Embracing Events: Delivering Commercially Successful Events - Camp Dalfest
lastly for this session ladies and gentlemen we have Adrien Maro who is the managing director of antrum state's Glenarm Castle Adrien is the organizer of Camp Dal Fest which was previously known as the Del rad Festival Camp Dal Fest runs over two days in July and it attracts an excess of 25,000 visitors so before we hear from Adrien have a look at this [Music] n [Music] n [Music] I [Music] thank you very much folks um whenever uh Kathy Ry me and asked me if I would come and say a word few words today I told her I thought that was a bad idea for a couple of reasons uh first of all most of you probably won't understand understand a word to say and uh those that do understand what I'm about to say I'll probably never do an event again so I'm afraid it's sarts and all at this and all looks great on the video but uh there's a lot of uh sweat Blood and Tears uh goes uh behind something that they say uh travel is a great way of broadening your horizons um after almost 30 years of running events at L arm I got my horizons broadened without leaving Glen Arm you learn very quickly um you know how to adopt we started off uh restoring a wall Garden at larm thinking that uh once we spent a fortune in the garden people would uh rule up uh that come from all over nor to bit Garden uh we quickly learned that wasn't the case nobody knew where larm Wars the everybody just drove through it and we couldn't hardly get anybody to call to look at the Garden so the only way we thought to get people to come and visit the garden was to start uh running events and that was the need we needed to get feet to arm and that was the only way we could think of do by running events so our first first event kicked off in 1996 we had uh one ice cream van one chip van two arish daners one m and his dog that was it which charged 150 ahe at the gate when we had um 1,500 visitors and my father was at the gate that day with a Rover biscuit 10 and at the end of the event he had £3,000 of cash and a and this 10 and he came to me he says Adan I've worked here for 30 years and that was the easiest £3,000 I've ever earned uh so that led us to believe we yes events let's do more this is the way we make the money uh let's get on with it so by 2006 we we done an event every year we were going well right up to 2006 and by then we had 28,000 visitors over the course of a weekend it was absolutely mental um we were just Farmers Diversified and uh all of a sudden we were in charge of tens of thousands of people over a weekend the the challenges were many um you know we had several uh bomb scares during them events attempt to arm robberies even T even tiger Kum those are the things that large uh volumes of people can attract uh thankfully not so much today it was all cash nobody had any cards back then so you you know you had all this cash so that attracted all sorts of of undesirables it was a tough time uh getting through all lot and and questioned what you were doing it for you know you were putting your family in danger was it worth it but uh selfishly we pushed on in 2007 then the year after um we had our this is a big word for at L Monto or honest horis as we would call it in at l or squeaky bum moment it was a complete uh disaster a wash out it rained and rained and rained we had tens of thousands of people on the site and by that afternoon everybody was covered and mck from head to toe uh th that's the challenge of running events on a Green Field site um you know when it goes wrong it goes wrong tell you a we quick funny story uh everybody uh deserted off the site um they just ran uh you'd have thought it was another bomb scare which it wasn't but everybody ran and cleared off and about 5:00 that afternoon I was standing in the middle of this fi of absolute devastation mocked to the knees uh wondering what just happened um the team everybody had gone was there my own so we went from having thousands of people in the field to myself at 5:00 in the afternoon and I was standing there absorbing the devastation trying to learn something from it and I could hear this we voice way in the background help and anybody there I need some help and I I scanned around I couldn't see anybody I made my way down through this U twoot deep uh mck and then between two mares was this little old granny sitting in there completely stuck in the mck all I could see was the Whits of her eyes and I had to do a fireman's left on her and carry her the whole way back up to her Road got her up there and I says where's your family dear I don't know she says they must be here somewhere I said there's not a centner left here but me m and we thought uh there was a snore of a car came running down the side of the road at one of those Galaxy people cars I'll never forget it and it came right down the road pulled up beside her and the driver got out who was was her son in or yeah was her son-in-law and she said go grabbed the poor old s the scruffing EG and said shout to our and screamed our we were H begy before we realized you weren't in the car opened the back door the boot of the Galaxy and just threw the P sword onto the back of the bat and off she went now that all sounds horrendous and it was but do you know that's the only thing that I remember in that bad day and it gave me a laugh that I cared from 2007 to now gave me another story and it helped me get through that Devastation oh what time it was we lost uh hundreds of thousands of pounds uh in that particular year that was a bad year right across the whole uh board actually so but when your event takes a hat like that it does leave a a really bad negative impact particularly when they paid the money to come in uh you know their customers away they're not happy they've had a horrible day they're cold or miserable their clothes probably went in the bend when they at home so it's hard to come back from the so we found you know it took for the next three years it was really challenging to try to get our customer back um we we ran really um at a at a loss for three more years after that trying to come back from that the only way if we wanted to continue doing events was to try and drisk them uh move away from the risk we were weather dependent so we need a sunny day for people to come well that just didn't work on a wet day uh at all nobody wanted to get stuck in a green field or parked their car or the ladies didn't want to come their St heels on them and so forth and so on so it meant that we to do that we had to sell tickets in advance um secure sponsors two big challenges any event organizer or know so we looked at it we revamped it we rebranded it um we thought the only way we could sell tickets was to do a music festival people would buy tickets to come a music festival um so in 2011 um we started our first um music festival uh which is now known today as you seen as dll Fest or or comp doll Fest today's challenges are no less stressful I'm afraid um you know they're they're very they could be actually worse than armed robber some they are quite they're quite today's things are challenging for me I've seen you know I've been on the outest a long time uh and I'm sort of glad I'm coming to the end of my tenure but I would say is be careful what you wish for um you know if you're going to do an event uh look hard at your site look at your exess look at your parking Road structure foot paths electric water seage proximity TR pport transport take advice uh from whoever you can before uh you actually decide to to go ahead and do that you have to think it really through uh nowadays and I War I word to warn as well the event industry has changed significantly postco we find postco to be really challenging um completely different than preco the your visitor's perception now has changed you know you'll be guided by the minority uh when you go to rang your event um so you know and it's those are things that you know you have to do now you know it's an event organizer responsibility to give access for all and facilitate everybody to come there now that's okay if you're in the Odyssey or you're in a in an area that you know there's nice T routs everything health and safety is all there but look out the window there you know if you go into an open Parkland there's trees there's uh undulation there's Natural Things even in the garden the same uh risks are there and it's a more of a claim culture now than ever as well so you will find that people will attend your event and they will look they will look and they will find places where they can uh feel that they could have a claim social media is a great tool for selling tickets uh in the early days we had to advertise in the Belfast Telegraph even had to call out Donna a few times and try and beg for a good deal on a on an advert on TV that was probably 50% of the cost of your event uh bike in the '90s uh a TV yard and a radio campaign now with social media you can sell tens of thousands of tickets at very little cost at all but what happens is um you know when it turns the other way around when the customer comes with their mobile phones and start to use their social media they're very quick to use it against you know um blackmail billion those are those are things that just goes on uh just prior to your event or or during your event and they threaten you with all sorts of things oh if you don't give me me money back you know I'm going to go on here I'm going to lambast you I'm going to tell everybody else you know how bad this how bad this was only difference is they not bully me cuz I just uh I don't look at my social media I stay way away from that so I just go on and do whatever I'm going to do and uh you can't let that sort of thing um get to you right on the top of of an event I mean this year we had an event Runner Christmas event and there was a couple in eight spot Willer in the middle of that and there was a land slap on the Shore Road at an arm so the road was closed but there was diversions all the way around you know actually the diversion was shorter than going the Shore Road but the the social media started oh the roads there the roads closed it's closed it wasn't closed if you went on the due traffic watch was quite clearly said there were diversions in place but a maor a minority of people decided they didn't want to come out because it was a bad old wet night they didn't they didn't want to get wet they didn't want the kids to get wet so they decided they would uh go on social media and say you know you money grabbing thiefs you know how dare you run an event on a Bas I'm going to hold you responsible for my kids and my children traveling to Europe and so that all goes on and then cancel that event I want my money by but the mentality as I said to my guys in the office was you know if you had a flight booked uh you don't ring up EasyJet and say there's a diversion between here and Airport I want you know I want I don't care but there are 350 people going an airplane I want my money back so tell that pilot not to fly so you know that's the knowledge you have to sort of think about when you're involved in this matter getting the risks knee bush first stad training you know it just goes on the last and last oh and that's all costly expensive stuff nowadays you know you can't get that stuff for cheap and you know the responsibility that comes with it you know there was an instance not so long ago where we had a a guy and you're not supposed to administrate First Aid unless you ask the patient is okay sir if I attend you there uh you almost have to get to saying now the the the accident report before you can help them so if he's got Pro two broken arms you're best just to leave him there he can't say s for somebody else to come go because that could come back to uh to hunt you uh you know everybody's watching what you do now you know you're under a microscope if you're going to go ahead and do an event after all the things I've told you which it's up to you decide uh you can forget about working from 9 to 5 because that's gone already no you'll be working from 6 to 11 then you'll wake up in the middle of night and the sweat lashing off you wondering what you forgot out of the 150,000 things you have to organize as such so you'll not get any sleep either I'm really only 38 but don't let me put you [Laughter] off if you can come up with a good idea for an event a good brand sponsors absolutely crucial in the current uh economic climate and a good uh supporting team of people around you you cannot do something like this without people that you can absolutely trust 100 100% that when the going getss tough they'll get going and they will you are completely in the hands of the people around you and my team at larm have you know this summer at larm we had 14 solid hours of heavy rain and the team stayed out and that for 14 solid hours never came out for lunch never we carried them out food and hot drink and stuff and if those guys hadn't done that I don't know what we would have done so you know you need a strong team of uh well and volunteers to to come and come with you on a journey if you get it right you know it can be very rewarding uh you know there is a certain amount of satisfaction when all goes well and you look at the body and you think did we just do that you know that that looked okay actually but we never see the event you're so busy you know dealing with a man that's broke his two arms around the back turn to to say his uh accident report before you help him but there is a you know there is a a buz you you mean the event organizers already here they know what we're talking about you know you do get uh satisfaction on a great buzz from it you know also if you're if you're doing all our stuff you know there is a wider context to it and that uh you know you can build your social uh demographic page you know people will come back and visit your Aller offerings at all times of the year so there's you don't have to always just look at the at the bottom line Al know it's really hard to get the bottom line to to match up these days um but so there is a wider um way of uh monetizing those feet possibly a later date so that's really all I've got to say apart from tell you quick story we had a very nice sponsor came to sponsor us at larm one time and uh they set up a new business locally and I just rang the guy up and asked him was there anything I could do for him and uh I said no I don't think so and uh well I said if you ever need down and just give me a shout if you need a room for a meeting or you want to bring some guests up sometime you know do that and uh he says uh are you busy tomorrow morning I says no I'm not he says would you like to come for breakfast so he invited me for breakfast and across the table he says uh what can I do for you and I says well we're actually we're having this event you know a few qu be handy for that and uh he go swept out the ch checkbook and gave me a really good check there and then uh twice what I'd asked for and it was just the fact I had originally went to ham and offered our services to H so sometimes you have to watch how you make the approach um it's not all about uh ranging them up and telling them what you can do for for them sadly to say though you know we were looking after VIPs and our sponsors very well and uh we decided you know we we got them a good time and uh we organized a bus to bring them from the hotel up to the festival a few years back and uh the bus then to take them back home again so they could all have a we glass of wine about a Jolie and uh when the bus got them all galled up and they were uh on their way back to theel uh the bus driver rang and he says Ed we're in trouble I say what's saw he said the wheels come off the bus and she crashed through the wall and he says all your VIP sponsors he said are standing here with the blood run so I thought that was the end of those sponsors but no they all come back SP it again it was fine so anyway thank you very much uh thank [Applause] you
2024-03-09 18:00
