the future is a new challenge for the studio. And I think.