February 4, 2025 • 31 mins
EventNewsDXB Ep.4 - Dan Bolton: Candid Reflections on Surviving Adversity
EventNewsDXB is supported by Warehouse Four - Dubai's best independent event venue.
Join host Ian Carless and guest Dan Bolton as they explore Dan's transformative journey in Dubai's dynamic event industry, showcasing his resilience through challenges and setbacks.
From his humble beginnings as a circus performer, Dan discusses the realities of scaling an event business, including having to rebuild from scratch after a disastrous project in Qatar left his once thriving business in ruins.
Through candid reflections, the conversation reveals vital lessons on business management, the emotional interplay of friendships in professional settings and provides a candid look at the resilience needed to thrive in Dubai's fast-paced event scene.
Podcast Rundown
• Dan's transition from circus performer to event producer
• The risks and challenges of rapid business growth
• Lessons learned from a major project failure
• The emotional impact of financial difficulties on personal relationships
• Insights into the shifting landscape of the event industry
• Future aspirations and the importance of resilience in business
Production Credits:
Presented by: Ian Carless
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producers: Ian Carless & Joe Morrison
Produced by: EventNewsDXB & W4 Podcast Studio
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ian Carless (00:00):
Welcome to Event News DXB.
Before we begin, I've got aquick favour to ask.
There's one simple way that youcan support our show, and
that's by hitting that follow orsubscribe button on the app
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Thanks a bunch.
(00:20):
Thanks a bunch.
You're listening to the EventNews DXB podcast.
Your behind-the-scenes lookinto the world of events in
Dubai, the UAE and the MENAregion.
I'm Ian Carlos and each weekI'll bring you the latest news,
(00:43):
industry trends and insiderstories shaping one of the
world's most dynamic eventmarkets.
From professional insights toDubai's most inspiring success
stories, we've got everythingyou need to stay ahead in the
ever-evolving event industry.
So, whether you're an eventplanner, a brand manager or just
someone who's passionate aboutthe power of events, you're in
(01:04):
the right place.
This week, we're talking to oneof the most vocal members of the
Dubai event industry, danBolton.
After starting out life as acircus artist, including a stint
as a fire breather, he quicklyrecast himself in the role of
event producer.
A move to Dubai saw him cut histeeth with the leading model in
event agency before forming hisown company, dan Bolton
(01:25):
Creative Management Agency.
Following a whirlwind period ofhuge growth, 2023 was, sadly,
the year that things came to anabrupt halt, leaving Dan having
to start again from scratch.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Dan Bolton (01:45):
You're actually no stranger to podcasts, are you?
You and Lily have one, don'tyou?
Well, we, we've got one, whichis a little bit on pause right
now, which maybe we'll talkabout, okay, um, but I'm having
like a real bad sense of deja vu, like it's like life has just
come full circle in so many ways, because we started doing our
podcast during covid we do, wedid, you were helping us put it
all together and there wasnothing else for us to do.
Ian Carless (02:01):
We're all a little bit bit bored.
Yeah, exactly, I think you andI were like everybody else in
the event industry, weren't we?
We were all twiddling ourthumbs for 18 months.
Dan Bolton (02:08):
Scrambling, trying to figure out how to survive.
Yeah, but I'm loving the newset, thank you.
It has like the nostalgia ofthe old one, with a bit more
space and a few more decorativeitems.
Ian Carless (02:19):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Well, you know, I think wedecided to lean into it a bit
more in 2025.
Dan Bolton (02:24):
I like it, but yes, I'm no stranger to podcasts.
I'm feeling a bit rusty.
It's been a while.
Ian Carless (02:29):
I shouldn't worry about it.
But okay, let's rewind a littlebit.
How did you get into events andhow did you end up in Dubai?
I know at one point you were afire eater, yeah that's for sure
.
Dan Bolton (02:39):
So how did I get into events?
So it's a very long story.
The short version is I hadfriends that were professional
dancers.
I looked at them and was likewow, I think like this is
amazing.
Yeah, I'd also just come backfrom a trip to Australia.
Yeah, I went to.
I was a spectator for theopening ceremony at the Sydney
Olympics and I was like damn, Iwas like this is amazing, like
(03:01):
you know, like just the wholespectacle of everything.
So so I came back to the UK, Ijoined a circus school.
I became a circus performerStill walk a fire breather,
clown, pretty much.
You know.
Stick me in a costume.
I'll be that idiot to dowhatever the fire breathing.
I'm still struggling with withmy asthma right now.
Most people just do the firebreathing with a couple of
(03:21):
tequilas in the bar I mean, I'vedone that, I tried that before,
like I've set myself on fireand so, yeah, and then, of
course, then your, your parents,go like what the hell are you
doing with your life?
That was not what we plannedfor you.
But then I started to booktalent, manage talent.
I grew within the agency that Iwas with at the time, did all
the business development youknow.
I was really successful, didsome incredible projects, and
(03:42):
then an opportunity happenedwhere my partner at the time was
like we're moving to Dubai andI was like maybe, maybe, not
Made the decision to At thattime.
Dubai was very different.
We're talking like 2007.
So it's not the city we havenow.
It's obviously the foundationsof where we are today.
But I was expecting this wholelike Vegas, without the gambling
, you know, like this whole youknow big industry of events and
(04:05):
entertainment, and it was fairlyprimitive back then.
It wasn't kind of like where weare today, where we've had
these mega events like the Expo,et cetera, or the World Cup
over in Qatar.
So it was kind of like from thegrassroots in many ways.
You step off that plane andyou're like I'm here and it's
like, oh, there's a lot of stuffto be done, but it's like, oh,
there's a lot of stuff to bedone, but um, it's been great
(04:26):
building.
Ian Carless (04:26):
Now you cut your teeth, am I right with with
bareface?
Dan Bolton (04:28):
you were originally yeah, that's a blast for the
past.
Um, yeah, so I remember talkingto them whilst I was in the uk
and they were like as soon asyou land, come see us, because
we're getting more requests forentertainment.
We don't have anybody.
They're a model agency landed.
Went to see them, to see them.
They're like we need youtomorrow.
So I literally jumped into ajob immediately, which was very
fortunate, and I had a greattime with them.
(04:49):
It was eight years of fashionexcess party models like amazing
, amazing, that's a good stint,isn't it?
Ian Carless (04:58):
Eight years, eight years.
I was with them, yeah, yeah,and I'm guessing, like many
people who work for companies,at some point you kind of
thought, okay, the grass mightbe a little bit greener on the
other side, maybe it's time tostart something of my own.
Yeah, which you did.
Yeah.
Dan Bolton (05:11):
I did actually, yeah , so I left them.
I want to say 2015,.
Thereabouts, yeah, as Imentioned, I think I'd resigned
15 times the company.
At the time their company, notmine was growing significantly.
They'd had a whole merger,restructure and the
opportunities were incredibleand it just felt prohibitive.
And it gets to a point whereyou're like you know what, I'm
(05:33):
not enjoying it anymore.
Ian Carless (05:34):
How was the transition then?
How difficult was it for you toleave the safety net of working
for somebody full-time and thatregular paycheck and then
setting up your own business?
Dan Bolton (05:43):
It't challenging in terms of clients.
I was very fortunate I didn'tsteal clients, but clients came
with me so I had a businesspretty much immediately.
I think as a business owner youactually have less freedoms
than being an employee, becausewith an employee there's a
certain level of safety.
You're protected from some ofthe kind of serious
(06:05):
responsibility.
Obviously you've got KPIs oryou've got your job or whatever,
but you're protected from a lotof that because that's the
owner's problem.
When you become the owner it'sall your problem and I've
learned that Definitelydefinitely Now fast forward to
2024 and moving into 2025.
Ian Carless (06:23):
I think the issues that you've had over the last
sort of 12 to 18 months are verywell documented by your own
volition, so maybe you can speakto us a little bit like that.
I mean, obviously, I think frommany people looking from the
outside, you grew a tremendouspace, and that in itself brings
its own set of difficulties.
How do you scale a business soquickly, and especially in a
market like Dubai, which is verytransient, et cetera, et cetera
(06:45):
, et cetera.
So talk to us about your mostrecent journey.
Dan Bolton (06:49):
Well, clearly you don't scale it the way I was
scaling it because that didn'twork out and I'm laughing about
it now.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing,isn't it and it's like I'm not
laughing because it's funny,because, trust me, it's not
being, it's more of a case of acoping mechanism, because it's
(07:10):
been tough, like really tough.
Yeah, so we grew exponentially,which is incredible, and I have
to recognize my own efforts inthat.
I have massive self-doubt,imposter syndrome.
We've talked about it onpodcasts previously, yeah, but
the fact is, you know, wedeliver good work essentially,
is it the best?
You know?
Can we do better?
Of course we can, but wedelivered incredible projects
and we were continuously growingat a rate which was bonkers in
(07:32):
so many ways.
It was just adding layers andlayers of complexity on top of
everything and then comes risk.
So, yes, we just couldn't keepup with the pace and I was kind
of, when I look at it, kind oflike what's it called
introspectively, retrospectively, there we go and I was like the
coffee was strong and you, youreally start to analyze you like
(07:54):
what went wrong?
And, realistically, we didn'thave the solid foundation at the
beginning and it couldn't keepup with that pace and there
wasn't the planning for whathappens when something goes
wrong.
Because we're growing, we'vegot amazing projects like what,
what could go wrong.
There was a level of naivety orjust inexperience, if I'm
(08:17):
honest, from myself and otherswhat to do for a rainy day,
because this is dubai, we don'thave rainy days.
You know it's everything, isthis, you know, land of
opportunity, whereas the realityis like something bad happens.
You get bit on the ass and thenyou're like, okay, that wasn't
what I was thinking.
How do I fix?
Ian Carless (08:34):
it and that is the reality, isn't it?
I mean, we can all look atinstagram and think it's oh,
it's sunny every day and thestreets are paved with gold, but
the end of the day, we have thesame.
You know, we work in the sameenvironment as everybody else
does pretty much around theworld.
We have the same.
We face many of the same issues, many of the same problems.
Things came to a head for you,didn't they?
I don't know how much detailyou want to go into, perhaps not
(08:54):
as much, but you know youcertainly had one project that
really tripped you up.
Dan Bolton (08:58):
Do you know what, when I look back and it's like a
perfect storm and it could havegone either way, like and this
is the thing it's like you know,in business, like we, we're
successful because we make risks, we make calculated risks.
None of it's kind of doneflippantly.
I don't think I reallyunderstood the ramifications of
what if it would go wrong, butthere was nothing to say that it
(09:18):
would go wrong up until thatpoint.
So where are we?
We're in, like summer 2023.
Yeah, my god, nearly two yearsago now, um, and we just pitched
for a big project Qatar huge.
It's like the biggest projectwe've ever done.
And, like every project, there'sconversation that happens in
the background.
You know this is what theclient's looking for.
It was very much like.
(09:40):
You know this is yours to lose,essentially because we'd gone
down the pitching process, we'dhad the conversations, et cetera
.
We invested so much money intothat pitch.
We're talking like hundreds ofthousands of dirhams because
there's a very the highlikelihood of a very positive
outcome at the end of it.
So this is summer and for mostpeople that know the region, you
(10:01):
know your cashflow starts todry up very quickly from Ramadan
onwards and cash flow is aperennial problem for everyone,
isn't it I?
mean it's hard here becausepeople pay late.
I mean I'm responsible for thatcurrently, right now, which is
obviously making some people'slives hell.
So, yeah, so we were kind oflike juggling.
So you've got the yes, we havethis project which was
contracted.
We were awarded and won it alittle bit further down the line
(10:30):
.
Yeah, so we started to investin resource, infrastructure,
training, additional people,like all of the things we needed
to deliver that project.
The project is awarded reallylate.
We had six months ofprogramming to complete in
literally six weeks.
So, like we've got like acontract, we're moving.
We relocated people to Qatar.
Like we're throwing the kitchensink, like everything, because
this is the biggest projectwe've ever won and we're talking
like 100 million dirhams worthof business.
Yeah, it's like I'm throwingeverything at it.
(10:51):
Everything's moving and, ofcourse, there's hiccups.
You know there's delays oncontracts.
There's delays on, you know,procurement awarding.
Whatever we go through this,oliver, especially in this
region, and a lot of it.
You just keep moving furtherforward, because time is of the
essence.
You got six weeks here.
So anyway, we threw everythingat it.
Long story short, we were theones leading much of this
(11:13):
project with our local partnerin qatar.
And then all of a sudden it waslike local partner in qatar got
very much louder in theconversation because they were
very silent before right andonce we'd won it, and then very
much it was like oh, it's awhole new team of people, this
is new direction, this is a newcontract agreement.
The budget you had has beenhalved, like all of these
conversations, and we're likewhat the hell just happened?
(11:36):
Like it came kind of out ofnowhere and essentially we got
pushed out.
The project.
Yeah, we'd invested all thismoney.
We, we'd invested everything.
We took our eye off the ballfor the rest of Q4 because I've
got a hundred million in aproject.
I can't do anything else.
Yeah, we were essentiallypushed out.
I got nothing, not one singledirham.
So then all of a sudden you'relike well, where's my pipeline,
(11:58):
where's my cash flow?
And you know, a lot of peoplehave said, oh well, you were
kind of foolish to do that.
I'm like, well, if you speak toanyone in business, you know we
had contracts again, we hadlawyers, like people were
looking at things.
Yeah, um, I think people takecalculated risk because the the
flip side of that risk, it wenthorribly wrong.
On the flip side of it, itcould have gone incredibly well,
(12:19):
yeah, and that would havecatapulted us down to a
different level.
So, yeah, there's a level ofnaivety, I think, and just yeah,
learning and the restructuring.
Ian Carless (12:28):
I mean that's clearly a painful process and
there's two parts to this.
It's very painful.
Yeah, there's two parts to this.
How have you managed thatprocess?
And then, secondly, you've beenvery vocal about the whole
transition and the whole process.
I mean, clearly there's beensome painful decisions oh geez,
painful decision from day one.
Dan Bolton (12:44):
I think in hindsight again, wonderful thing.
I'm definitely gonna write abook on it one day.
It's been tough, like reallytough, because the challenge I
had in the first place is Ifilled my business full of
friends, so these are peoplewhich are like I've known for 20
years and everything else, andthen all of a sudden that
dynamic shifts because we'retalking about money, we're
(13:06):
talking about jobs,responsibility, families,
people's medical bills, you knowpeople's personal problems,
like all of the above.
So we had to make somedifficult decisions.
In the beginning we didn't layanybody off, it was a
conversation.
If people wanted to leave, therewas delays in payments and
salaries, et cetera.
Then it just kind of snowballed, if I'm completely honest,
(13:29):
because that's where kind oflike resentment, fear, like all
of these human emotions set in.
So then people have their ownchallenges to deal with, which
then means that we all behavedifferently.
So people that I thought weregoing to stick around didn't
stick around.
People I actually thought weregoing to leave.
I've actually stayed and itjust shifted everything,
everything, everything.
But the problem from thebeginning was I was always
(13:52):
trying to chase, I was trying tokeep up.
Yeah, and when people say itfeels like drowning, like that's
exactly what it feels like.
Yeah, literally, because you'rejust like what's happening
today and it was one thing afteranother.
Ian Carless (14:04):
Yeah, and that's been the biggest learning I've
had other guests on who've also,you know, myself included I've
had businesses fail in othermarkets.
I mean dubai isn't veryforgiving when it comes to being
able to fail, is it?
Do you think you would be ableto manage the process
differently if you were in adifferent environment, another
country, for example?
Because I mean, obviously, inother markets, you know,
bankruptcy is an option.
(14:25):
Yeah, I know that there are.
It's an option here.
Yeah, I was gonna say I thinkthere is an option here now.
Dan Bolton (14:29):
Isn't there a lot of people recommended I do it for
me?
I don't know if this is ego,I'm not sure.
Yeah, maybe one day I'll figureit out.
Look, I made it very clear likeI owe people money, things are
delayed and stuff like that.
I don't want to go down thatroute because then legally I
don't have any responsibility topay people back, correct?
I think I come from a veryworking class background in
North Manchester.
It's like, if you know, like myparents would not allow me to
(14:52):
do that.
However, what I will say is,like you said, unforgiving, fuck
man.
The hate has been brutal,brutal.
This is the stuff that peopledon't necessarily see.
All of the time, like some ofthe conversation you have with
people, you're just like wow,that's very different from what
I was expecting and I get, and Iunderstand why.
(15:12):
It just starts to get to apoint where you go this is just
not worth it anymore.
Like on a personal capacity,fine, but then also for the
people around you that itaffects.
You know, like your teammembers, the new people that
have come into our company,their families, my family, like
so many different things.
You know, even the people whichare kind of peripheral of this.
(15:34):
You just get to a point whereyou're just like you know like
bankruptcy would be the easyoption yeah because then you can
just like whatever you do,whatever you need to do, yeah.
However, like I don't want to godown that route.
Ian Carless (15:43):
Yeah.
Do you think that amount ofvitriol, do you think that
contributed to your decision tobe very vocal about the
transition and the subsequentaftermath?
I mean, you have been very,very, very open on LinkedIn, for
example, of course, A lot ofpeople say this to me.
Dan Bolton (15:56):
I mean I had to be for many reasons.
Reasons.
I mean I've been blackmailed.
That was one of them.
I was getting whatsapp messagesfrom people saying we're going
to start a social media campaignand tell people that you're a
scumbag and that you're scammingeverybody.
And then you, like you, sitthere and think, right, okay,
like am I a scumbag?
I mean, arguably, you know,people can have an opinion on
that, fine, whatever.
Then you go like, did I scampeople?
(16:19):
And these lots of questionchoices, and you question
yourself and you question thebusiness, and you question
yourself and you questionability and you question morals
and you question, question,question everything and, to be
honest, like you don't know what, because so many people say
stuff, but then it just comesdown to it.
It's like I never, I never wentout deliberately to do anything
, like something happened.
And on the flip side of this,as we all know, the other option
would be to simply disappearand leave, which many people
(16:41):
have done in the decades beforeus.
And when it all kicked off, Iremember people telling me you
should just do a runner, yeah.
And I was like, how am I gonnado a runner, like I've lived in
dubai for 18 years.
Yeah, my relationships are here, my friendships are here,
everything's here.
So, like what am I running from?
Ian Carless (16:56):
and then you really are burning the bridges because
there's no coming back thenthere's no coming back.
Dan Bolton (16:59):
Yeah, for sure, and I'm gonna do that like this will
take time, it'll be verypainful, but it will resolve
itself eventually through myhard work and through other
people's hard work.
But yeah, the the bitch showwas brutal, brutal, brutal.
And then my my kind of comebackto that was after lots of
(17:19):
therapy and discussions andbreakdowns and everything else.
It was like I'm actually not ascumbag, like shit's happened.
I really wish it didn't.
I apologize for that.
All I can do is make it better,literally so.
Does that make me a scumbag topeople now?
Yes, will that make me ascumbag in the future?
No, will people probably callme up and be like, hey, can I do
(17:40):
a job for you in the future?
Yes, you will.
Like you know, like this isjust a cycle which is a very
painful one, but I will fix itand then we'll move on.
Relationships will get fixed,if they need to be fixed, and
then we'll move into a differentfuture what do you think we're?
Ian Carless (17:54):
maybe let's, let's pick three.
What do you think were yourthree key learnings from the
whole process?
Holy?
Dan Bolton (18:00):
wow, wow, that's a good question, I mean, I'll give
you one Cashflow, cashflow, mycashflow.
like king.
I work in a creative world, sofor us it's like money's a
prohibitor to creativity.
It's like we want to do thingsand I had a team of people
around me that were responsiblefor money.
We're a business.
We had 85 people for money.
(18:25):
We're a business.
We had 85 people.
There was a structure, a board,there was all of these
components.
I think the learning the secondpart then to cash flow is like
you've got all of these peoplewith responsibility, who've got
ownership and accountability forcertain things, and you, as a
business owner, see a top level.
You don't always see the detail.
The reality is the book stopswith you and then, when it all
goes horribly wrong, thosepeople quickly disappear.
(18:47):
That was the second biggestlearning, because I remember one
day looking around and beinglike shit, you've all gone.
And I was like so who's goingto pick up these pieces?
And I was like, well, clearlyme.
And it was really interestingthat it was from the senior team
who went the quickest right.
And you literally look and belike, oh, wow, so that's how
(19:10):
it's going down you, youmentioned you know, hiring,
hiring friends, and look, listena lot of my third one a lot of
friends yeah, a lot of us dothat though, don't we?
Ian Carless (19:18):
because we like to think that, you know, I mean,
obviously you're not going tohire friend friends that, uh,
that can't do the job.
Yeah, but with friends, youwould hope, comes a certain
level of trust, and that makesit easy, easier in some cases
for them to, for them to be agood hire, but in, as you found
out in retrospect, yeah, perhapsthat's probably not the best
route no, hiring, friends, isdefinitely not the right route.
Dan Bolton (19:40):
Also, hiring out of desperation is not the right
route, so hiring would out ofdesperation is not the right
route, so hiring would be mynumber three.
In general, business wasgrowing so quickly, claire, I
actually hated my own businesslike hated it really and this is
something which was indiscussion in 2022.
I was going through therapy, Iwas talking to people and I had
trust issues.
I wasn't enjoying it.
I had massive bouts of likecrippling anxiety that I kept
(20:04):
hidden from so many people,because in many ways, it
actually made me function, likeI'm a high functioning, I have
high functioning anxiety, andthat was what was pushing me
further forward, but it was alsopushing me in a way that, again
, was unsustainable.
I wasn't looking after myhealth.
I wasn't looking after mymental health at all, and then I
was just hiring to make aproblem disappear without
actually fixing the problem andit's like that.
(20:25):
What's the anecdote where youcan put like band-aids on a
sinking ship kind of thing?
It's like it's going to sinkeventually.
Yeah, and I think that's what Iwas doing.
I was just sticking plasterseverywhere and those plasters,
in fairness, if that's the rightword to use were the people
closest to me, friends.
So it's like, oh, I need thishelp, I need this help.
I need, I need, I need withoutactually looking and being like
(20:47):
who's the best person for thejob, protect that kind of I
don't know employee employerrelationship.
Do I actually need these people?
Is there a better way of doingit, etc.
Etc.
Which is where we get to now,which is more positive.
We've gone through the processof restructuring everything,
everything, everything.
And then I have a team of 10people doing better work than a
(21:13):
team of 85 people, and that's nodisrespect to the people that
were there previously.
But the foundation is thestructure, my management,
everything was not right, so nowit's had to flip itself to get
to a place where it's actually.
This is the business.
Ian Carless (21:26):
I want well, I think you know just to put a
positive spin on things.
I think if you asked anysuccessful entrepreneur, they
would have had failures past,multiple and, and, more
importantly, that's where youlearn the most yes, yeah, I've
had this conversation with a fewpeople in different industries
because it's tough, no one likesto be a failure.
Dan Bolton (21:43):
Your ego kicks in and, especially in this day and
age, like you, nobody could be afailure because everything's so
amazing on social media and Ihad a couple of really
interesting conversations andthey told me stories and I was
like shit.
I was like our stories are likeparallel in so many different
ways and they've gone on to beincredibly successful.
Yeah, definitely I have learnedthe most, which, in many ways,
(22:07):
I wish I didn't have to do that,but I think in a year's time,
two years time, when you lookback you'll be like that was
actually happened.
Ian Carless (22:14):
For a reason, that was an incredible period of time
of learning moving on, I thinkif you had to write a report
card for where the industry's atright now, where would it be?
Dan Bolton (22:24):
I don't know, I do.
I was actually thinking aboutthis.
It's interesting.
That's like questioning,because I was thinking about it
over the last few days.
Obviously my perception of theindustry is a little bit jaded
right now, so I can only speakfor myself and I don't know if
it's clouded by the judgment ofthe last few years and that
process.
I think the industry is verymessy, like really messy, and
(22:46):
I'm just thinking because youknow, we talked previously like
a lot of the big projects arenot necessarily happening
anymore.
I mean, there are big projectsstill, but it's just very
different.
Saudi is very competitive, soobviously a lot of stuff is
happening in Saudi.
A lot of people have gone toSaudi.
A lot of stuff is happeningthere.
But if we're talking from a UAEperspective, a lot of it, you
know, stuff driven byprocurement, that kind of race
(23:07):
to the bottom, the the pricethere's not necessarily for the
people that we often deal with,that understanding of creative
and the kind of the costassociated to creative yeah,
it's interesting you say that wewere chatting to stephen wyland
, yeah, you know, and his sortof comments on on the on a
similar question, were that no,we're not at the same place
(23:28):
where we were pre-covid, and alot of that is to do with
creativity.
Ian Carless (23:31):
a lot of that to that is to do with creativity.
A lot of that is to do withbudget.
I mean, you touched on it.
A lot of it is now procurementdriven and budget driven and for
many people, whilst we're doing, whilst they seem to be a lot
smaller events, they're justcookie cutter.
They're like we've got a launch, the CEO will come and speak
and then everybody will go tothe bar.
But where's the story, where'sthe spectacle, the narrative?
(23:56):
Come and speak and theneverybody go to the bar?
Dan Bolton (23:57):
yeah, but where's the story, where's the?
Where's the spectacle, thenarrative, where's the narrative
, which is, of course, whatevents are all about?
Correct, but clients still wantthat.
They just don't want it the waythat it's actually deliverable
in many, many ways, because wealways get that, oh, tell us a
narrative, you know, take usthrough the journey and then
eventually you get to a point oflike, well, I need some branded
directional signage, I need acouple, couple of activations, a
speaker on stage and some F&B,and you're like, okay, but
that's not the story, that's notthe narrative.
Ian Carless (24:15):
It's a vicious circle, though, isn't it?
Because then, when you omit thenarrative, you basically you're
compromising the experience,and then people go away.
They go to events, they comeout of the event having not had
such a good time as they couldhave, and then the clients, in
turn, don't get the results thatthey're looking for, and
therefore, when it comes aroundto perhaps doing it again, then
they kind of think, oh well,I'll spend even less.
Dan Bolton (24:36):
I'm going to blame procurement, unfortunately,
because that's my experiencewith them.
It's like you know, if I cansit down with a client or the
end decision maker, the personwhose event it is, which you
know, finally we get there, wedo have those conversations with
them, like you can reallyunderstand what is important to
you, what are you trying to do,what do you want to try to
achieve?
What's the human connection,the emotional connection, the
story, the narrative, what isyour objective?
(24:58):
By hosting this event?
And you know, generally, it'slike making people come out
feeling proud, making themunderstand something more,
making them more productive,something.
There's something tangible thatthis event is supposed to
deliver that doesn't have to beexpensive, but it has to be
expensive, but it has to be aconversation.
And it has to be a conversationthat is actually real and
feasible, which means like, yes,you're going to have to pay for
(25:20):
it, maybe not as much as weoriginally talked about, but
there's going to be a meetingpoint in the middle.
That meeting point justcurrently like it just doesn't
happen because it's like, well,let's go with the cheapest
option, but currently, like itjust doesn't happen because it's
like, oh well, let's go withthe cheapest option, but the
cheapest option is notdelivering what you need and
you're self-perpetuating this,just like you mentioned this is
(25:40):
cycle of mediocrity.
Ian Carless (25:41):
Essentially, where do you see the industry moving
in for the rest of the year, forthe rest of 2025?
Dan Bolton (25:45):
oh, I'm not sure.
Actually, that's a very goodquestion.
Um, I don't think I'm in theright position to answer it
fully because I'm a little bitinsular at the moment.
I think, like I've got myblinkers on.
I'm just trying to figure outmyself and my business.
I'll talk about my business.
I think where we're going to be,you know, restructure, solidify
, get it to where it should be,get it to where it needs to be,
so then we can grow in thefuture and we'll grow
(26:06):
differently.
That's 100 for sure, I think.
Then, if you look at that interms of the wider industry
probably something similar I'mhearing all sorts from different
people about, you know, theneed to restructure, change,
evolve, pivot.
You know all of those kind ofwords.
Um, obviously you know peopleare thinking saudi, saudi, saudi
.
Eventually that will kind of gothrough a similar journey to
(26:28):
what I guess the uae has gonethrough.
So I think there's a lot ofmovement in the industry.
What other stuff's happening?
I mean, it's very difficultbecause you don't have again
those big signature things.
There's nothing in the calendarreally.
You know we don't have a COP28.
We don't have an Expo.
All of that has shifted toSaudi.
So if you're looking kind of inthe long term.
(26:49):
Obviously people are excitedabout Expo 2030.
People are excited about theFootball World Cup rightly to
again come to this regionIncredible.
Ian Carless (26:57):
I don't want to touch on this too much, but how
do you see Saudi evolving interms of the event industry?
Dan Bolton (27:03):
I think the dream and the vision is amazing.
You know, you look at it and itreminds me of the heyday of
Dubai.
You know, when I first camehere in 2007 and you had the big
kind of like dubai landuniversal, like all of these
things are going to come.
I think.
Then look at where we are in 20I need to say 2015, 2025, 10
years behind.
You know, you've gone throughthat kind of what like 18 20
(27:23):
year journey and a lot of itnever materialized, but other
stuff did yeah.
So I think the the vision ofsaudi will change, it will
evolve, it will grow.
The interesting thing aboutSaudi that I really really like
is that it is predominantlySaudis it's not a heavily kind
of international immigrant,expat, whatever you want to call
them demographic that come hereto do business.
(27:46):
It's very, very Saudi, whichthen means different ways of
doing business, differentrelationships.
The fact that we don't speakArabic will be a prohibitor in
the future.
Do you think that makes it moresustainable, I think it does as
an industry.
Ian Carless (28:00):
but perhaps, just not perhaps on the scale that
they're at now.
Dan Bolton (28:02):
Definitely on the scale that they're at now and
it's a huge country.
I think the fact that they'vegot, like you know, primarily
most of their population is like, kind of like in that 35 year
bracket or up to 35 age bracket,the possibility of the future,
exciting.
You know, they're young,they're hungry, they're kind of
open-minded, they're evolving.
The pace of evolution andchange is happening so quick,
(28:23):
but again it's like any, I wantto say like a gold rush.
You know you've got everybodyfrom around the world which is
now trying to take a piece ofsaudi.
I think the reality is saudi'sgoing to keep it for themselves
and they're going to startreally thinking about well, how
do we protect this, how do westop it being cannibalized by
all of these internationalswhich are essentially coming to
do business, to take the moneyout of the country?
And I think you know, makingsure that there's a level of
(28:45):
knowledge sharing, transfer, youknow, building of
infrastructure, and I don't meanphysical infrastructure, I mean
creative infrastructure, techinfrastructure, like that type
of thing.
I think that's where it'll bevery interesting, that's.
Ian Carless (28:58):
That's a really interesting perspective.
Yeah, before we close, I knowyou're a music fan and we've
been asking everybody this uh,my vinyl my vinyl collection has
been growing over the lastcouple of years.
What's on your playlist at themoment?
What are you listening to myplaylist.
Dan Bolton (29:15):
Wow, I'm gonna say something now which is a little
bit weird, where you're justgonna be like oh my god, here we
go, but like a load of likesoothing meditation stuff, like
literally like omchance issomething okay, like so
literally like I'll plug in myipod ipod, is it even a thing
these days?
Sorry, you're dating yourself.
My god, I nearly said what wasthe other one where you had like
, was it an?
Ian Carless (29:31):
ipod, is it even a thing, these?
Dan Bolton (29:31):
days, sorry, wow, my god, I nearly said what was the
other one where you had likewas it an ipod.
Ian Carless (29:34):
You're gonna say walkman, my cassette.
Dan Bolton (29:37):
No, I'm like I've got this thing right now where I
wake up at five o'clock in themorning, before the sun is like
pitch black.
I sit on the balcony with acoffee, I put in the music and I
kind of like set my intentionsfor the day, like it's the thing
to like sort my own mentalhealth out and everything.
But in terms of like actualartists wow, that's a good
question like my playlist iseclectic, like it's all over the
place, like, if I'm completelyhonest, like my partner's
(30:00):
constantly playing thesoundtrack from wicked.
So I think I've got like arianagrande and like what was the
alphabet I can't remember whatshe's called cynthia on like
repeat, like literally.
So defying gravity is my numberone at the moment.
Ian Carless (30:13):
Yeah, and finally, looking ahead at 2025 what are
you looking forward to?
Dan Bolton (30:19):
resolution, literally, um, I'm looking
forward to being able to putcertain things to bed, to move
on, to continue to grow and besuccessful in a very different
way, and I like the fact thatyou know we've been talking
about sustainability.
And sustainability is not justlike plants and animals, like
sustainability in terms of how.
How do we continue to moveforward in life?
(30:39):
You know, from variousdifferent aspects, I think,
taking everything that I've gonethrough, taking everything that
I've put people through,learning from all of that and
then moving to a differentdirection for the future, which
would be it for me, ultimatelypeace, like I want, peace like I
just want that kind ofexistence.
I think isn't that what we allwant?
You know, you want to wake upin the morning, a little bit
slower pace of life, no worries,no problems, excited, like
(31:02):
that's for me, that's what 2025is about, and then putting
things to bed.
Dad, thanks for joining me.
Man really enjoyed it.
Ian Carless (31:13):
The coffee was strong, by the way, so it's like
I've got straight in, likethese subtitles for this one
event.
News dxb was presented bymyself, ian carlos, the studio
engineer and editor was roy demonte, the executive producer
was myself and joe morrison, andthis podcast is a co-production
between warehouse 4 and w4podcast studio dubai, and if you
haven't done so already, pleasedo click that follow or
subscribe button.
See you next time.
Welcome to Event News DXB.
Before we begin, I've got aquick favour to ask.
There's one simple way that youcan support our show, and
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(00:20):
Thanks a bunch.
You're listening to the EventNews DXB podcast.
Your behind-the-scenes lookinto the world of events in
Dubai, the UAE and the MENAregion.
I'm Ian Carlos and each weekI'll bring you the latest news,
(00:43):
industry trends and insiderstories shaping one of the
world's most dynamic eventmarkets.
From professional insights toDubai's most inspiring success
stories, we've got everythingyou need to stay ahead in the
ever-evolving event industry.
So, whether you're an eventplanner, a brand manager or just
someone who's passionate aboutthe power of events, you're in
(01:04):
the right place.
This week, we're talking to oneof the most vocal members of the
Dubai event industry, danBolton.
After starting out life as acircus artist, including a stint
as a fire breather, he quicklyrecast himself in the role of
event producer.
A move to Dubai saw him cut histeeth with the leading model in
event agency before forming hisown company, dan Bolton
(01:25):
Creative Management Agency.
Following a whirlwind period ofhuge growth, 2023 was, sadly,
the year that things came to anabrupt halt, leaving Dan having
to start again from scratch.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Dan Bolton (01:45):
You're actually no stranger to podcasts, are you?
You and Lily have one, don'tyou?
Well, we, we've got one, whichis a little bit on pause right
now, which maybe we'll talkabout, okay, um, but I'm having
like a real bad sense of deja vu, like it's like life has just
come full circle in so many ways, because we started doing our
podcast during covid we do, wedid, you were helping us put it
all together and there wasnothing else for us to do.
Ian Carless (02:01):
We're all a little bit bit bored.
Yeah, exactly, I think you andI were like everybody else in
the event industry, weren't we?
We were all twiddling ourthumbs for 18 months.
Dan Bolton (02:08):
Scrambling, trying to figure out how to survive.
Yeah, but I'm loving the newset, thank you.
It has like the nostalgia ofthe old one, with a bit more
space and a few more decorativeitems.
Ian Carless (02:19):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Well, you know, I think wedecided to lean into it a bit
more in 2025.
Dan Bolton (02:24):
I like it, but yes, I'm no stranger to podcasts.
I'm feeling a bit rusty.
It's been a while.
Ian Carless (02:29):
I shouldn't worry about it.
But okay, let's rewind a littlebit.
How did you get into events andhow did you end up in Dubai?
I know at one point you were afire eater, yeah that's for sure
.
Dan Bolton (02:39):
So how did I get into events?
So it's a very long story.
The short version is I hadfriends that were professional
dancers.
I looked at them and was likewow, I think like this is
amazing.
Yeah, I'd also just come backfrom a trip to Australia.
Yeah, I went to.
I was a spectator for theopening ceremony at the Sydney
Olympics and I was like damn, Iwas like this is amazing, like
(03:01):
you know, like just the wholespectacle of everything.
So so I came back to the UK, Ijoined a circus school.
I became a circus performerStill walk a fire breather,
clown, pretty much.
You know.
Stick me in a costume.
I'll be that idiot to dowhatever the fire breathing.
I'm still struggling with withmy asthma right now.
Most people just do the firebreathing with a couple of
(03:21):
tequilas in the bar I mean, I'vedone that, I tried that before,
like I've set myself on fireand so, yeah, and then, of
course, then your, your parents,go like what the hell are you
doing with your life?
That was not what we plannedfor you.
But then I started to booktalent, manage talent.
I grew within the agency that Iwas with at the time, did all
the business development youknow.
I was really successful, didsome incredible projects, and
(03:42):
then an opportunity happenedwhere my partner at the time was
like we're moving to Dubai andI was like maybe, maybe, not
Made the decision to At thattime.
Dubai was very different.
We're talking like 2007.
So it's not the city we havenow.
It's obviously the foundationsof where we are today.
But I was expecting this wholelike Vegas, without the gambling
, you know, like this whole youknow big industry of events and
(04:05):
entertainment, and it was fairlyprimitive back then.
It wasn't kind of like where weare today, where we've had
these mega events like the Expo,et cetera, or the World Cup
over in Qatar.
So it was kind of like from thegrassroots in many ways.
You step off that plane andyou're like I'm here and it's
like, oh, there's a lot of stuffto be done, but it's like, oh,
there's a lot of stuff to bedone, but um, it's been great
(04:26):
building.
Ian Carless (04:26):
Now you cut your teeth, am I right with with
bareface?
Dan Bolton (04:28):
you were originally yeah, that's a blast for the
past.
Um, yeah, so I remember talkingto them whilst I was in the uk
and they were like as soon asyou land, come see us, because
we're getting more requests forentertainment.
We don't have anybody.
They're a model agency landed.
Went to see them, to see them.
They're like we need youtomorrow.
So I literally jumped into ajob immediately, which was very
fortunate, and I had a greattime with them.
(04:49):
It was eight years of fashionexcess party models like amazing
, amazing, that's a good stint,isn't it?
Ian Carless (04:58):
Eight years, eight years.
I was with them, yeah, yeah,and I'm guessing, like many
people who work for companies,at some point you kind of
thought, okay, the grass mightbe a little bit greener on the
other side, maybe it's time tostart something of my own.
Yeah, which you did.
Yeah.
Dan Bolton (05:11):
I did actually, yeah , so I left them.
I want to say 2015,.
Thereabouts, yeah, as Imentioned, I think I'd resigned
15 times the company.
At the time their company, notmine was growing significantly.
They'd had a whole merger,restructure and the
opportunities were incredibleand it just felt prohibitive.
And it gets to a point whereyou're like you know what, I'm
(05:33):
not enjoying it anymore.
Ian Carless (05:34):
How was the transition then?
How difficult was it for you toleave the safety net of working
for somebody full-time and thatregular paycheck and then
setting up your own business?
Dan Bolton (05:43):
It't challenging in terms of clients.
I was very fortunate I didn'tsteal clients, but clients came
with me so I had a businesspretty much immediately.
I think as a business owner youactually have less freedoms
than being an employee, becausewith an employee there's a
certain level of safety.
You're protected from some ofthe kind of serious
(06:05):
responsibility.
Obviously you've got KPIs oryou've got your job or whatever,
but you're protected from a lotof that because that's the
owner's problem.
When you become the owner it'sall your problem and I've
learned that Definitelydefinitely Now fast forward to
2024 and moving into 2025.
Ian Carless (06:23):
I think the issues that you've had over the last
sort of 12 to 18 months are verywell documented by your own
volition, so maybe you can speakto us a little bit like that.
I mean, obviously, I think frommany people looking from the
outside, you grew a tremendouspace, and that in itself brings
its own set of difficulties.
How do you scale a business soquickly, and especially in a
market like Dubai, which is verytransient, et cetera, et cetera
(06:45):
, et cetera.
So talk to us about your mostrecent journey.
Dan Bolton (06:49):
Well, clearly you don't scale it the way I was
scaling it because that didn'twork out and I'm laughing about
it now.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing,isn't it and it's like I'm not
laughing because it's funny,because, trust me, it's not
being, it's more of a case of acoping mechanism, because it's
(07:10):
been tough, like really tough.
Yeah, so we grew exponentially,which is incredible, and I have
to recognize my own efforts inthat.
I have massive self-doubt,imposter syndrome.
We've talked about it onpodcasts previously, yeah, but
the fact is, you know, wedeliver good work essentially,
is it the best?
You know?
Can we do better?
Of course we can, but wedelivered incredible projects
and we were continuously growingat a rate which was bonkers in
(07:32):
so many ways.
It was just adding layers andlayers of complexity on top of
everything and then comes risk.
So, yes, we just couldn't keepup with the pace and I was kind
of, when I look at it, kind oflike what's it called
introspectively, retrospectively, there we go and I was like the
coffee was strong and you, youreally start to analyze you like
(07:54):
what went wrong?
And, realistically, we didn'thave the solid foundation at the
beginning and it couldn't keepup with that pace and there
wasn't the planning for whathappens when something goes
wrong.
Because we're growing, we'vegot amazing projects like what,
what could go wrong.
There was a level of naivety orjust inexperience, if I'm
(08:17):
honest, from myself and otherswhat to do for a rainy day,
because this is dubai, we don'thave rainy days.
You know it's everything, isthis, you know, land of
opportunity, whereas the realityis like something bad happens.
You get bit on the ass and thenyou're like, okay, that wasn't
what I was thinking.
How do I fix?
Ian Carless (08:34):
it and that is the reality, isn't it?
I mean, we can all look atinstagram and think it's oh,
it's sunny every day and thestreets are paved with gold, but
the end of the day, we have thesame.
You know, we work in the sameenvironment as everybody else
does pretty much around theworld.
We have the same.
We face many of the same issues, many of the same problems.
Things came to a head for you,didn't they?
I don't know how much detailyou want to go into, perhaps not
(08:54):
as much, but you know youcertainly had one project that
really tripped you up.
Dan Bolton (08:58):
Do you know what, when I look back and it's like a
perfect storm and it could havegone either way, like and this
is the thing it's like you know,in business, like we, we're
successful because we make risks, we make calculated risks.
None of it's kind of doneflippantly.
I don't think I reallyunderstood the ramifications of
what if it would go wrong, butthere was nothing to say that it
(09:18):
would go wrong up until thatpoint.
So where are we?
We're in, like summer 2023.
Yeah, my god, nearly two yearsago now, um, and we just pitched
for a big project Qatar huge.
It's like the biggest projectwe've ever done.
And, like every project, there'sconversation that happens in
the background.
You know this is what theclient's looking for.
It was very much like.
(09:40):
You know this is yours to lose,essentially because we'd gone
down the pitching process, we'dhad the conversations, et cetera
.
We invested so much money intothat pitch.
We're talking like hundreds ofthousands of dirhams because
there's a very the highlikelihood of a very positive
outcome at the end of it.
So this is summer and for mostpeople that know the region, you
(10:01):
know your cashflow starts todry up very quickly from Ramadan
onwards and cash flow is aperennial problem for everyone,
isn't it I?
mean it's hard here becausepeople pay late.
I mean I'm responsible for thatcurrently, right now, which is
obviously making some people'slives hell.
So, yeah, so we were kind oflike juggling.
So you've got the yes, we havethis project which was
contracted.
We were awarded and won it alittle bit further down the line
(10:30):
.
Yeah, so we started to investin resource, infrastructure,
training, additional people,like all of the things we needed
to deliver that project.
The project is awarded reallylate.
We had six months ofprogramming to complete in
literally six weeks.
So, like we've got like acontract, we're moving.
We relocated people to Qatar.
Like we're throwing the kitchensink, like everything, because
this is the biggest projectwe've ever won and we're talking
like 100 million dirhams worthof business.
Yeah, it's like I'm throwingeverything at it.
(10:51):
Everything's moving and, ofcourse, there's hiccups.
You know there's delays oncontracts.
There's delays on, you know,procurement awarding.
Whatever we go through this,oliver, especially in this
region, and a lot of it.
You just keep moving furtherforward, because time is of the
essence.
You got six weeks here.
So anyway, we threw everythingat it.
Long story short, we were theones leading much of this
(11:13):
project with our local partnerin qatar.
And then all of a sudden it waslike local partner in qatar got
very much louder in theconversation because they were
very silent before right andonce we'd won it, and then very
much it was like oh, it's awhole new team of people, this
is new direction, this is a newcontract agreement.
The budget you had has beenhalved, like all of these
conversations, and we're likewhat the hell just happened?
(11:36):
Like it came kind of out ofnowhere and essentially we got
pushed out.
The project.
Yeah, we'd invested all thismoney.
We, we'd invested everything.
We took our eye off the ballfor the rest of Q4 because I've
got a hundred million in aproject.
I can't do anything else.
Yeah, we were essentiallypushed out.
I got nothing, not one singledirham.
So then all of a sudden you'relike well, where's my pipeline,
(11:58):
where's my cash flow?
And you know, a lot of peoplehave said, oh well, you were
kind of foolish to do that.
I'm like, well, if you speak toanyone in business, you know we
had contracts again, we hadlawyers, like people were
looking at things.
Yeah, um, I think people takecalculated risk because the the
flip side of that risk, it wenthorribly wrong.
On the flip side of it, itcould have gone incredibly well,
(12:19):
yeah, and that would havecatapulted us down to a
different level.
So, yeah, there's a level ofnaivety, I think, and just yeah,
learning and the restructuring.
Ian Carless (12:28):
I mean that's clearly a painful process and
there's two parts to this.
It's very painful.
Yeah, there's two parts to this.
How have you managed thatprocess?
And then, secondly, you've beenvery vocal about the whole
transition and the whole process.
I mean, clearly there's beensome painful decisions oh geez,
painful decision from day one.
Dan Bolton (12:44):
I think in hindsight again, wonderful thing.
I'm definitely gonna write abook on it one day.
It's been tough, like reallytough, because the challenge I
had in the first place is Ifilled my business full of
friends, so these are peoplewhich are like I've known for 20
years and everything else, andthen all of a sudden that
dynamic shifts because we'retalking about money, we're
(13:06):
talking about jobs,responsibility, families,
people's medical bills, you knowpeople's personal problems,
like all of the above.
So we had to make somedifficult decisions.
In the beginning we didn't layanybody off, it was a
conversation.
If people wanted to leave, therewas delays in payments and
salaries, et cetera.
Then it just kind of snowballed, if I'm completely honest,
(13:29):
because that's where kind oflike resentment, fear, like all
of these human emotions set in.
So then people have their ownchallenges to deal with, which
then means that we all behavedifferently.
So people that I thought weregoing to stick around didn't
stick around.
People I actually thought weregoing to leave.
I've actually stayed and itjust shifted everything,
everything, everything.
But the problem from thebeginning was I was always
(13:52):
trying to chase, I was trying tokeep up.
Yeah, and when people say itfeels like drowning, like that's
exactly what it feels like.
Yeah, literally, because you'rejust like what's happening
today and it was one thing afteranother.
Ian Carless (14:04):
Yeah, and that's been the biggest learning I've
had other guests on who've also,you know, myself included I've
had businesses fail in othermarkets.
I mean dubai isn't veryforgiving when it comes to being
able to fail, is it?
Do you think you would be ableto manage the process
differently if you were in adifferent environment, another
country, for example?
Because I mean, obviously, inother markets, you know,
bankruptcy is an option.
(14:25):
Yeah, I know that there are.
It's an option here.
Yeah, I was gonna say I thinkthere is an option here now.
Dan Bolton (14:29):
Isn't there a lot of people recommended I do it for
me?
I don't know if this is ego,I'm not sure.
Yeah, maybe one day I'll figureit out.
Look, I made it very clear likeI owe people money, things are
delayed and stuff like that.
I don't want to go down thatroute because then legally I
don't have any responsibility topay people back, correct?
I think I come from a veryworking class background in
North Manchester.
It's like, if you know, like myparents would not allow me to
(14:52):
do that.
However, what I will say is,like you said, unforgiving, fuck
man.
The hate has been brutal,brutal.
This is the stuff that peopledon't necessarily see.
All of the time, like some ofthe conversation you have with
people, you're just like wow,that's very different from what
I was expecting and I get, and Iunderstand why.
(15:12):
It just starts to get to apoint where you go this is just
not worth it anymore.
Like on a personal capacity,fine, but then also for the
people around you that itaffects.
You know, like your teammembers, the new people that
have come into our company,their families, my family, like
so many different things.
You know, even the people whichare kind of peripheral of this.
(15:34):
You just get to a point whereyou're just like you know like
bankruptcy would be the easyoption yeah because then you can
just like whatever you do,whatever you need to do, yeah.
However, like I don't want to godown that route.
Ian Carless (15:43):
Yeah.
Do you think that amount ofvitriol, do you think that
contributed to your decision tobe very vocal about the
transition and the subsequentaftermath?
I mean, you have been very,very, very open on LinkedIn, for
example, of course, A lot ofpeople say this to me.
Dan Bolton (15:56):
I mean I had to be for many reasons.
Reasons.
I mean I've been blackmailed.
That was one of them.
I was getting whatsapp messagesfrom people saying we're going
to start a social media campaignand tell people that you're a
scumbag and that you're scammingeverybody.
And then you, like you, sitthere and think, right, okay,
like am I a scumbag?
I mean, arguably, you know,people can have an opinion on
that, fine, whatever.
Then you go like, did I scampeople?
(16:19):
And these lots of questionchoices, and you question
yourself and you question thebusiness, and you question
yourself and you questionability and you question morals
and you question, question,question everything and, to be
honest, like you don't know what, because so many people say
stuff, but then it just comesdown to it.
It's like I never, I never wentout deliberately to do anything
, like something happened.
And on the flip side of this,as we all know, the other option
would be to simply disappearand leave, which many people
(16:41):
have done in the decades beforeus.
And when it all kicked off, Iremember people telling me you
should just do a runner, yeah.
And I was like, how am I gonnado a runner, like I've lived in
dubai for 18 years.
Yeah, my relationships are here, my friendships are here,
everything's here.
So, like what am I running from?
Ian Carless (16:56):
and then you really are burning the bridges because
there's no coming back thenthere's no coming back.
Dan Bolton (16:59):
Yeah, for sure, and I'm gonna do that like this will
take time, it'll be verypainful, but it will resolve
itself eventually through myhard work and through other
people's hard work.
But yeah, the the bitch showwas brutal, brutal, brutal.
And then my my kind of comebackto that was after lots of
(17:19):
therapy and discussions andbreakdowns and everything else.
It was like I'm actually not ascumbag, like shit's happened.
I really wish it didn't.
I apologize for that.
All I can do is make it better,literally so.
Does that make me a scumbag topeople now?
Yes, will that make me ascumbag in the future?
No, will people probably callme up and be like, hey, can I do
(17:40):
a job for you in the future?
Yes, you will.
Like you know, like this isjust a cycle which is a very
painful one, but I will fix itand then we'll move on.
Relationships will get fixed,if they need to be fixed, and
then we'll move into a differentfuture what do you think we're?
Ian Carless (17:54):
maybe let's, let's pick three.
What do you think were yourthree key learnings from the
whole process?
Holy?
Dan Bolton (18:00):
wow, wow, that's a good question, I mean, I'll give
you one Cashflow, cashflow, mycashflow.
like king.
I work in a creative world, sofor us it's like money's a
prohibitor to creativity.
It's like we want to do thingsand I had a team of people
around me that were responsiblefor money.
We're a business.
We had 85 people for money.
(18:25):
We're a business.
We had 85 people.
There was a structure, a board,there was all of these
components.
I think the learning the secondpart then to cash flow is like
you've got all of these peoplewith responsibility, who've got
ownership and accountability forcertain things, and you, as a
business owner, see a top level.
You don't always see the detail.
The reality is the book stopswith you and then, when it all
goes horribly wrong, thosepeople quickly disappear.
(18:47):
That was the second biggestlearning, because I remember one
day looking around and beinglike shit, you've all gone.
And I was like so who's goingto pick up these pieces?
And I was like, well, clearlyme.
And it was really interestingthat it was from the senior team
who went the quickest right.
And you literally look and belike, oh, wow, so that's how
(19:10):
it's going down you, youmentioned you know, hiring,
hiring friends, and look, listena lot of my third one a lot of
friends yeah, a lot of us dothat though, don't we?
Ian Carless (19:18):
because we like to think that, you know, I mean,
obviously you're not going tohire friend friends that, uh,
that can't do the job.
Yeah, but with friends, youwould hope, comes a certain
level of trust, and that makesit easy, easier in some cases
for them to, for them to be agood hire, but in, as you found
out in retrospect, yeah, perhapsthat's probably not the best
route no, hiring, friends, isdefinitely not the right route.
Dan Bolton (19:40):
Also, hiring out of desperation is not the right
route, so hiring would out ofdesperation is not the right
route, so hiring would be mynumber three.
In general, business wasgrowing so quickly, claire, I
actually hated my own businesslike hated it really and this is
something which was indiscussion in 2022.
I was going through therapy, Iwas talking to people and I had
trust issues.
I wasn't enjoying it.
I had massive bouts of likecrippling anxiety that I kept
(20:04):
hidden from so many people,because in many ways, it
actually made me function, likeI'm a high functioning, I have
high functioning anxiety, andthat was what was pushing me
further forward, but it was alsopushing me in a way that, again
, was unsustainable.
I wasn't looking after myhealth.
I wasn't looking after mymental health at all, and then I
was just hiring to make aproblem disappear without
actually fixing the problem andit's like that.
(20:25):
What's the anecdote where youcan put like band-aids on a
sinking ship kind of thing?
It's like it's going to sinkeventually.
Yeah, and I think that's what Iwas doing.
I was just sticking plasterseverywhere and those plasters,
in fairness, if that's the rightword to use were the people
closest to me, friends.
So it's like, oh, I need thishelp, I need this help.
I need, I need, I need withoutactually looking and being like
(20:47):
who's the best person for thejob, protect that kind of I
don't know employee employerrelationship.
Do I actually need these people?
Is there a better way of doingit, etc.
Etc.
Which is where we get to now,which is more positive.
We've gone through the processof restructuring everything,
everything, everything.
And then I have a team of 10people doing better work than a
(21:13):
team of 85 people, and that's nodisrespect to the people that
were there previously.
But the foundation is thestructure, my management,
everything was not right, so nowit's had to flip itself to get
to a place where it's actually.
This is the business.
Ian Carless (21:26):
I want well, I think you know just to put a
positive spin on things.
I think if you asked anysuccessful entrepreneur, they
would have had failures past,multiple and, and, more
importantly, that's where youlearn the most yes, yeah, I've
had this conversation with a fewpeople in different industries
because it's tough, no one likesto be a failure.
Dan Bolton (21:43):
Your ego kicks in and, especially in this day and
age, like you, nobody could be afailure because everything's so
amazing on social media and Ihad a couple of really
interesting conversations andthey told me stories and I was
like shit.
I was like our stories are likeparallel in so many different
ways and they've gone on to beincredibly successful.
Yeah, definitely I have learnedthe most, which, in many ways,
(22:07):
I wish I didn't have to do that,but I think in a year's time,
two years time, when you lookback you'll be like that was
actually happened.
Ian Carless (22:14):
For a reason, that was an incredible period of time
of learning moving on, I thinkif you had to write a report
card for where the industry's atright now, where would it be?
Dan Bolton (22:24):
I don't know, I do.
I was actually thinking aboutthis.
It's interesting.
That's like questioning,because I was thinking about it
over the last few days.
Obviously my perception of theindustry is a little bit jaded
right now, so I can only speakfor myself and I don't know if
it's clouded by the judgment ofthe last few years and that
process.
I think the industry is verymessy, like really messy, and
(22:46):
I'm just thinking because youknow, we talked previously like
a lot of the big projects arenot necessarily happening
anymore.
I mean, there are big projectsstill, but it's just very
different.
Saudi is very competitive, soobviously a lot of stuff is
happening in Saudi.
A lot of people have gone toSaudi.
A lot of stuff is happeningthere.
But if we're talking from a UAEperspective, a lot of it, you
know, stuff driven byprocurement, that kind of race
(23:07):
to the bottom, the the pricethere's not necessarily for the
people that we often deal with,that understanding of creative
and the kind of the costassociated to creative yeah,
it's interesting you say that wewere chatting to stephen wyland
, yeah, you know, and his sortof comments on on the on a
similar question, were that no,we're not at the same place
(23:28):
where we were pre-covid, and alot of that is to do with
creativity.
Ian Carless (23:31):
a lot of that to that is to do with creativity.
A lot of that is to do withbudget.
I mean, you touched on it.
A lot of it is now procurementdriven and budget driven and for
many people, whilst we're doing, whilst they seem to be a lot
smaller events, they're justcookie cutter.
They're like we've got a launch, the CEO will come and speak
and then everybody will go tothe bar.
But where's the story, where'sthe spectacle, the narrative?
(23:56):
Come and speak and theneverybody go to the bar?
Dan Bolton (23:57):
yeah, but where's the story, where's the?
Where's the spectacle, thenarrative, where's the narrative
, which is, of course, whatevents are all about?
Correct, but clients still wantthat.
They just don't want it the waythat it's actually deliverable
in many, many ways, because wealways get that, oh, tell us a
narrative, you know, take usthrough the journey and then
eventually you get to a point oflike, well, I need some branded
directional signage, I need acouple, couple of activations, a
speaker on stage and some F&B,and you're like, okay, but
that's not the story, that's notthe narrative.
Ian Carless (24:15):
It's a vicious circle, though, isn't it?
Because then, when you omit thenarrative, you basically you're
compromising the experience,and then people go away.
They go to events, they comeout of the event having not had
such a good time as they couldhave, and then the clients, in
turn, don't get the results thatthey're looking for, and
therefore, when it comes aroundto perhaps doing it again, then
they kind of think, oh well,I'll spend even less.
Dan Bolton (24:36):
I'm going to blame procurement, unfortunately,
because that's my experiencewith them.
It's like you know, if I cansit down with a client or the
end decision maker, the personwhose event it is, which you
know, finally we get there, wedo have those conversations with
them, like you can reallyunderstand what is important to
you, what are you trying to do,what do you want to try to
achieve?
What's the human connection,the emotional connection, the
story, the narrative, what isyour objective?
(24:58):
By hosting this event?
And you know, generally, it'slike making people come out
feeling proud, making themunderstand something more,
making them more productive,something.
There's something tangible thatthis event is supposed to
deliver that doesn't have to beexpensive, but it has to be
expensive, but it has to be aconversation.
And it has to be a conversationthat is actually real and
feasible, which means like, yes,you're going to have to pay for
(25:20):
it, maybe not as much as weoriginally talked about, but
there's going to be a meetingpoint in the middle.
That meeting point justcurrently like it just doesn't
happen because it's like, well,let's go with the cheapest
option, but currently, like itjust doesn't happen because it's
like, oh well, let's go withthe cheapest option, but the
cheapest option is notdelivering what you need and
you're self-perpetuating this,just like you mentioned this is
(25:40):
cycle of mediocrity.
Ian Carless (25:41):
Essentially, where do you see the industry moving
in for the rest of the year, forthe rest of 2025?
Dan Bolton (25:45):
oh, I'm not sure.
Actually, that's a very goodquestion.
Um, I don't think I'm in theright position to answer it
fully because I'm a little bitinsular at the moment.
I think, like I've got myblinkers on.
I'm just trying to figure outmyself and my business.
I'll talk about my business.
I think where we're going to be,you know, restructure, solidify
, get it to where it should be,get it to where it needs to be,
so then we can grow in thefuture and we'll grow
(26:06):
differently.
That's 100 for sure, I think.
Then, if you look at that interms of the wider industry
probably something similar I'mhearing all sorts from different
people about, you know, theneed to restructure, change,
evolve, pivot.
You know all of those kind ofwords.
Um, obviously you know peopleare thinking saudi, saudi, saudi
.
Eventually that will kind of gothrough a similar journey to
(26:28):
what I guess the uae has gonethrough.
So I think there's a lot ofmovement in the industry.
What other stuff's happening?
I mean, it's very difficultbecause you don't have again
those big signature things.
There's nothing in the calendarreally.
You know we don't have a COP28.
We don't have an Expo.
All of that has shifted toSaudi.
So if you're looking kind of inthe long term.
(26:49):
Obviously people are excitedabout Expo 2030.
People are excited about theFootball World Cup rightly to
again come to this regionIncredible.
Ian Carless (26:57):
I don't want to touch on this too much, but how
do you see Saudi evolving interms of the event industry?
Dan Bolton (27:03):
I think the dream and the vision is amazing.
You know, you look at it and itreminds me of the heyday of
Dubai.
You know, when I first camehere in 2007 and you had the big
kind of like dubai landuniversal, like all of these
things are going to come.
I think.
Then look at where we are in 20I need to say 2015, 2025, 10
years behind.
You know, you've gone throughthat kind of what like 18 20
(27:23):
year journey and a lot of itnever materialized, but other
stuff did yeah.
So I think the the vision ofsaudi will change, it will
evolve, it will grow.
The interesting thing aboutSaudi that I really really like
is that it is predominantlySaudis it's not a heavily kind
of international immigrant,expat, whatever you want to call
them demographic that come hereto do business.
(27:46):
It's very, very Saudi, whichthen means different ways of
doing business, differentrelationships.
The fact that we don't speakArabic will be a prohibitor in
the future.
Do you think that makes it moresustainable, I think it does as
an industry.
Ian Carless (28:00):
but perhaps, just not perhaps on the scale that
they're at now.
Dan Bolton (28:02):
Definitely on the scale that they're at now and
it's a huge country.
I think the fact that they'vegot, like you know, primarily
most of their population is like, kind of like in that 35 year
bracket or up to 35 age bracket,the possibility of the future,
exciting.
You know, they're young,they're hungry, they're kind of
open-minded, they're evolving.
The pace of evolution andchange is happening so quick,
(28:23):
but again it's like any, I wantto say like a gold rush.
You know you've got everybodyfrom around the world which is
now trying to take a piece ofsaudi.
I think the reality is saudi'sgoing to keep it for themselves
and they're going to startreally thinking about well, how
do we protect this, how do westop it being cannibalized by
all of these internationalswhich are essentially coming to
do business, to take the moneyout of the country?
And I think you know, makingsure that there's a level of
(28:45):
knowledge sharing, transfer, youknow, building of
infrastructure, and I don't meanphysical infrastructure, I mean
creative infrastructure, techinfrastructure, like that type
of thing.
I think that's where it'll bevery interesting, that's.
Ian Carless (28:58):
That's a really interesting perspective.
Yeah, before we close, I knowyou're a music fan and we've
been asking everybody this uh,my vinyl my vinyl collection has
been growing over the lastcouple of years.
What's on your playlist at themoment?
What are you listening to myplaylist.
Dan Bolton (29:15):
Wow, I'm gonna say something now which is a little
bit weird, where you're justgonna be like oh my god, here we
go, but like a load of likesoothing meditation stuff, like
literally like omchance issomething okay, like so
literally like I'll plug in myipod ipod, is it even a thing
these days?
Sorry, you're dating yourself.
My god, I nearly said what wasthe other one where you had like
, was it an?
Ian Carless (29:31):
ipod, is it even a thing, these?
Dan Bolton (29:31):
days, sorry, wow, my god, I nearly said what was the
other one where you had likewas it an ipod.
Ian Carless (29:34):
You're gonna say walkman, my cassette.
Dan Bolton (29:37):
No, I'm like I've got this thing right now where I
wake up at five o'clock in themorning, before the sun is like
pitch black.
I sit on the balcony with acoffee, I put in the music and I
kind of like set my intentionsfor the day, like it's the thing
to like sort my own mentalhealth out and everything.
But in terms of like actualartists wow, that's a good
question like my playlist iseclectic, like it's all over the
place, like, if I'm completelyhonest, like my partner's
(30:00):
constantly playing thesoundtrack from wicked.
So I think I've got like arianagrande and like what was the
alphabet I can't remember whatshe's called cynthia on like
repeat, like literally.
So defying gravity is my numberone at the moment.
Ian Carless (30:13):
Yeah, and finally, looking ahead at 2025 what are
you looking forward to?
Dan Bolton (30:19):
resolution, literally, um, I'm looking
forward to being able to putcertain things to bed, to move
on, to continue to grow and besuccessful in a very different
way, and I like the fact thatyou know we've been talking
about sustainability.
And sustainability is not justlike plants and animals, like
sustainability in terms of how.
How do we continue to moveforward in life?
(30:39):
You know, from variousdifferent aspects, I think,
taking everything that I've gonethrough, taking everything that
I've put people through,learning from all of that and
then moving to a differentdirection for the future, which
would be it for me, ultimatelypeace, like I want, peace like I
just want that kind ofexistence.
I think isn't that what we allwant?
You know, you want to wake upin the morning, a little bit
slower pace of life, no worries,no problems, excited, like
(31:02):
that's for me, that's what 2025is about, and then putting
things to bed.
Dad, thanks for joining me.
Man really enjoyed it.
Ian Carless (31:13):
The coffee was strong, by the way, so it's like
I've got straight in, likethese subtitles for this one
event.
News dxb was presented bymyself, ian carlos, the studio
engineer and editor was roy demonte, the executive producer
was myself and joe morrison, andthis podcast is a co-production
between warehouse 4 and w4podcast studio dubai, and if you
haven't done so already, pleasedo click that follow or
subscribe button.
See you next time.
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