THE VALUE OF INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE EVENTS INDUSTRY

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world. This is Les Goldberg on The Road Ahead. Today, I have three amazing guests. I have Laurence Paverd. He is the director of production for Drury Design. I have Eric Quintana, who's the director of production for Sparks. And I have Steve Hubbard. He is a technical director, production manager for the planning stage. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks, Les. Thank you. Guys, today, our conversation on this podcast is dedicated to institutional knowledge. And we're going to kind of talk about what happened during a pre-COVID world and a post-COVID world. And then we're going to talk about kind of what happens on show site. So my first question, I'm throwing it to Eric. In the event production business, how do you institutional knowledge? What is your thoughts? I kind of feel like it's common knowledge based on your different vendors, like everyone that can speak the same jargon, the same lingo. So we all kind of speak in the same vernacular as to whatever we mean. Got it. Okay, Laurence, what are your thoughts? What do you think institutional knowledge? Well, I think it's that. But I also think that our industry has typically been a sort of an it is that vernacular, but it's also the knowledge that one picks up over time working in whatever particular discipline that they've devoted themselves to. So if you're an audio person, you learn how the audio way does it or the video or the lighting or the LED or as a producer or executive producer. Got it. Okay. Steve Hubbard, same question. Your definition of institutional knowledge and reflecting on the live event business that we're in. I think the word I use is probably another similar word or phrase called show sense. And I think that's the same thing about us all knowing or having a sense of the show and the institutional knowledge. What does it take to get a show done? How much time does it take and how much time equals money, right? So how much is it going to cost? Because that's always what I'm tasked with. And that is a show sense. And then that translates to the crew on site. Does everybody have a good sense of what we're doing? Does the audio engineer, the LED engineer, the crew have that institutional knowledge? And I think that's built up over time. Sure. Well, I'm going to take this in the direction of, you know, from 2019 to 2020, when we all kind of, the show industry kind of stopped and we all kind of, we went to this pause. It seemed like it was a big pause and we lost something. And I would say we lost a lot of people in our industry. They retired. Some left the industry and found other opportunities. And what I really feel like is when we started to come back, whether it was staffing for virtual, as we learned how to do great virtual events, or if it was trying to bring new people on and indoctrinate, how hard is it to get people to learn and become indoctrinated with that institutional knowledge? And I'll throw it to Laurence for this one. So as you brought people back on to your team and you're starting to grow again, how difficult was it? Well, we were fortunate in that we didn't lose too much or too many of our immediate team. But it has been challenging, certainly as we've engaged more with some of our sort of vendors and partners and the usual suspects that we've typically brought in over the course of the many years we've been in business. But I think this is just one of the many complicated challenges that I think we're currently facing in the industry. I think that you can further distill this down to staff versus crew. I think that Steve mentioned this already, that the time factor, I think, is the pressing one. And that also our client demands, and maybe I'm broadening your question a little bit, but the client demands have changed as well. And that has influenced the agency, our policies and practices, and that has sort of compounded the challenge yet again. And I think that some of the struggle for some of our tech providers is obviously that a lot of the road dogs have sort of gone by the wayside, and then we're supplementing with sort of less experienced folks that have been brought in to fill those positions. And so I think the confluence of schedules, both what we found with the actual planning of events, which seemed somehow to always land on the same dates, and then scrambling for folks to fill those positions that are needed for that particular production, that's where it gets really complicated. And again, I think that, as I said earlier, I think that it's a bit of an apprenticeship industry. So the challenge is on-the-job training and not impacting the show. And then, of course, on your side, I think it would be training those folks in advance that are going to be put on site and then sort of getting them acclimated and familiarized with what it takes to actually produce a show on site. It was actually a very good answer, actually. Eric, your thoughts? What are your thoughts on this idea that we're bringing people back, they don't have maybe that institutional knowledge that people that had previously, and then we've got to go hit the road with them, or they've got to produce an event with you? What are your thoughts? I kind of agree with Laurence where it's like it is an apprenticeship industry. So it's a matter of finding good talent who are eager to learn and want to learn, and also having good mentors for them. So like I wouldn't go to a show directly with a ton of people just starting out. But if you have good leaders, people who are patient, and then you have people who are willing to learn and want to get in this business and stick with it, I think that's the good combination for bouncing back. Actually, I totally agree with you. I think that is a really kind of a good strategy. And maybe you put people in roles that are maybe not like prime time, but it lets them, it kind of, you develop them as they get some more experience, and they get more comfortable, and the youth kind of get more comfortable with them. Steve Hubbard, what are your thoughts on this idea we're talking about, about institutional knowledge and what we've just been talking about? I agree with all, and it's a hard thing to do is, you don't want to gamble with your show, because again, time is money, and we have a limited amount of time, and we have these amazing deliverables to execute on. And having a new bench is really hard. And so the mentorship makes total sense to me. And I've had some success with just that. We introduced a new video director on a project that was known, and I think the key here in some circles or our circles is referrals and recommendations, right? That's where it is. I knew this woman as a video director had been moving within this market, and I knew of her, and we had an ad to the show where they wanted some higher level video directing where we didn't have one in this instance. And I said, this person, I know she's great from what I've heard. I've not worked with her, but we brought her into the project and she was great. So now she's sort of a part of our traveling crew. So I think that was a little bit of a mentorship from others, embracing. Others need to embrace it, because I think sometimes people say, I just want my crew, and I don't want to gamble. And then like Laurence said, because I'm sure we all have five or six shows on May 1st this year. So how do you do that? I was going to tell you, for those people who haven't booked their crew for that first week of May, I would tell you the best people are not available, because those best people have already been booked. So then you're going to the second string or the third string. And what happens is the people that are so late in coming to the dance to say, OK, my show is now confirmed, what their risk quotient is, is that they're going to get a really great crew. And the longer you wait during busy times, and not only May, this is just for any busy time, the risk you bring on is an inexperienced crew. And I think back to Eric's strategy of getting mentorship and maybe an experienced person with someone who's less experienced, so you kind of have a more of a balanced crew. OK, I'm moving this in a slightly different direction, this conversation. So this question is to Eric. Eric, from a historical basis, if there's knowledge and history for what happens on show site, we've done the show every year, the same way, the same crew, everybody kind of knows what to do in their seat, and they've had that experience, even though there's nuances to every year. So how important is it to a production crew and a team to have the same people that have that institutional knowledge having sat in the seats and run the show maybe so many years in a row? How does that impact the outcome? I think it's great. I mean, you have built chemistry, you have camaraderie, everyone's kind of been through it together. So I think it's huge when it comes to a show that's been successful and you want to kind of repeat it. And if your client's on the same page, then sure, I think it's great. I think it's, that's, you know, you can't, I don't think anything beats that, like to have a show run smooth or people when challenges arise that they can all work together and get through it. And that's a huge plus, especially like when, you know, things arise and, you know, everyone's worked together. And that's when that institutional knowledge comes to play, where everyone can communicate well, get things done quickly. You know, nothing beats that. Okay. I have a second follow-up question for you before I ask the other guys. The question is how different is it when you have a show and you have to bring on a new crew or a new provider, so to speak, a technical partner, and they don't know the show and you're, you're kind of having to, you know, indoctrinate. It's a struggle. And it goes back to what Steve said. It can be a gamble. You know, you're gambling with your relationship with your client, bringing on a new crew, especially if you're kind of forced into it. It can be a struggle, you know, because then there's a huge amount of getting people up to speed and educating them. If you have no layover for, you know, from the last year, you're starting fresh. It's a, it's a huge, you know, obstacle to overcome. Well, I would agree. And in some instances I will say it seems like from the leadership at companies that put on meetings and events, some of the people have left and there's new folks there and they don't maybe have some of that institutional knowledge of how the event happens. And sometimes they rely on their providers to say, okay, tell me how we did this in the past. And then there's other people that want to bring on their own teams, people that they have had a Laurence, what are your thoughts? In terms of what bringing in fresh teams or. Well, on both, do you feel like how does that impact the show? Whether you have the people that have done it for the last so many years that they kind of sit in the seats. And as Eric was saying, you know, there's camaraderie versus bringing in a fresh team. I mean, this happens all the time when one production company leaves a job and a new one takes over, there's always a fresh team. Well, I mean, I think it's important and not only just for the actual production, but again, I think so much of what we're talking about is extremely nuanced. And I think that the value of your team that you build up is oftentimes it boils down to, you know, sort of these hidden challenges that require soft skills, these interpersonal skills. So you can bring in fresh talent. And again, it's a blend of all of the sort of the topics or these elements that we've been discussing. Going back to your first question about the sort of the historical knowledge, I think that also goes over to the venue that you go into. Understanding the venue layout, the venue rules, if you are getting back into the same venue, which, you know, a number of the projects that we produce do go into the same facility. And I think that something else that came out of this list that was very interesting is how those venues actually have changed themselves. And you now have to contend with sort of exclusive, you know, costs of that that's increasing exponentially. So there's that hope. And I understand that somehow I'm exploding your questions and I apologize for that. But then as far as, you know, integrating fresh teams, I think that that actually can be a good thing. It's certainly good to have that legacy knowledge. But a new fresh sort of team can infuse a different perspective and also can, I think, help folks sit up in their chair a little bit and pay attention. If it becomes too rote, I think that there's always the risk of complacency and sort of, we've done this before, we can, you know, kick back and go on autopilot. So if you do integrate some freshness, some newness, I think it helps. It does help in some ways. And then maybe that's not quite what we're talking about, but it does help. Actually, it was very, very insightful what you just said, because there are, you know, that's done it over many years because they have knowledge, that institutional knowledge. And what happens is sometimes maybe you get a little bit of complacency if they feel too comfortable. So you kind of want to be, you want a chair that's comfortable, but not too comfortable. Someone always told me if you go to a movie theater and the chair is too comfortable, you'll fall asleep. So you kind of want it to be comfortable, but not too comfortable. Steve Hubbard, what are your thoughts on this? Well, I think the great thing is, you know, we're working with a producer client and we get invited back. That's fantastic. That's what, you know, our calling card is. And then typically they, sometimes over the course, even with the break in COVID, have made a connection to sometimes the crew people directly, you know, they're bringing content to different people, interacting with them, and they can almost request them by name, which is fantastic. And that helps us get those seats filled, you know, and then it's a barrier to the opposite side of the coin is it's a barrier to our allowing, you know, some newer faces in. But if you have five jobs on May 1st, like we all do, you will have a new crew. And that, I think the, the onus is on us to then embrace it. And then maybe we have to work a little harder. But it's also a good thing to have a bench and backups and more. But more, more capabilities. Do you know what's interesting? If you think about the last 20 years, and it doesn't matter if you're in audio or lighting or video or LED, which 20 years ago, LED was just kind of being birthed. The kind of things a person on a crew have to know are different today than they were 20 years ago. You kind of have to know a little bit about computer networking. You kind of have to know about a lot more things that are computer related. And sometimes some of the technicians that might be older may some embrace change and accept it. And others are like, they kind of push it away. You know, there's probably still some front of house mixing engineer who wants to use an analog console because that's just the way they loved. And the sound out of an analog console is awesome. But most people use digital consoles because that's just the way. A long time ago, audio people used to not have LED flat panels with dials on it and they could see. But now I would say, if you don't see a console with a flat panel, I'd be a little concerned. So- We have an IT department on every job that we don't even know we have. You know, that is absolutely true. You need to have a lot of IT knowledge, especially when they're throttling your internet in the hotel that they're charging you a lot for. Miss questions to Eric. Eric, this question is, how have you found a way to retain the knowledge of what's happening on show site to leverage it for future events? So how do you either record or kind of grab that knowledge and encapsulate it so when it's time to do it next year, we kind of have maybe a blueprint or some plan that we knew worked last year? Well, I think for us at Sparks, it's like our events team, they work for Sparks. So they stay with their clients throughout the whole year and from project to project. So like if we're doing something for one client every year, it's always the top end is the same. And there's redundancy there. And then even if those people leave, there's someone, you know, that's moving up. So I think we have that bit of a luxury there where that knowledge will stay within our account teams. And that gets passed along. It sounds like from your account leadership, that connection to client allows you to have that institutional knowledge of the show. So even if there's people come and go, there's still someone that has connected to the account. That's kind of a strategy. Laurence, do you agree, disagree, have a different thought on this? How do you retain that knowledge? Absolutely. I mean, I think similar to Erik, at Drury, we typically do with all of our events, we have a debrief post event and then we also have a sort of a digital portal that we get notes from each of the members of the team where we share lessons learned and what worked, what didn't. We have, you know, sort of monthly, bi-monthly production meetings. We do TD round tables, producer round tables. And we're also doing things as, you know, less like summer school where we pull everybody that's freelance, including in-house and we get them together. I think industry trade events, you know, sort of Rocklit, it's a fantastic institution for sort of maintaining and sort of upkeep of this institutional knowledge. And I'll probably even just do a little plugin for CoiL. I mean, I've attended CoiL. I think that's a good way also to share a lot of sort of those, whether it's project-based or institutional knowledge and keeping it moving forward. Well, just because you mentioned it, I will have to shamelessly plug our CoiL program, which stands for Continuous Improvement and Learning. We are doing production bootcamp and we've had over 300 people attended and it's usually over a two-day course. And it's been very, very successful. CoiL training centers are in Las Vegas, Orlando, and soon to have one in London, which at a new venue, we're going to have our CoiL training center. So if someone had interest in production bootcamp, they could contact us. And it's free and it's super cool when you get a lot of knowledge out of it. Same question to Steve. I'm sorry as I diverted when he mentioned CoiL. Yeah, that's great. I love that. I love the idea of the education because that's really a part of it. I think that's what we're saying in general about the knowledge. We have it and how do we share it? I think that's the key. As far as other legacy projects and warehouse of information, I'm an independent. So I see a lot of other people like Laurence's sites, and I'm a big fan of the debrief and I save everything. I have my own system, but I've gone back to those debrief notes and had to find out what... Some events aren't annually, but they're bi-annually, right? So you have to find out what did we do two years ago? And I find those debrief notes extremely helpful. How did we navigate? And the venue might change, but just how did we navigate from Denver to Dallas? What did we do in Denver? Because now we've got to do that in Dallas. So it's interesting what you're describing this debrief. It's what did we learn? What went well and what didn't go well? And what do we need to kind of put some time and effort into making better? Good, bad, and other, I call it. The other part for sure. Yeah, that's a pretty... I would think that's a pretty standard thing, the debrief, but I feel like more than just the debrief, the best thing that comes out of it is what we learned worked and what didn't work and how do we go about doing the next one and making it better? And ultimately, for what I do is provide technology to make these shows happen. And you always want to put out a product that is awesome or you try to be awesome every time, but sometimes there's a better way and you have to accept that. So this is my last question and I'm going to throw this to Eric first. What is the most exciting thing about the return of live events? As I always try to end my podcasts on a positive note, we were in a unique environment for two years and we're back and everyone's back to live and we're back to kind of having fun. But to you, what's the most exciting thing about going out and deploying? I kind of feel like it's like new ideas that people have been coming up with during COVID, during pandemic that they want to see come to life. So when they like a lot of new ideas, a lot of cool things, like maybe there was complacency before because it worked and then now coming back out of it, people are excited to try new things, new technology, things like that. So that's been pretty exciting for me. So we're deploying new technology that was developed and it adds something to the value of the show, pizzazz, the look, the feel. Steve Hubbard, same question. What are you most excited about not doing live virtual from your location and going out to ballrooms, convention centers, event venues? Well, I just love connecting. And being a part of making that connection, that live connection that you don't get on that Zoom or StreamYard, that's not a connection to me. That's just a necessary evil that filled the gap, but connecting on site with you, our partners, the producers, the team we're with, and just getting out and seeing what we do translate to somebody just like the live show, just like going to the theater, whether it's a, you know, AMC movie theater or a ballet or a theatrical performance. That's my background, theatrical. So that was always the curtain rises and there's an ooh and an ah, and then we did our job. An ooh and an ah. Laurence, Hubbard, would you finish us up? Can you tell me what the most exciting thing about is deploying and going back onto show site? Well, I'll piggyback on what Steve just said. I do think that the interpersonal relationships are as important for those producing their shows as those attending them. But I would add that one of the interesting and exciting things that I think has come out of this and looking ahead, what I think's sort of invigorating is the parallel event, sort of how we are going to carry forward what we've learned in the last two to three years with hybrid events and how those get integrated and amplified through the live experience. And I think that I don't see one sort of withering and sort of going into the past. I think that they are going to both grow together. And it's very interesting to see how technology is going to sort of evolve with us going back into live events. Well, I am super excited that we are all back doing our thing, working. And I want to thank you guys, Laurence, Steve, and Eric. Y'all are amazing. I look forward to seeing you on a ballroom in a convention center, on a show floor, where we're unloading big, heavy cases out of trucks, setting up big shows. And I look forward to that. And y'all, I appreciate you joining me today. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Guys, thank you so much. Y'all did a great job. Thank you. Thanks, Les. Thank you.