May 29, 2025 • 32 mins
🎙️ This week on the EventNewsDXB podcast, we’re joined by Rudi Buchner, co-founder of Three Monkeys, whose journey from a 10-year-old cable runner at a Pope’s visit in Bavaria to one of Dubai’s most innovative event producers is nothing short of remarkable.
⛑️ When the pandemic brought the industry to a halt, Rudi and his team didn't just pivot - they reimagined what virtual events could be. By applying broadcast-level production techniques and integrating features like AI-powered captioning, simultaneous translation, and sign language interpretation, they helped set a new standard for corporate communication.
🎧 In this episode, Rudi shares how they scaled up his busines to run four event broadcast control rooms simultaneously, the art of transforming corporate executives into virtual stage pros and the brand challenge of being too good at virtual - only to have clients forget their creative roots in experiential and exhibition design.
It’s a fascinating conversation filled with insight, resilience and a vision for a more sustainable future in events.
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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It takes time and effort to put the EventNewsDXB podcast together and we hope it's worth something to you. If it is, please consider supporting us to keep the podcasts coming. Contact us for details.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Event News DXB.
I'm Ian Carlos and each weekI'll bring you the
behind-the-scenes, insidestories from the people shaping
one of the world's most dynamicevent markets.
This week, we're joined by atrue innovator in the world of
experiential marketing RudyBuchner.
Rudy is the founder of ThreeMonkeys, a creative agency,
probably best known for theirwork delivering virtual events
(00:42):
during the pandemic.
Known for their work deliveringvirtual events during the
pandemic.
In his own words, rudy's goalis simple to find technical
solutions to make conceptsbecome reality.
A Dubai resident since 2008,rudy brings a unique perspective
on how events can go beyond theordinary to truly connect with
audiences.
Rudy, welcome to the podcast.
Hey, ian, pleasure being here.
(01:03):
I'm going to do what we do withall the guests with the initial
question and that's pretty muchstart at the beginning how did
you get into the event?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
industry.
Well, I was a I think10-year-old guy in a rural town
in Bavaria, Germany, and I wasacquired by the local TV station
as a cable hand.
I mean, think about that rightnow, outrageous right.
But I had a lot of fun there, Ienjoyed it and I enjoyed
basically this show, which wasthe Pope in my Hometown.
(01:32):
Oh, wow.
And I was just totallyfascinated by what happened
there in the dynamics betweenthe stage and the audience, and
I was hooked.
That's that.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So then, fast forward a little bit there from the age
of 10.
How did you end up in Dubai,well?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I was sitting in a very, very boring control room
in an exhibition center inGermany doing some video work
there, and I had a conversationwith my now business partner,
mark Mikula, and he was kind ofhey, I'm looking for a tech
director for a new company inDubai, how about you come?
Well, I came, worked there forsome time and then the two of us
founded Three Monkeys.
(02:05):
And well, that's by now alsoquite a long time ago, so Three
Monkeys since 2008.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Forgive me, but if people weren't aware of you
before COVID hit, then for sureby the time we were a few months
into COVID, I think you'd haveto be hiding under a rock,
certainly in the event industry,not to have heard of Three
Monkeys.
How surreptitious and I hate tosay this because it's probably
you know not that you'd wishthat scenario ever again in our
(02:32):
entire lifetime, but howsurreptitious was that
confluence of events that COVIDhappened and you had three
monkeys there almost ready andwaiting.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, at the end it was kind of a lucky coincidence
for us on one side because wedidn't play a lot to knowledge
that we had in the company fromwhere we were coming from.
All of this broadcast tv, earlystreaming stuff that we did
like in the 2000s was neverreally called upon in this
market.
So we didn't do a lot of thatstuff but we had the knowledge.
(03:03):
So, covid, hit and we started todo puc of that stuff.
But we had the knowledge.
So COVID hit and we started todo POCs between our living rooms
in the lockdown to find out howare we doing that nowadays, how
can we make that a corporateproduct?
And so we kicked it off and westarted communicating it at some
point and there was obviously aneed for it in the market.
So Three Monkeys became a namefor virtual events, but on the
(03:23):
other end, three Monkeys was inthe market.
So Three Monkeys became a namefor virtual events, but on the
other end, three Monkeys was inthe market by far longer as
someone who produces activations, interactives, exhibitions,
shows, et cetera, et cetera.
But at that point we were justreally at the point of what
people needed.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So was that and I hate to say this word again, but
so for that, for you, was thata pivot?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh gosh it was a pivot in multiple regards at the
end, because, first of all,okay, completely new line of
business, not seen.
Okay, nice, that was the firstpivot.
How do we get that to work?
How do we make that stable?
How do we make that as flexibleas possible to cater for the
specific Middle East touch ofthe market?
Where's the bow, where's thenever seen before?
(04:06):
Where's the extra?
Where's the special thing aboutit?
So that was an interesting part.
The other interesting partkicked in once.
We've been doing it for sometime and it was very successful
Because we were sitting thereand like, oh, we are doing
back-to-back events now, reallyIn a kind of close one, the next
(04:27):
rehearsal, which we usuallydon't have and a company our
size would not be ready to do inin an in-person environment.
So it went into okay, how do wemake our work more efficient
without losing our creative edge, the reason why people were
coming to us all along.
So it was about finding out alot about workflows, about work
processes, about optimization,looking how does broadcast
(04:50):
really do it?
How do they, with the smallcrews that are in museums right
now, manage to get 24-hourprogram out, adopting
methodologies and technologiesthat are coming from other
industries, also ideas fromother industries, to enable us
to do the quantity of work thatwe did, how difficult of a sell
was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It was the whole idea of virtual events during that
time.
I mean, clearly, you know, forsome clients I imagine it was a
no-brainer and it was somethingthat they eagerly wanted to do.
But equally, I imagine thatthere was perhaps a little
reluctance on the part of otherswho may have been far used to
doing in-person events.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, it started off with a client telling us you
need to do monkey magic forvirtual events.
It's too boring.
So that was kind of one of thereal kickoff points.
If I look back at, I was doingup to five sales calls a day
explaining our methodology ofproducing virtual events.
Methodology of producingvirtual events.
Yes, there was reluctancybecause people had to understand
that a virtual event workflowis not the same as an in-person
(05:50):
workflow.
It goes with.
I mean, we all heard it enough.
How does the remote caller comein?
How is the remote caller, theremote speaker, presented in the
best possible way?
How do we create engagement?
How do we create the wowfactors that any client wants?
How is that differentiating fromout-of-the-box solutions, for
(06:11):
example, that were on the marketvery fast, from people like
Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
What's the special thing aboutit?
Why would we go to a companycalled Remonkeys providing a
control room in Dubai?
And I mean we implementedthings before Teams or Zoom even
thought about it.
We had AI-based closedcaptioning, human-based closed
(06:32):
captioning.
We had Simtrans integrationsin-house via DLC helping us out,
as well as remote Simtrans.
We did ASL integration in ourprograms.
So we did a lot of stuff.
Basically, that is now astandard in what we know as
Teams, and that was the actualedge.
It was also a selling point formany people to see OK, we can
(06:53):
add an additional value to thisprogram and we can make that and
that was the breaking point atthe end People understanding
that we are producing actually acorporate TV program here for
them.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I was just going to pick up on that, because my
background is actually broadcasttelevision as well and I think
you know you mentioned a verysalient point at the beginning
that the, you know, designing avirtual event is very different
to designing an in-person eventand for me, you know, the
similarities between any type ofbroadcast event are enormous, I
(07:27):
mean almost duplicated.
Was that the kind of approachthat you took?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That definitely was the approach.
So we were looking at okay, howdo I get a TV show running and
being exciting for the audience?
Because our corporate programthere is nothing else than a TV
show.
We're just not utilizing allthe big, expensive tech that a
TV broadcaster might haveavailable.
But okay, then BBC startedusing Skype many years ago, so
(07:57):
forget about it.
It's the same stuff Adopting themethodology of getting a
story-centric approach into a TVshow and make it interesting
for the audience.
Don't overwhelm, don't make ittoo content heavy, don't make it
too hard for people to follow.
Make it interesting, make itinformative.
(08:17):
Kick the key messages out.
And there comes the point againthat discussions about what's
the key messages that we need totransport in the broadcast is
by far more intense on a virtualevent than it is for an
in-person event, because thereare people who rely much more
also on this wow, what's goingon around me, oh, big screen,
big audio and all of that thanwhat you can put on a
(08:39):
two-dimensional screen, which itis at the end where you have
your audience.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
How difficult was it in terms of the people that you
were actually not going to sayrunning events, but were the
speakers and the people that youwere doing the events for?
Because obviously in broadcasttelevision, you know everybody,
that's their job, that's whatthey do when you've got hosts on
stage and performers on stage.
They've done this before.
This isn't their first rodeo.
But for many companies inparticular, you know, we have
(09:06):
sometimes some veryinexperienced people up there in
front of the microphone, infront of the camera.
How big of a challenge was that?
A big one.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
How did you get around it?
We created this job functionStage Manager, virtual Events
and that kicked off with we hadmultiple stages of rehearsals
with people.
So the first one was purelytechnical.
So, do you have a propermicrophone?
Do you have a proper camera?
Do you have a proper microphone?
Do you have a proper camera?
Do you have a proper light?
How can we enhance what youhave without making a studio and
making it too complicated andtoo expensive for the purpose?
(09:38):
Then, in the same rehearsal okay, how's the framing?
Are you having a proper framingagainst your background?
Are you halfway having a decentlevel of your head?
Are you visible?
Is something shadowing in?
How are you behaving?
Yeah, do we see your hands?
We want to see your hands, wewant to have expression from you
.
So a little bit of actingadvice.
(09:59):
Maybe at that point you alreadyfilter out people that are just
kind of no, I cannot do that, Idon't want to do that.
Okay, good, I mean, it's.
Mean, it's your show, it's yourcorporate messaging that you're
doing.
And then in an offline rehearsalthat was most of the time run
by the corporations or theagencies that took care of them
themselves, was kind of the okay, how do we get your
(10:22):
presentation to the point.
This broadcast format is lessforgiving than a big, impressive
stage.
When it comes to boringPowerPoint, I agree.
You need to come to the pointfaster and you need to make it
more compact at the end Again,sometimes people listened and we
had good outcomes.
Sometimes people just did theirseven points fiber chart graphs
(10:46):
and it was maybe not thatinteresting for the audience.
And then the last thing wasinteraction.
So interaction as in how do Icome in, how do I get out of
this show?
So the process that the stagemanager would take care of in a
real event and in terms ofinterview situation or in terms
of panel discussions, what'syour head orientation to make
(11:08):
this entire thing look connected?
Also, you're sitting incompletely different venues, so
a lot, of, a lot of time spenton rehearsing with people, and
it was even worse when westarted doing green screen,
obviously.
So we had corporate employeesin green screen and it was
always very interesting to getto the point with them at this
level.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I can imagine green screens are not an easy medium
to work in at the best of times,but when you've got a lot of
inexperienced people in front ofit, yeah, that can be fun.
Yes, it was definitely Now.
You mentioned, obviously youhad all the sort of ingredients
in place, and I know by the endof sort of as COVID was coming
(11:49):
to an end, I think you'dmentioned that you had two
facilities, one in Dubai and onein California.
How did you manage scalingduring that period?
Actually, let me ask twoquestions that period of super
busyness for want of a betterword that you had, how long was
that and how did you managescaling the business during that
time?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
There was one aspect With one control room you can
cater only for that much.
So we had in the warehouse indubai we had a total of four
control rooms so we couldproduce four shows at the same
time, wow.
Or link all of that stufftogether and become a broadcast
(12:29):
unit that could handle 144remote callers at a time.
Wow Could handle, obviously,four completely different
program outputs as well.
So different program flavors.
One might go on an audience onLinkedIn, the other one is a
paid content, stuff like that,content stuff like that.
(12:57):
And well, we, we had huge staffefforts that we had to undertake
.
So calling all the friends inthe av companies most of them
were luckily not too busy.
So hey, I need another audioengineer.
Hey, you're a video guy, canyou, can you come over and we
teach you something and youmight run that for us.
So we basically acquired peoplefrom the industry and and had
them working in our control roomStaffing agencies.
Some of them hearing me nowwill be like oh gosh, yes, I
remember Rudy calling for morestage managers for his virtual
(13:21):
stage managing.
It was maniac.
So we didn't increase our corestaff.
We basically hired from themarket at that point.
Which must have been verywelcome at that time, as well,
exactly, it was not difficult toget people at the end yeah so
it was kind of call them and doa quick test check whether they
understand the mix minus orwhether they understand how a
good picture looks like, andgive them the flow and make them
(13:45):
understand how this virtualevent product, from our
perspective, needs to work tomake it professional.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Now I think you know I'm probably not alone in saying
that there must have been afair amount of event
professionals looking on duringthat time with a certain amount
of envy, obviously, at how busyyou guys were.
Was the attitude during thattime somewhat of a?
You know, let's make hay whilethe sun shines?
This covid probably isn't goingto last forever.
Obviously you as a businessowner would hope that the
(14:16):
viability for virtual eventswould continue, but I'm sure
there must have been a littlequestion mark in there that once
in-person events comes backthere would be a dip.
So I guess the question istwofold.
Again, you know how much of anattitude.
Was it right?
You know what, if it takes 24hours, seven days a week during
this period, that's what we'regoing to do.
(14:36):
And then, how did you plan forthe eventuality of the return of
in-person events?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Okay, I mean there was quite a lot of regulars
coming up in this game for uswith virtual events, so there
was no saying no.
Very simple Did we plan forwhat's happening after that?
Well, retrospectively, wedidn't plan enough.
We had this thought of okay,what our control room does, we
can put it on wheels, we canbreak it up in a different way
(15:03):
and we can make that availablefor hybrid productions, which is
what we started doing in 2022.
And again, especially for theregulars in the UAE as well as
in the US, it was a very viablemarket.
What turned out to be a bit of adownside for 3Monkeys was, like
, we've been in this marketdoing interactives, activations,
exhibitions, show content plusbroadcast.
(15:25):
All of a sudden, the marketonly saw us oh, that's the
virtual monkeys, they are doingthis broadcast stuff.
So, in at the end of 2022, Iwas sitting with mark miko and
we were like, okay, we, wereally need to do active
acquisition for the other areasnow, because we, we are not, we
are not recognized in the marketanymore for what we've been
(15:46):
doing the past eight yearsbefore that right.
So it took us actually reallyuntil last year to get back in
all of the market segments thatwe covered before COVID.
So I mean, as I said, we didn'tthink about that.
It was kind of, it wassuccessful, we were doing it
steam on and we didn't thinkpeople would forget that we are
(16:06):
a great company to work with foran exhibition stand doing
interactives, but people forgotwe are a great company to work
with for an exhibition standdoing interactives, but people
forgot.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I think they were so enamored by what we were doing
in the virtual space.
Clearly, yes.
So, leading on from that, howdo you see the industry now?
I mean, how much of a drop-offwas there on the virtual side of
business and where are we now,would you say, in terms of the
event industry and its health?
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Well, in sum, I think this virtual event phase added
a component to the industry thatespecially in the.
Middle East was not presentbeforehand, and it makes total
sense to have this componentbecause it gives you more reach.
It has a sustainabilitycomponent.
It does a lot of things thatin-person only event cannot do.
(16:54):
If you use it strategically andcorrect, you are a big
enterprise.
You have I don't know how many10,000 of employees.
You do an internal gig.
It's a perfect way for internalcommunication, for example.
So there was a learning curvein the industry, but the
industry as such, the way weproduce events, has not changed.
It is just another component.
What I see is that since COVID,with all this work from home
(17:18):
flexibility and with having atad of an easier life for some
time as an event professional,there is a new demand in the
employee range, in in everyonethat I that I meet on a regular
basis.
It's the the quest for can we,as event professionals, have a
better work-life balance as well?
(17:38):
I mean everyone is talkingabout is where are we?
It looks like the eventsindustry doesn't give us the
chance to have that, and that isa field where we actually come
back to what we did with thisvirtual events as well, because
we had to so massively work onour efficiency, on the way we do
things in that period, whichwas, for sure, not good for
(18:01):
work-life balance at all.
But we had to work on thismethodologies, on this thinking
to make things happen.
And and I took that for the pastfew years and was thinking
about okay, what is it thatmakes work-life balance in the
events industry so difficult?
You cannot blame your boss, youcannot blame your client for
(18:22):
that.
It's an overall construct thatyou need to look at.
So we did a lot of interviewswith people from really
different areas in the eventsindustry, from a talent manager
to someone who is a techie, tosomeone who is taking care of
catering so, basically,individuals in the event
industry taking care andspecializing in different things
, kind of collecting.
(18:43):
What is it that they arestressed out about?
What is it that they arelacking to have a better
work-life balance in this entiregame?
possibly, yeah and there wasokay in the first place.
That was a nice repository anda framework of okay what would
be needed to make it better.
But if you try to fulfill that,it doesn't lead you anywhere
(19:06):
because it's too individual atsome points.
So we started asking thistypical enterprise question how
do you get efficiency viatechnology, in layman terms, a
piece of software that makes mylife easier in the process of
event ideation, planning,production.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And the results that we got from that little survey
was that 83% are using genericsoftware.
Well, yeah, I know we are alldying in Excel and PowerPoint,
but most of them are also superunhappy with their software
packages.
So we concluded that there isno tech support for event people
, despite event tech startupsbooming after COVID, it looks
(19:48):
like these products don't hitthe really, and the base thought
behind it is that technologysupport would possibly create a
more efficient way of workingand increased efficiency is good
for your work-life balance.
But hey, business owner, it'salso good for your bottom line
(20:12):
Because it reduces mistakes andit makes at the end end for a
better outcome against yourcustomer.
Well, and that is when westarted working on a little
software that's called SnowWhite, which is claiming elevate
efficiency, minimize stress andit's meant to be a life cycle
event.
Life cycle tool for the entirelife cycle of an event.
(20:33):
Right, tool for the entirelifecycle of an event.
Still only existing as awireframe, nothing to sell here.
But it's kind of one of theseoutcomes of COVID for me
personally, because I wouldnever have thought about that
before.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
How much of your time are you spending on that right
now?
I mean, you mentioned it'sstill only a wireframe, but is
this something that you see as aviable business?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
model.
Well, I did the financial modelfor this product and I think
it's viable.
So I'm spending approximately,I would say, like 50% of my time
on Snow White in the moment,especially now that we just
started investor communication.
So we are officially in thefundraising round.
Here we go, 55-year-old Germanin Dubai, getting co-founder of
(21:16):
a startup and trying to get seedmoney.
So, yeah, I think it'ssomething that could really
really change the market.
It could really change the waypeople are working events and
really do something good for thepeople working in the industry,
and how would that work?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I mean, if you're able to tell us how would that
work in actuality.
So what is the physical productat the end?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
The physical product is a web-based product at the
end.
The physical product is aweb-based software at the end.
It's a sas product and everystakeholder of the event,
depending on what his role is,has access to all the
information about this event,which is one of the key factors.
Is information accessible?
Is it possibly drowning in someemail that I never saw?
(21:56):
No, here it is relevant becauseit's per role and it is
accessible at any given point intime, no matter where you are,
as long as you have internet Atthe same time.
That means that all of thisdata that is generated there
creates a wonderful knowledgebase.
It creates something that iscontinuous learning and
(22:17):
improvement for a company for anindividual.
And if we drive that further, weare coming to this wonderful
buzzword, ai.
Ai is great.
Yeah, I use JetGPT, I useCopilot 365.
It helps me getting texts done,it helps me researching stuff,
but that's only the tip of theiceberg when we're talking about
(22:38):
ai.
what we are talking with snowwhite is an ai solution that is
sector specific, it's eventspecific, it's company specific.
That means it adopts the waythe software is interacting with
you because it knows how yourcompany does things and it can
analyze the problems that youare having in your event
(22:59):
production as a company.
And it can go down up to theindividual level where certain
user behaviors and informationis basically customized towards
the individual user.
And that is the great targethere.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
That sounds really interesting because I know from
my experience in events that youknow, as you said, information
is key, and in an industry wheredetail matters so much, you
know, information can often getlost or bottlenecked at certain
points, can't it?
And you know, as much as we'dlike to try and employ the best
people in the world, sometimes,you know, ourselves included, we
(23:35):
all have our failings, we allmiss stuff from time to time.
So this sounds like somethingthat could absolutely fill that
gap.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I'm sure it will fill that gap.
It was one of the key outcomesof all these conversations that
we had.
It's information transparencyin all directions.
It doesn't matter whether I'min the crew and I'm a techie.
I need to have that information.
Only relying that my crew chiefgives me the information often
enough is one of the sources oferrors.
(24:02):
Yeah, and no disrespect to thecrew chief here.
So at the end, it is abouttransparency, it is about
accessibility and it's aboutdrawing right conclusions,
having good conclusions fromwhat we did in the past in order
to get better in the future.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now I wanted to ask you this as somebody who's
worked in the broadcast industryas well as the event industry,
like myself.
I often look at the twoindustries and I look at my
experience in the broadcastindustry and I think, yeah,
we've got a lot of moving parts,don't we?
And I look at the eventindustry and think, oh my, wow,
you've got probably even moremoving parts than we do.
(24:38):
I think the difference I see isand please do correct me if
your experience is different myexperience has been certainly in
the broadcast industry thateverybody seems to know what
they're doing.
When I go out into the eventfield it's like herding cats.
Maybe I've just been to somevery badly run events.
Who knows?
There's probably a whole hostof event managers out there now,
(25:01):
right, the hurling stuff at theuh at the screen I 100 agree
with the statement.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I think, uh, in in the event scenario, you have a
couple of factors that in abroadcast environment you don't
have, and that is your liveaudience.
So you're dealing massivelywith human beings, yes, and the
second part of the human beingis your if you're a corporate,
(25:28):
if you're an agency, the peoplewho are actually paying you to
do the job.
I mean, how many great ideashave all of us event
professionals heard five minutesbefore the event that need to
be implemented?
You to do the job.
I mean, how many great ideashave all of us event
professionals heard five minutesbefore the event that need to
be implemented?
This kind of factor, yeah, ifthe editor-in-chief comes around
the corner in in the galleriaand says we need to change that
quickly, it's similar but itdoesn't have the same impact,
(25:51):
because here it's the personwho's actually paying you to do
that job, asking you which makesfor much more possible chaos
and moving around like aheadless chicken to fix
something that one is fixing now, and I mean now.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Thank you for that, yeah, so I just want to go back
a little bit.
Obviously, the whole topic ofwell-being is on everybody's
lips at the moment, I thinkacross the globe, and I think
it's very encouraging to seemore people paying attention to
it in our industry.
How have you managed your ownwell-being during this period I
mean, for example, during thatwhole COVID period where it was
(26:32):
just literally 24-7, how do youmanage yourself?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Well, at the end, it's still my passion.
So, no matter how much it takes, it's my passion.
That's behind there.
I'm passionate about events.
That means I don't feel it thathard, but I can see it on crew,
I can see it on employees and Ithink the measure really is
(26:57):
this wonderful word workmanagement.
To start with, it is about okay.
You cannot go on and on and onin an indefinite loop.
You need to see where do youbuild in the, the rest phase,
where do you build in, uh, theoff time, even possibly during
the production of a single event.
(27:18):
I mean it's always this kind ofokay.
We event people need to runthrough for the next 16 hours.
Yeah, hold on.
There is a work managementcomponent that we are missing
out on.
How could we possibly scheduleourselves better?
How do we make our work at theend more bearable by structuring
(27:39):
it better?
How do we make our work at theend more bearable by structuring
it better?
The events industry is stillquite brute force.
There is not a lot of thinkingabout how do I make things more
efficient?
Maybe how can I build faster,because I only have four hours
to rig this LED wall in, but nothow to make it more efficient,
necessarily Efficient in thecontext of not only time-saving,
(27:59):
but also in terms of manpowerand resource well-being aspects.
In other markets, it's highlyregulated.
I mean, it's always a pleasureto work in the US and have the
union sitting behind you tellingyou you have to go home now.
Okay, I go home, Not happeninghere, obviously, but as we don't
(28:21):
have one of these hardstructures and I'm not voting
for hard structures here at all,because it kills part of the
creative process at times aswell but having the
responsibility within companiesto take care of their own and
make sure, okay, if I canforesee it's a 16-hour shift,
please.
There must be a chance that wedouble crew or at least 1.5 crew
(28:44):
to give people a bit of a restin a sequence.
It's about simple things,especially in the on-site work.
Where's the lunch break?
Where is the bio break for thefront of house staff during the
event?
You know stuff like that If youstart thinking about it.
It's very, very small steps tostart with, but they have an
(29:07):
impact.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, a happy crew is a well-fed crew.
Indeed.
Before we wrap up, Rudy, I'vebeen asking all my guests this
I'm a bit of a music fan.
I think most of us are.
What's on your turntable rightnow?
What do you listen to?
Motorhead.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Definitely my all-time favorite, no question
about it.
And it stays in this musicgenre with groups like
Fuzzstones, so indie, indie rock, psychedelic rock stuff as well
.
Fantastic.
And it stays in this musicgenre with groups like Fast
Stones, so indie rock,psychedelic rock stuff as well.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Fantastic.
Yeah, I would say you can tella lot about a person by the
music they listen to.
And no judgment therewhatsoever.
Everybody listens to.
You know entirely what theywant to, entirely what they want
to.
Just to finish, give me thejudgment now.
Oh no, I like a bit ofmotorhead myself all right just
(30:04):
to wrap up.
What are you looking forward toover the next few years, then,
for both yourself and threemonkeys?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I think one of the most important things for me is
to see, uh, that we are gettingfor three monkeys as a this
differentiation between thedifferent fields that we are
working in back.
It's also a well-being factor.
If you always do virtual events, it's tiring.
If we start building newgadgets for an exhibition, it's
engaging.
So, getting that back to wherewe've been before COVID to 100%
(30:35):
we are on the way, which isgreat.
Keep on doing work around theglobe, which was always what
Slimonkeys was doing, andgetting that back to a high
extent as well, because COVIDtook a little bit of a dive
there as well.
Developing new talent,especially developing new
Emirati talent in the designspace, is something that we are
very eager to do.
(30:56):
We have a cooperation with theuniversity and I want to see
more good people coming out ofthat.
We had fantastic people comingin, so I hope that that really
goes ahead and, for the overallevents sector, I would hope that
we find a better way of dealingwith our sustainability problem
.
The efforts are there, thesepapers that we hand in.
(31:17):
At times they are not worth thethings that we are writing on
in many regards.
I would hope that we take thetopic more serious and that we
also get the support from ourclients to work more sustainable
, which might mean that somematerials cost a tad more than
the cheap non-sustainablematerials.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
You know what?
I couldn't agree more, Rudy.
It's been fantastic having youon the Event News DXB podcast.
Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Well, thank you for that.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Event News.
Dxb was presented by myself,Ian Carlos.
The studio engineer and editorwas Roy DeMonte.
The executive producer wasmyself and Joe Morrison.
Thank you.
Event News DXB.
I'm Ian Carlos and each weekI'll bring you the
behind-the-scenes, insidestories from the people shaping
one of the world's most dynamicevent markets.
This week, we're joined by atrue innovator in the world of
experiential marketing RudyBuchner.
Rudy is the founder of ThreeMonkeys, a creative agency,
probably best known for theirwork delivering virtual events
(00:42):
during the pandemic.
Known for their work deliveringvirtual events during the
pandemic.
In his own words, rudy's goalis simple to find technical
solutions to make conceptsbecome reality.
A Dubai resident since 2008,rudy brings a unique perspective
on how events can go beyond theordinary to truly connect with
audiences.
Rudy, welcome to the podcast.
Hey, ian, pleasure being here.
(01:03):
I'm going to do what we do withall the guests with the initial
question and that's pretty muchstart at the beginning how did
you get into the event?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
industry.
Well, I was a I think10-year-old guy in a rural town
in Bavaria, Germany, and I wasacquired by the local TV station
as a cable hand.
I mean, think about that rightnow, outrageous right.
But I had a lot of fun there, Ienjoyed it and I enjoyed
basically this show, which wasthe Pope in my Hometown.
(01:32):
Oh, wow.
And I was just totallyfascinated by what happened
there in the dynamics betweenthe stage and the audience, and
I was hooked.
That's that.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So then, fast forward a little bit there from the age
of 10.
How did you end up in Dubai,well?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I was sitting in a very, very boring control room
in an exhibition center inGermany doing some video work
there, and I had a conversationwith my now business partner,
mark Mikula, and he was kind ofhey, I'm looking for a tech
director for a new company inDubai, how about you come?
Well, I came, worked there forsome time and then the two of us
founded Three Monkeys.
(02:05):
And well, that's by now alsoquite a long time ago, so Three
Monkeys since 2008.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Forgive me, but if people weren't aware of you
before COVID hit, then for sureby the time we were a few months
into COVID, I think you'd haveto be hiding under a rock,
certainly in the event industry,not to have heard of Three
Monkeys.
How surreptitious and I hate tosay this because it's probably
you know not that you'd wishthat scenario ever again in our
(02:32):
entire lifetime, but howsurreptitious was that
confluence of events that COVIDhappened and you had three
monkeys there almost ready andwaiting.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Well, at the end it was kind of a lucky coincidence
for us on one side because wedidn't play a lot to knowledge
that we had in the company fromwhere we were coming from.
All of this broadcast tv, earlystreaming stuff that we did
like in the 2000s was neverreally called upon in this
market.
So we didn't do a lot of thatstuff but we had the knowledge.
(03:03):
So, covid, hit and we started todo puc of that stuff.
But we had the knowledge.
So COVID hit and we started todo POCs between our living rooms
in the lockdown to find out howare we doing that nowadays, how
can we make that a corporateproduct?
And so we kicked it off and westarted communicating it at some
point and there was obviously aneed for it in the market.
So Three Monkeys became a namefor virtual events, but on the
(03:23):
other end, three Monkeys was inthe market.
So Three Monkeys became a namefor virtual events, but on the
other end, three Monkeys was inthe market by far longer as
someone who produces activations, interactives, exhibitions,
shows, et cetera, et cetera.
But at that point we were justreally at the point of what
people needed.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So was that and I hate to say this word again, but
so for that, for you, was thata pivot?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh gosh it was a pivot in multiple regards at the
end, because, first of all,okay, completely new line of
business, not seen.
Okay, nice, that was the firstpivot.
How do we get that to work?
How do we make that stable?
How do we make that as flexibleas possible to cater for the
specific Middle East touch ofthe market?
Where's the bow, where's thenever seen before?
(04:06):
Where's the extra?
Where's the special thing aboutit?
So that was an interesting part.
The other interesting partkicked in once.
We've been doing it for sometime and it was very successful
Because we were sitting thereand like, oh, we are doing
back-to-back events now, reallyIn a kind of close one, the next
(04:27):
rehearsal, which we usuallydon't have and a company our
size would not be ready to do inin an in-person environment.
So it went into okay, how do wemake our work more efficient
without losing our creative edge, the reason why people were
coming to us all along.
So it was about finding out alot about workflows, about work
processes, about optimization,looking how does broadcast
(04:50):
really do it?
How do they, with the smallcrews that are in museums right
now, manage to get 24-hourprogram out, adopting
methodologies and technologiesthat are coming from other
industries, also ideas fromother industries, to enable us
to do the quantity of work thatwe did, how difficult of a sell
was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It was the whole idea of virtual events during that
time.
I mean, clearly, you know, forsome clients I imagine it was a
no-brainer and it was somethingthat they eagerly wanted to do.
But equally, I imagine thatthere was perhaps a little
reluctance on the part of otherswho may have been far used to
doing in-person events.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well, it started off with a client telling us you
need to do monkey magic forvirtual events.
It's too boring.
So that was kind of one of thereal kickoff points.
If I look back at, I was doingup to five sales calls a day
explaining our methodology ofproducing virtual events.
Methodology of producingvirtual events.
Yes, there was reluctancybecause people had to understand
that a virtual event workflowis not the same as an in-person
(05:50):
workflow.
It goes with.
I mean, we all heard it enough.
How does the remote caller comein?
How is the remote caller, theremote speaker, presented in the
best possible way?
How do we create engagement?
How do we create the wowfactors that any client wants?
How is that differentiating fromout-of-the-box solutions, for
(06:11):
example, that were on the marketvery fast, from people like
Zoom or Microsoft Teams?
What's the special thing aboutit?
Why would we go to a companycalled Remonkeys providing a
control room in Dubai?
And I mean we implementedthings before Teams or Zoom even
thought about it.
We had AI-based closedcaptioning, human-based closed
(06:32):
captioning.
We had Simtrans integrationsin-house via DLC helping us out,
as well as remote Simtrans.
We did ASL integration in ourprograms.
So we did a lot of stuff.
Basically, that is now astandard in what we know as
Teams, and that was the actualedge.
It was also a selling point formany people to see OK, we can
(06:53):
add an additional value to thisprogram and we can make that and
that was the breaking point atthe end People understanding
that we are producing actually acorporate TV program here for
them.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I was just going to pick up on that, because my
background is actually broadcasttelevision as well and I think
you know you mentioned a verysalient point at the beginning
that the, you know, designing avirtual event is very different
to designing an in-person eventand for me, you know, the
similarities between any type ofbroadcast event are enormous, I
(07:27):
mean almost duplicated.
Was that the kind of approachthat you took?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That definitely was the approach.
So we were looking at okay, howdo I get a TV show running and
being exciting for the audience?
Because our corporate programthere is nothing else than a TV
show.
We're just not utilizing allthe big, expensive tech that a
TV broadcaster might haveavailable.
But okay, then BBC startedusing Skype many years ago, so
(07:57):
forget about it.
It's the same stuff Adopting themethodology of getting a
story-centric approach into a TVshow and make it interesting
for the audience.
Don't overwhelm, don't make ittoo content heavy, don't make it
too hard for people to follow.
Make it interesting, make itinformative.
(08:17):
Kick the key messages out.
And there comes the point againthat discussions about what's
the key messages that we need totransport in the broadcast is
by far more intense on a virtualevent than it is for an
in-person event, because thereare people who rely much more
also on this wow, what's goingon around me, oh, big screen,
big audio and all of that thanwhat you can put on a
(08:39):
two-dimensional screen, which itis at the end where you have
your audience.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
How difficult was it in terms of the people that you
were actually not going to sayrunning events, but were the
speakers and the people that youwere doing the events for?
Because obviously in broadcasttelevision, you know everybody,
that's their job, that's whatthey do when you've got hosts on
stage and performers on stage.
They've done this before.
This isn't their first rodeo.
But for many companies inparticular, you know, we have
(09:06):
sometimes some veryinexperienced people up there in
front of the microphone, infront of the camera.
How big of a challenge was that?
A big one.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
How did you get around it?
We created this job functionStage Manager, virtual Events
and that kicked off with we hadmultiple stages of rehearsals
with people.
So the first one was purelytechnical.
So, do you have a propermicrophone?
Do you have a proper camera?
Do you have a proper microphone?
Do you have a proper camera?
Do you have a proper light?
How can we enhance what youhave without making a studio and
making it too complicated andtoo expensive for the purpose?
(09:38):
Then, in the same rehearsal okay, how's the framing?
Are you having a proper framingagainst your background?
Are you halfway having a decentlevel of your head?
Are you visible?
Is something shadowing in?
How are you behaving?
Yeah, do we see your hands?
We want to see your hands, wewant to have expression from you
.
So a little bit of actingadvice.
(09:59):
Maybe at that point you alreadyfilter out people that are just
kind of no, I cannot do that, Idon't want to do that.
Okay, good, I mean, it's.
Mean, it's your show, it's yourcorporate messaging that you're
doing.
And then in an offline rehearsalthat was most of the time run
by the corporations or theagencies that took care of them
themselves, was kind of the okay, how do we get your
(10:22):
presentation to the point.
This broadcast format is lessforgiving than a big, impressive
stage.
When it comes to boringPowerPoint, I agree.
You need to come to the pointfaster and you need to make it
more compact at the end Again,sometimes people listened and we
had good outcomes.
Sometimes people just did theirseven points fiber chart graphs
(10:46):
and it was maybe not thatinteresting for the audience.
And then the last thing wasinteraction.
So interaction as in how do Icome in, how do I get out of
this show?
So the process that the stagemanager would take care of in a
real event and in terms ofinterview situation or in terms
of panel discussions, what'syour head orientation to make
(11:08):
this entire thing look connected?
Also, you're sitting incompletely different venues, so
a lot, of, a lot of time spenton rehearsing with people, and
it was even worse when westarted doing green screen,
obviously.
So we had corporate employeesin green screen and it was
always very interesting to getto the point with them at this
level.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I can imagine green screens are not an easy medium
to work in at the best of times,but when you've got a lot of
inexperienced people in front ofit, yeah, that can be fun.
Yes, it was definitely Now.
You mentioned, obviously youhad all the sort of ingredients
in place, and I know by the endof sort of as COVID was coming
(11:49):
to an end, I think you'dmentioned that you had two
facilities, one in Dubai and onein California.
How did you manage scalingduring that period?
Actually, let me ask twoquestions that period of super
busyness for want of a betterword that you had, how long was
that and how did you managescaling the business during that
time?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
There was one aspect With one control room you can
cater only for that much.
So we had in the warehouse indubai we had a total of four
control rooms so we couldproduce four shows at the same
time, wow.
Or link all of that stufftogether and become a broadcast
(12:29):
unit that could handle 144remote callers at a time.
Wow Could handle, obviously,four completely different
program outputs as well.
So different program flavors.
One might go on an audience onLinkedIn, the other one is a
paid content, stuff like that,content stuff like that.
(12:57):
And well, we, we had huge staffefforts that we had to undertake
.
So calling all the friends inthe av companies most of them
were luckily not too busy.
So hey, I need another audioengineer.
Hey, you're a video guy, canyou, can you come over and we
teach you something and youmight run that for us.
So we basically acquired peoplefrom the industry and and had
them working in our control roomStaffing agencies.
Some of them hearing me nowwill be like oh gosh, yes, I
remember Rudy calling for morestage managers for his virtual
(13:21):
stage managing.
It was maniac.
So we didn't increase our corestaff.
We basically hired from themarket at that point.
Which must have been verywelcome at that time, as well,
exactly, it was not difficult toget people at the end yeah so
it was kind of call them and doa quick test check whether they
understand the mix minus orwhether they understand how a
good picture looks like, andgive them the flow and make them
(13:45):
understand how this virtualevent product, from our
perspective, needs to work tomake it professional.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Now I think you know I'm probably not alone in saying
that there must have been afair amount of event
professionals looking on duringthat time with a certain amount
of envy, obviously, at how busyyou guys were.
Was the attitude during thattime somewhat of a?
You know, let's make hay whilethe sun shines?
This covid probably isn't goingto last forever.
Obviously you as a businessowner would hope that the
(14:16):
viability for virtual eventswould continue, but I'm sure
there must have been a littlequestion mark in there that once
in-person events comes backthere would be a dip.
So I guess the question istwofold.
Again, you know how much of anattitude.
Was it right?
You know what, if it takes 24hours, seven days a week during
this period, that's what we'regoing to do.
(14:36):
And then, how did you plan forthe eventuality of the return of
in-person events?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Okay, I mean there was quite a lot of regulars
coming up in this game for uswith virtual events, so there
was no saying no.
Very simple Did we plan forwhat's happening after that?
Well, retrospectively, wedidn't plan enough.
We had this thought of okay,what our control room does, we
can put it on wheels, we canbreak it up in a different way
(15:03):
and we can make that availablefor hybrid productions, which is
what we started doing in 2022.
And again, especially for theregulars in the UAE as well as
in the US, it was a very viablemarket.
What turned out to be a bit of adownside for 3Monkeys was, like
, we've been in this marketdoing interactives, activations,
exhibitions, show content plusbroadcast.
(15:25):
All of a sudden, the marketonly saw us oh, that's the
virtual monkeys, they are doingthis broadcast stuff.
So, in at the end of 2022, Iwas sitting with mark miko and
we were like, okay, we, wereally need to do active
acquisition for the other areasnow, because we, we are not, we
are not recognized in the marketanymore for what we've been
(15:46):
doing the past eight yearsbefore that right.
So it took us actually reallyuntil last year to get back in
all of the market segments thatwe covered before COVID.
So I mean, as I said, we didn'tthink about that.
It was kind of, it wassuccessful, we were doing it
steam on and we didn't thinkpeople would forget that we are
(16:06):
a great company to work with foran exhibition stand doing
interactives, but people forgotwe are a great company to work
with for an exhibition standdoing interactives, but people
forgot.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I think they were so enamored by what we were doing
in the virtual space.
Clearly, yes.
So, leading on from that, howdo you see the industry now?
I mean, how much of a drop-offwas there on the virtual side of
business and where are we now,would you say, in terms of the
event industry and its health?
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Well, in sum, I think this virtual event phase added
a component to the industry thatespecially in the.
Middle East was not presentbeforehand, and it makes total
sense to have this componentbecause it gives you more reach.
It has a sustainabilitycomponent.
It does a lot of things thatin-person only event cannot do.
(16:54):
If you use it strategically andcorrect, you are a big
enterprise.
You have I don't know how many10,000 of employees.
You do an internal gig.
It's a perfect way for internalcommunication, for example.
So there was a learning curvein the industry, but the
industry as such, the way weproduce events, has not changed.
It is just another component.
What I see is that since COVID,with all this work from home
(17:18):
flexibility and with having atad of an easier life for some
time as an event professional,there is a new demand in the
employee range, in in everyonethat I that I meet on a regular
basis.
It's the the quest for can we,as event professionals, have a
better work-life balance as well?
(17:38):
I mean everyone is talkingabout is where are we?
It looks like the eventsindustry doesn't give us the
chance to have that, and that isa field where we actually come
back to what we did with thisvirtual events as well, because
we had to so massively work onour efficiency, on the way we do
things in that period, whichwas, for sure, not good for
(18:01):
work-life balance at all.
But we had to work on thismethodologies, on this thinking
to make things happen.
And and I took that for the pastfew years and was thinking
about okay, what is it thatmakes work-life balance in the
events industry so difficult?
You cannot blame your boss, youcannot blame your client for
(18:22):
that.
It's an overall construct thatyou need to look at.
So we did a lot of interviewswith people from really
different areas in the eventsindustry, from a talent manager
to someone who is a techie, tosomeone who is taking care of
catering so, basically,individuals in the event
industry taking care andspecializing in different things
, kind of collecting.
(18:43):
What is it that they arestressed out about?
What is it that they arelacking to have a better
work-life balance in this entiregame?
possibly, yeah and there wasokay in the first place.
That was a nice repository anda framework of okay what would
be needed to make it better.
But if you try to fulfill that,it doesn't lead you anywhere
(19:06):
because it's too individual atsome points.
So we started asking thistypical enterprise question how
do you get efficiency viatechnology, in layman terms, a
piece of software that makes mylife easier in the process of
event ideation, planning,production.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And the results that we got from that little survey
was that 83% are using genericsoftware.
Well, yeah, I know we are alldying in Excel and PowerPoint,
but most of them are also superunhappy with their software
packages.
So we concluded that there isno tech support for event people
, despite event tech startupsbooming after COVID, it looks
(19:48):
like these products don't hitthe really, and the base thought
behind it is that technologysupport would possibly create a
more efficient way of workingand increased efficiency is good
for your work-life balance.
But hey, business owner, it'salso good for your bottom line
(20:12):
Because it reduces mistakes andit makes at the end end for a
better outcome against yourcustomer.
Well, and that is when westarted working on a little
software that's called SnowWhite, which is claiming elevate
efficiency, minimize stress andit's meant to be a life cycle
event.
Life cycle tool for the entirelife cycle of an event.
(20:33):
Right, tool for the entirelifecycle of an event.
Still only existing as awireframe, nothing to sell here.
But it's kind of one of theseoutcomes of COVID for me
personally, because I wouldnever have thought about that
before.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
How much of your time are you spending on that right
now?
I mean, you mentioned it'sstill only a wireframe, but is
this something that you see as aviable business?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
model.
Well, I did the financial modelfor this product and I think
it's viable.
So I'm spending approximately,I would say, like 50% of my time
on Snow White in the moment,especially now that we just
started investor communication.
So we are officially in thefundraising round.
Here we go, 55-year-old Germanin Dubai, getting co-founder of
(21:16):
a startup and trying to get seedmoney.
So, yeah, I think it'ssomething that could really
really change the market.
It could really change the waypeople are working events and
really do something good for thepeople working in the industry,
and how would that work?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I mean, if you're able to tell us how would that
work in actuality.
So what is the physical productat the end?
Speaker 3 (21:36):
The physical product is a web-based product at the
end.
The physical product is aweb-based software at the end.
It's a sas product and everystakeholder of the event,
depending on what his role is,has access to all the
information about this event,which is one of the key factors.
Is information accessible?
Is it possibly drowning in someemail that I never saw?
(21:56):
No, here it is relevant becauseit's per role and it is
accessible at any given point intime, no matter where you are,
as long as you have internet Atthe same time.
That means that all of thisdata that is generated there
creates a wonderful knowledgebase.
It creates something that iscontinuous learning and
(22:17):
improvement for a company for anindividual.
And if we drive that further, weare coming to this wonderful
buzzword, ai.
Ai is great.
Yeah, I use JetGPT, I useCopilot 365.
It helps me getting texts done,it helps me researching stuff,
but that's only the tip of theiceberg when we're talking about
(22:38):
ai.
what we are talking with snowwhite is an ai solution that is
sector specific, it's eventspecific, it's company specific.
That means it adopts the waythe software is interacting with
you because it knows how yourcompany does things and it can
analyze the problems that youare having in your event
(22:59):
production as a company.
And it can go down up to theindividual level where certain
user behaviors and informationis basically customized towards
the individual user.
And that is the great targethere.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
That sounds really interesting because I know from
my experience in events that youknow, as you said, information
is key, and in an industry wheredetail matters so much, you
know, information can often getlost or bottlenecked at certain
points, can't it?
And you know, as much as we'dlike to try and employ the best
people in the world, sometimes,you know, ourselves included, we
(23:35):
all have our failings, we allmiss stuff from time to time.
So this sounds like somethingthat could absolutely fill that
gap.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I'm sure it will fill that gap.
It was one of the key outcomesof all these conversations that
we had.
It's information transparencyin all directions.
It doesn't matter whether I'min the crew and I'm a techie.
I need to have that information.
Only relying that my crew chiefgives me the information often
enough is one of the sources oferrors.
(24:02):
Yeah, and no disrespect to thecrew chief here.
So at the end, it is abouttransparency, it is about
accessibility and it's aboutdrawing right conclusions,
having good conclusions fromwhat we did in the past in order
to get better in the future.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now I wanted to ask you this as somebody who's
worked in the broadcast industryas well as the event industry,
like myself.
I often look at the twoindustries and I look at my
experience in the broadcastindustry and I think, yeah,
we've got a lot of moving parts,don't we?
And I look at the eventindustry and think, oh my, wow,
you've got probably even moremoving parts than we do.
(24:38):
I think the difference I see isand please do correct me if
your experience is different myexperience has been certainly in
the broadcast industry thateverybody seems to know what
they're doing.
When I go out into the eventfield it's like herding cats.
Maybe I've just been to somevery badly run events.
Who knows?
There's probably a whole hostof event managers out there now,
(25:01):
right, the hurling stuff at theuh at the screen I 100 agree
with the statement.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I think, uh, in in the event scenario, you have a
couple of factors that in abroadcast environment you don't
have, and that is your liveaudience.
So you're dealing massivelywith human beings, yes, and the
second part of the human beingis your if you're a corporate,
(25:28):
if you're an agency, the peoplewho are actually paying you to
do the job.
I mean, how many great ideashave all of us event
professionals heard five minutesbefore the event that need to
be implemented?
You to do the job.
I mean, how many great ideashave all of us event
professionals heard five minutesbefore the event that need to
be implemented?
This kind of factor, yeah, ifthe editor-in-chief comes around
the corner in in the galleriaand says we need to change that
quickly, it's similar but itdoesn't have the same impact,
(25:51):
because here it's the personwho's actually paying you to do
that job, asking you which makesfor much more possible chaos
and moving around like aheadless chicken to fix
something that one is fixing now, and I mean now.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Thank you for that, yeah, so I just want to go back
a little bit.
Obviously, the whole topic ofwell-being is on everybody's
lips at the moment, I thinkacross the globe, and I think
it's very encouraging to seemore people paying attention to
it in our industry.
How have you managed your ownwell-being during this period I
mean, for example, during thatwhole COVID period where it was
(26:32):
just literally 24-7, how do youmanage yourself?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Well, at the end, it's still my passion.
So, no matter how much it takes, it's my passion.
That's behind there.
I'm passionate about events.
That means I don't feel it thathard, but I can see it on crew,
I can see it on employees and Ithink the measure really is
(26:57):
this wonderful word workmanagement.
To start with, it is about okay.
You cannot go on and on and onin an indefinite loop.
You need to see where do youbuild in the, the rest phase,
where do you build in, uh, theoff time, even possibly during
the production of a single event.
(27:18):
I mean it's always this kind ofokay.
We event people need to runthrough for the next 16 hours.
Yeah, hold on.
There is a work managementcomponent that we are missing
out on.
How could we possibly scheduleourselves better?
How do we make our work at theend more bearable by structuring
(27:39):
it better?
How do we make our work at theend more bearable by structuring
it better?
The events industry is stillquite brute force.
There is not a lot of thinkingabout how do I make things more
efficient?
Maybe how can I build faster,because I only have four hours
to rig this LED wall in, but nothow to make it more efficient,
necessarily Efficient in thecontext of not only time-saving,
(27:59):
but also in terms of manpowerand resource well-being aspects.
In other markets, it's highlyregulated.
I mean, it's always a pleasureto work in the US and have the
union sitting behind you tellingyou you have to go home now.
Okay, I go home, Not happeninghere, obviously, but as we don't
(28:21):
have one of these hardstructures and I'm not voting
for hard structures here at all,because it kills part of the
creative process at times aswell but having the
responsibility within companiesto take care of their own and
make sure, okay, if I canforesee it's a 16-hour shift,
please.
There must be a chance that wedouble crew or at least 1.5 crew
(28:44):
to give people a bit of a restin a sequence.
It's about simple things,especially in the on-site work.
Where's the lunch break?
Where is the bio break for thefront of house staff during the
event?
You know stuff like that If youstart thinking about it.
It's very, very small steps tostart with, but they have an
(29:07):
impact.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, a happy crew is a well-fed crew.
Indeed.
Before we wrap up, Rudy, I'vebeen asking all my guests this
I'm a bit of a music fan.
I think most of us are.
What's on your turntable rightnow?
What do you listen to?
Motorhead.
Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Definitely my all-time favorite, no question
about it.
And it stays in this musicgenre with groups like
Fuzzstones, so indie, indie rock, psychedelic rock stuff as well
.
Fantastic.
And it stays in this musicgenre with groups like Fast
Stones, so indie rock,psychedelic rock stuff as well.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Fantastic.
Yeah, I would say you can tella lot about a person by the
music they listen to.
And no judgment therewhatsoever.
Everybody listens to.
You know entirely what theywant to, entirely what they want
to.
Just to finish, give me thejudgment now.
Oh no, I like a bit ofmotorhead myself all right just
(30:04):
to wrap up.
What are you looking forward toover the next few years, then,
for both yourself and threemonkeys?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I think one of the most important things for me is
to see, uh, that we are gettingfor three monkeys as a this
differentiation between thedifferent fields that we are
working in back.
It's also a well-being factor.
If you always do virtual events, it's tiring.
If we start building newgadgets for an exhibition, it's
engaging.
So, getting that back to wherewe've been before COVID to 100%
(30:35):
we are on the way, which isgreat.
Keep on doing work around theglobe, which was always what
Slimonkeys was doing, andgetting that back to a high
extent as well, because COVIDtook a little bit of a dive
there as well.
Developing new talent,especially developing new
Emirati talent in the designspace, is something that we are
very eager to do.
(30:56):
We have a cooperation with theuniversity and I want to see
more good people coming out ofthat.
We had fantastic people comingin, so I hope that that really
goes ahead and, for the overallevents sector, I would hope that
we find a better way of dealingwith our sustainability problem
.
The efforts are there, thesepapers that we hand in.
(31:17):
At times they are not worth thethings that we are writing on
in many regards.
I would hope that we take thetopic more serious and that we
also get the support from ourclients to work more sustainable
, which might mean that somematerials cost a tad more than
the cheap non-sustainablematerials.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
You know what?
I couldn't agree more, Rudy.
It's been fantastic having youon the Event News DXB podcast.
Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Well, thank you for that.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Event News.
Dxb was presented by myself,Ian Carlos.
The studio engineer and editorwas Roy DeMonte.
The executive producer wasmyself and Joe Morrison.
Thank you.
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