Hi everyone,
Here’s a very quick 2020 round up. We’re an events company in a pandemic, it won’t take long…
Back in January, we entered our 11th year of trade with a massive company party at Hawker House in London. 6 x Clownfish vans, loaded with production, lighting, DJ rigs and 14 giant arcade games for 1,500 people. Yes, 1,500 people partying in the same room. That’s how we started our year.
A week later, after exceeding 2019 targets, the whole team of 9, flew to the French Alps, on an all-expense-paid company skip trip! I don’t even like skiing, but this was AMAZING.
February saw us exhibit at London’s ExCel Centre for our first ever trade show, International Confex – the UK’s leading event exhibition with over 300 exhibitors and thousands of international guests – and, incredibly, we were awarded ‘best stand’. We felt on top of the world.
2nd March, I invited lots of friends and family down to my favourite pub on the south coast to celebrate my 30th birthday – including all the team here. The year was going so well!
3rd March, Sara received our first event cancellation. And like a tsunami, they all flooded in. Soon after, the ExCel Centre was being turned into an emergency hospital and the world had quickly changed forever.
After overcoming the initial shock of Covid, we adapted our business massively and focused on filming and broadcast – managing to live stream events for David Cameron, Jeremy Vine and Ruby Wax over the summer. We went onto stream weddings, religious festivals, education and corporate conferences, a funeral and most recently, virtual Christmas parties.
But most incredibly, we took the opportunity to totally renovate our building here in south west London, investing over quarter of a million pounds into a new 3 story development with refurbished offices and meeting spaces and my dream come true, a state-of-the-art TV Studio. In the last few weeks, we’ve hosted Davina McCall, Tim Vine and Britain’s Got Talent’s Magical Bones as well as a host of charity and company events; broadcast to thousands worldwide.
Most importantly – we’re just about still here. And whilst this year hasn’t been easy for any of us – it’s made me a little stronger, reminded me of the fragility of life and gave me a great time to stop and pause. And those things are good for me. I hope in all the chaos, you’ve found some positives, somewhere too.
I’m thankful to our team, for patience and flexibility. And I’m thankful to our clients, who have shown huge trust and loyalty to us, as we took their events online. New for both sides. We look forward to 2021 with great hope (said absolutely everyone).
Happy Christmas everyone,
Matt