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Jamie - Senior Operations Manager at Great Run Company
83 Plays2 years ago
Have you ever wondered what its like to be responsible for organising a large mass participation event? As runners we’ve took part in them but what actually happens behind the scenes to put on an event with tens of thousands of people taking part.
In this episode I speak with Jamie, Senior Operations Manager at The Great Run Company.
This is a really interesting deep dive into life on the other side of events.
If you are looking for a spring event then have a look on www.greatrun.org whose events in may include the Great Birmingham, Great Bristol and the 20th anniversary of the Great Manchester Run.
Check out Great Run events here
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the UK Run Chat podcast. I'm your host Joe Williams and have you ever wondered what it's like to be responsible for organising a large mass participation event? As runners we've took part in them but what actually happens behind the scenes to put on an event with tens of thousands of people taking part?
00:00:17
Speaker
In this episode, I speak with Jamie, the Senior Operations Manager at The Great Run Company. This is a really interesting deep dive into life on the other side of events.
Event Information and Contact Details
00:00:26
Speaker
If you're looking for a spring event, then have a look on www.greatrun.org, whose events may include The Great Birmingham, The Great Bristol and the 20th anniversary of the Great Manchester Run.
00:00:38
Speaker
If you have any comments or questions, you can get in touch on info at ukrunchat.co.uk. Enjoy this chat with Jamie, and I'll see you on the next
Jamie's Career Journey
00:00:46
Speaker
episode. Welcome, Jamie. Thanks for coming on the UK Run Chat Podcast. Thanks for having me, Joe. Yeah, great to have you here. Thank you. So I've done a little bit of an introduction there. I've given you a role, et cetera. But do you want to give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself? Yeah, I can do.
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm a senior operations manager here at Great Run. I first got involved with Great Run back in 2000. I've been away traveling for a few years after university and decided I need to see what else was out there in terms of the jobs market, et cetera.
Event Management and Team Coordination
00:01:24
Speaker
I wouldn't say I followed a traditional path to get to where I am now. I went through university, did geography as a degree. Like I said, when I did a bit traveling,
00:01:36
Speaker
came across a great run company. Back then it was Nova International and did some temporary work really, just crewing on events and stuff like that. And then a job became available in the Ops department at the start of the very bottom. Pretty much oversee all the events that the great run companies have ever managed the team, which we've got internally here and some external team, which we scale up and down as we need to for the seasonality of our work.
00:02:04
Speaker
I have been lucky enough to be involved in a significant number of events.
Global Event Experiences
00:02:09
Speaker
I think I'm on 22 Great North runs now. So I've done a few of those. I've worked on pretty much every event that we've done, whether it be swimming, cycling, bit of adventure triathlon. I've worked across the UK, I've worked in Ireland, I've worked in Ethiopia and Africa, and I was lucky enough to be part of the team that I put on.
00:02:33
Speaker
an event we had in Melbourne, Australia for a few years. So I've got pretty good coverage in terms of what I've
Personal Interests and Family Adventures
00:02:41
Speaker
done. I've seen quite a bit. I've learnt a lot. And presumably I still enjoy it because I'm still here after. You'd hope so. Cool. Okay. I was going to ask, where did you go travelling? And then you mentioned Melbourne as one of the events. Australia tends to be here.
00:02:58
Speaker
place of people go after uni where did you go yeah that's where i went anyway um i i'm a lover of surfing um so yeah a pack that we surfboard headed down under and spent a year maybe a bit longer actually i think they were looking to kick me out of the country at the end of my visa and um yeah i spent spent a lot of time traveling over there i didn't work in events over there worked just laboring on building sites and
00:03:26
Speaker
Landscape Gardening did some great work in Sydney Landscape Gardening. Try to enjoy my year out. And yeah, I was only focused my attention there. And then when I did take the job, a great run. And then we brought the Melbourne event online a few years after I joined. Yeah, really nice fit. It was a good time for me in my life where I was. And I had great experience and knowledge of Australia and also the people, you know, the Australia, the Aussie
00:03:55
Speaker
Pommy Banter is always very good, so I was well averse to that. Yeah, very good. My eldest son's leaving college at the moment and he's already planning the Australia visa and trip for 12 months. So, yeah, it's very topical in our household at the moment. Yeah, well, listen, you know, I can't encourage it more. After university, it's a real
00:04:22
Speaker
It's a real eye opener in terms of getting yourself out there into the world. And if it's anything like it was when I was there, it was an absolute blast. I have to say I went back a couple of years later before I started working full-time for Great Run. And I was out there for three or four months again with my surfboard and it wasn't the same. So I guess my only advice for him would be enjoy every minute of it while it lasts.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, great advice. Thank you. So surfing is your sport. Was that your sport of choice then? Was it growing up or? Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have a caravan up here on the northeast coast and get to surf in the frigid waters of the North Sea year round. But I was also lucky enough, my grandparents had a villa in the Algarve and I actually went to a private school. So I had really long summer holidays. Yeah.
00:05:15
Speaker
and like 13 weeks on holidays. So instead of staying at home while my two sisters were at normal school, shall we say, packed off with the grandparents to Portugal. So Granny brought me a little board and it started from there really. Very nice, very nice.
Seasonal Event Nature
00:05:32
Speaker
So moving on then to speak about Great Run, you've there and you oversee all of the ops. You've got a busy May coming up, don't you? Yeah, we have. Our work is very seasonal.
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, we tend to do events, typically what we do, and this isn't exclusive to the events world, um, in the end of all the months, light in the Monday bit, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Um, so yeah, May, um, so April, May, June can be busy for us. This may is going to be busy and then typically September, October is very busy for us. But yeah, always look forward to May. Um, we've had a little bit of, um, time to gather our thoughts through the sort of the winter. Yeah. A bit like anything really.
00:06:16
Speaker
you tend to come out of a little bit of a downtime, so to speak, in terms of delivery, and just want to get back on it. So really looking forward to the May schedule, which will present its challenges as it always does, but always comes with its real benefits and high points as well.
Manchester Event and Community Impact
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah. So you oversee all of the events then? Yeah, I don't necessarily get involved in the day-to-day detail.
00:06:42
Speaker
Given my long-standing association with the company and with the knowledge and experience I've gained over time, the relationships I've built have over time with various venues, suppliers, stakeholders, and all of the events that we do, I'm well versed to be able to help manage the team. So if I'm not managing it directly,
00:07:05
Speaker
then I'll work very closely with the team just to give guidance, experience, and in-part knowledge, really. We've got a good makeup here, a really strong base of experience and knowledge, which makes some very creative, dynamic, and skillful operatives within my team who are very good event managers and are all right and can go out and put together events in cities.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you've certainly got a big one coming up, haven't you? So, um, Manchester's 20th anniversary on the 21st of May. Yeah. I've been lucky enough to be involved in Manchester for probably 18 of those years. I think 18, 19 of those years in total. I've also worked very closely on that. And more recently in the year post COVID, when I say year post COVID, I'm talking about 2021. Yeah. I was lucky enough to actually manage that event. So I was event director for it.
00:07:59
Speaker
I've got really good knowledge and understanding of the place. It's changed in over time, and I'm sure we'll touch on a bit of that at some point. Politically, the people that you deal with and also geographically, which always presents its challenges. But it's a really vibrant city. It's always been a city that's welcomed the Great Run series into it. I remember in previous years that
00:08:26
Speaker
there was nothing of any sort of that sort of scale anywhere else in the country. Obviously, there's a lot more events these days, and that's the marketplace that we're operating in at the moment. Certainly, the Manchester Run, if I was to go back a few years, was significant in terms of these types of events around the country. It remains significant, don't get me wrong, but yeah, it's grown into a real cornerstone of what we deliver here.
00:08:55
Speaker
It must be an exciting one for you all in house, you know, seeing an event reach, you know, another, another event reaches significant anniversary like that. Yeah. Look, when you, when you set about these events, you go into a venue and I think what you tend to see, Joe, is an appetite from the, from the venue. I'm not talking just political because, you know, you do need to go in that top end to get the buy in from the city fathers.
00:09:20
Speaker
Yes. Well, ultimately, you know, fairly soon in your in your tenure of occupying a city space, whether the event is going to fly or not, and I'm probably referring to the way that the the overall society in that area, you know, the general public in that area, the people that live and breathe Manchester, live there, etc. Yeah. Oh, they speak on board your event.
00:09:48
Speaker
And we saw that very clearly from the, from the, from the get-go was Manchester, you know, we embraced it. It's become woven into the fabric of society down there. That's probably quite a nice way of putting it. Yeah. So you've got the political buy-in, you've got the, you've got the societal buy-in, if you like. And then after that, really, it's about maximizing what you can with what the city's got to offer. And I think everybody would know what Manchester is, to the important perspective of Commonwealth Games once upon a time.
00:10:18
Speaker
to incredibly successful football clubs. It's always been a very forward-thinking, dynamic, and investing city. It's got a couple of those ingredients, if you like, to make a very nice event, which it has done for us for 20 years. Yeah. So you're involved in 18 of those 20 years. Were you involved in the first one? No, I probably wasn't involved in the first one.
00:10:46
Speaker
came online just after that, I think. And when I say I came online, I think I was involved with the business, but I was working sort of temporary and doing some crewing work. I meant to believe, I think the first event we had actually finished in Manchester Central. We ran the participants into Manchester Central itself, but I didn't attend the event on the event weekend. So when we went back to 2001, I guess, 2002, something like that, 2003,
00:11:13
Speaker
It was shortly after that when I became full time with the business and working on it full time. Give us an idea of how long it takes to prep for an event the size of Manchester.
Planning and City Engagement
00:11:29
Speaker
When you put an event together or an event idea, and it may be long in the making, by the way, you know, we have an idea internally, we then perhaps have some contacts at a council or in a specific venue and you know, there's some fairly high level executive conversation happen initially. Once we've got the go-ahead and the buy-in from the city, we then go about a process of really trying to come up with what would be best for the event. And then once you've gone through that sort of process of
00:11:59
Speaker
what we would like to do, engaging in the key areas of the city. And that's not just to show off the city, by the way, but that's what's going to create the fastest and flattest course for the elites, per se, so people can get PBs, and also dovetailing it with scalability. You know, there's no point putting yourself in a backstreet if the ambition is to get to 20,000 people. You've got to take over some significant city areas, city spaces, seeing what's available to us.
00:12:28
Speaker
So in that initial sort of design of an event, it can be quite long and protracted. It can take many months, possibly even years to get to a point where we can deliver onto the ground. Yes. We deliver initially, we'll have probably a period of the first two or three years, certainly, where you'll find that the initial plan with the buy-in from Mayways and various other key stakeholders to deliver an event.
00:12:53
Speaker
then has to be sort of modified and trimmed around the edges because it's not until you deliver these events that you actually find out how capable they are. Yes. How accommodating the city can be as a plan and you know how you have to sort of develop the plan in order to accommodate certain other elements of you know the city being able to live and breathe as it does 364 days of the year when we're not there. Yes. But there's always an ongoing dynamic within these
00:13:20
Speaker
And what we've seen more recently, Joe, which is really quite interesting is with the sort of the need to get people out of cars, COVID showed us very much that greener transport, jumping on your bike is a good way to try and travel if you can. So there's a lot of things that have come online recently where cities are remodeling themselves. Specifically what you tend to see is
00:13:46
Speaker
They're trying to keep traffic out of city center zones. You'll see a lot around the place, clean air zones. We've got one here in Newcastle now. And that's trying to keep the bulk of traffic out of the areas to keep the air clean for the residents and people that are using the city centers to give them the best benefit of using those areas.
00:14:05
Speaker
So we're seeing that in Manchester and Manchester are looking to remodel their inner city areas. And what that does to us, that puts a little bit of pressure on the areas that were available to use. So Dean's Gate is a good example, an area that we use to utilize really quite heavily. Certain areas on there have become more restricted. So we've got to develop and we've got to make sure our plans evolve constantly in order to cater for
00:14:33
Speaker
the event that we want to deliver and make it the best and the biggest it can be, the participants to make sure it's a fantastic experience for them. But also making sure it fits within what is actually available to us on the ground. And that might purely be geography, you know. There's some really good examples in Manchester of some open space. Spinning fields used to be a fantastic open space for us. They've developed it over time and it's no longer usable for us and how we deliver events.
00:15:02
Speaker
you know, Albert square and the redevelopment, the town hall there. Um, that's been ongoing for a few years, probably won't be available to us till maybe 2025. If, if, if that's doable, um, it's going to be a fantastic bit of urban space, pedestrianize the area. Um, but what does it look like for us and how usable is it? So yeah, we're constantly working on the event to go back to your original question. If we're just delivering the event in isolation, we take the work to a six month cycle.
00:15:29
Speaker
But really the development of the event into longer term is done concurrently and can be over years to make sure that we're delivering the event, maximising what we can do from a capability and capacity point of view, but also adapting our model to make sure that we can deliver in the city landscape as it develops over time itself.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yes. I've seen, it's the mayor of Manchester, he was very keen on active travel, I think I saw him talking about. So like you say, about the cycle routes and things like that. He was a particular proponent of it, I think, if I remember rightly, seeing one of his interviews. Yeah, absolutely. And they've got the home of cycling there, haven't they? British cycling over at the velodrome. So as I mentioned before, you deal with a council like Manchester and their approach, and I think I'm quoting here, a discussion between Brendan Foster,
00:16:21
Speaker
our chairman, our president actually nowadays, the leader of the council at Manchester. And the discussion was along the lines, Joe, of closing the streets is actually opening up the city. So closing the streets down to traffic is actually opening up the city to people to use it. And I think that's quite a nice way of framing it. On any given day, you go into a city and
00:16:47
Speaker
And you've got to have your wits about you, right? You've got to navigate your way across roads and all that type of stuff. What we do, which is very unique to what we do here at Great Run is we close roads down and we make it an area or a stadium, if you like, within a city, which typically for 364 days of the year is exclusive to traffic engineering. We give it over to people to run on.
00:17:14
Speaker
The Manchester Run is a great example of that, and we can probably talk about it. We integrated the Mancunian Way, which is an urban motorway, the half marathon a number of years ago. And, you know, they close out for a small handful of days a year, and we're the only event they will close out for to run on. So if you're a participant, that's incredibly unique. You can't run on that elevated section of the motorway there any time.
00:17:42
Speaker
So, you know, working with a really engaged, proactive, sports-minded, progressive thinking council is a real joy to do because it challenges the art of what's possible. Yeah. You also get the challenges from the... I organise our local half-marathon issues, but you also do get the challenges from
00:18:08
Speaker
residents as well. So like you say, because they used to, that road being open and every day, you know, they can get to visit their grandparents, people can, or they've got a flight to catch, you know, they don't necessarily think about that. So beyond the, you're talking there about regulations and highways and councils and all the big stuff and yet
00:18:31
Speaker
And yet it flips completely the other way as well for the people of Manchester. And you're also looking after them as well as looking after your participants. So it's a huge operation logistically, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Over time, if I start at the end of this, over time, you do benefit from the history of the event. You benefit from associations that we become familiar with our surroundings, so to speak, and we know how this works. But you're absolutely right.
Collaboration with Councils and Stakeholders
00:18:57
Speaker
That doesn't make it necessarily any easier.
00:19:00
Speaker
The depth of detail you need to go into, the net you need to cast out in terms of information share, at stakeholder level, just to be able to pull roads through residents and businesses, through suppliers, anything like that is vast.
00:19:24
Speaker
The devil is in the detail, as they say. If you choose to overlook bits of detail, then quite often in events you can become unstuck. To put some context behind that in Manchester, the Manchester run is so named because we start and finish in Manchester, but actually a significant amount of the 10k course is in Trafford and we also impact on Salford. So there you go straight away. You've got three major council boroughs.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's offered in traffic that needs to be aligned on the, on the event weekend for delivery. And it's those kinds of things that perhaps as a participant, you may not be aware of and coming along to, you know, an event may have absolutely no understanding or consideration. So you build up a plan over time, but that time it's spent, um, getting into the detail with stakeholders, making sure you get that information out there.
00:20:21
Speaker
And of course, you know, when things like COVID come along, Joe, you find that there is hiatus, so we didn't operate in the city for 2020. Some of that latent knowledge, experience and understanding that an event happens at this time, roughly every year from the local population ebbs away a little bit. So that means that next time you're working in the city, some people who perhaps didn't live there before or forgotten about the event need, you know, re-informing of it.
00:20:51
Speaker
You get people moving on from jobs, specifically around COVID-19. We have circumstances where there was quite a few key stakeholders, people within stakeholder organizations that moved on. Therefore, you get a drain of knowledge leaving the organizations that we have to work with closely on a day-to-day basis.
00:21:13
Speaker
You know, the, the scale of an event to put on and then manage and nurture is significant. And, and you know, by, by what you say about your, your half marathon, you can't leave these things a chance. You need to get into the detail and it's a year round job effectively, because if you don't get into that level of detail, you can bet your bottom dollar that you go to site and something's changed. Yeah. Yeah. And it can be as simple as.
00:21:43
Speaker
So I used to hang our three mile mark on a lamppost outside this lovely row of houses called the Crescent. And last year, they removed the lamppost. It can be really, really simple things, or it can be much more significant things. Yeah, 100%. The other thing, I know we're focusing on Manchester here, that's one. What I'd say we are very good at a great run is we're a very good away team. And what I mean by that, when people ask me about it, is we travel quite well to other venues.
00:22:13
Speaker
perform quite well in those venues so you know you can go online you probably know yourself that the sort of coverage that we have is an organisation with our events but we work well in Birmingham, in Bristol, down in Portsmouth and various other locations and I think
Team Excellence and Adaptability
00:22:28
Speaker
What that does is it gives you that constant sharpness, matte sharpness, if you like. And that might be a nice way of putting it. And because you're doing it all the time, sometimes you go to venues where there are some different stipulations, legislations that you might work to. But by and large, you're doing the same things in different venues. But you become matte sharp and therefore you don't forget to do those various bits of work.
00:22:57
Speaker
down to the point whereby your signage plan and where you may hang your signage like you've just referred to, it really does go down to that level of detail. Yeah, very good. You're very passionate. You speak very passionately about it, Jamie. You love your job. Yeah, listen.
00:23:13
Speaker
I was actually talking to one of our student placements who we actually got up here from Manchester. Yeah. She's really enjoying a bit of time with us. And she's got a few questions. She asked me for a question. She said, if you've got 20 minutes ended up being an hour because I can talk a bit, but also, you know, I am passionate about what I do. Yeah, look, Joe, I'm 23 years in. I've still got a bit of energy for this and quite a lot of energy. You might say I am passionate about it.
00:23:41
Speaker
I enjoy what I do. I'm good at what I do and hope. And yeah, it's an enjoyable experience. I get good off this time, but I also get to go out and meet lots of people and do lots of different things, which is definitely something that I really enjoy about the role. Yeah. Chris, tell us about your team. You've mentioned them a couple of times now and you said you're a good way team. Tell us about your team. Yeah. So the team is, we've got a really good dynamic creative mix.
00:24:09
Speaker
And I think I've alluded to probably a couple of times that, you know, you need to, you need to have a team and a strong team around you for this type of work, you know, notwithstanding the fact that you're most likely out on the road at 3.30 in the morning to start closing your fourth roads. You come under a significant amount of pressure and things don't always go to plan. And it's in those moments where you find out who, who you are as a person.
00:24:37
Speaker
and how we're able to deliver as a team. So I'd say we've got a very good team. I'd like to think that I'm a big supporter of Steven Gerrard once upon a time. I'm able to put my foot on the floor in a circle and spray those 40-yard passes. Yes. But in general terms, I sit at the hub of the wheel and I look to try and coach my team, direct my team as best possible.
00:25:05
Speaker
We are good at going into other venues. We've got really good experience and knowledge there. But as an overall business, actually, Joe, it's probably worth saying that from the top right way down to the bottom, we are very good at connecting with councils, nurturing relationships with those councils. And that leaves my team, me and my team, a really good sound foundation to be able to go into venues and achieve good things. If you think about the events, for one day a year,
00:25:32
Speaker
Most of the time, it's a road with some big hotels or departments moved next to it. And a lot of people don't expect to go about their own business. And what we're trying to do is create a temporary stadium for people to come and enjoy a running event for a really unique opportunity. So that comes with its challenges and pressures, as we already talked about. But the team we've got here really applies themselves. And we've got really good skill set.
00:26:00
Speaker
to be able to go into these venues and problem solve. And I think that's largely what events is. It's what skills have you got, I think, quite a lot of the time with salespeople, because you have to sell the vision of what you can do. You have to sell that into perhaps a stakeholder that's less convinced that this is a good idea. And then we've got to go in there with skills that will allow us to adapt our blueprints, our models that we've used in other areas.
00:26:29
Speaker
to fit into that venue and conform to some of the pressures that might be around a significant hotel, might be around a venue like Manchester Central, which is an exhibition and show hall type thing. So we want to go in there and it's only through our experience and coming back to my point around being a good away team, you know, our experience allows us to go into these venues and be able to adapt our model and our plans to be able to fit into what's required in that venue. So I think that's very much why we've become
00:27:00
Speaker
an excellent away team. I think personally, I've got the best ops team there is. I think I work at the best company for delivering mass participation events across the whole piece. Some of the people we've got here are incredibly passionate, probably more so than I, and really engaged. And I think as a business, we all pull in the same direction, which if you think about 50 people or so that we've got here across all the departments,
00:27:29
Speaker
during events of the scale of Manchester, Great North Run is a huge achievement. Given that Great North Run, we invite 60,000 people to come and join us. Yeah. I was going to say how many people are actually in your team. Cause I don't think people, I think the expectation would be, there'd be a lot more people. Yeah. So, so my core team is, is under 10 people and you know, we flex it up and we scale it up with seasonal freelance staff of which we've got some
00:27:56
Speaker
really excellent outside freelance staff at the moment, which I'm charged with managing alongside the internal staff. There are challenges around that, integrating them. We've got business systems around purchasing and how we like to do certain things that you need to then make sure that your temporary staff that are external to the business are across and aware of.
00:28:20
Speaker
But what it does, it brings you a rich blend and balance to bring in some external expertise. Um, you know, these people that we use outside of the business, um, who are freelancers in their own, right. So they can bring along other points of view, other skills, other ways of doing things, which is always welcome. So unfortunately, COVID led to us.
00:28:43
Speaker
having to tune the team back a bit, but we're certainly not unique in that respect. I think that's happened across pretty much every industry on the planet. But as we emerge from that very strange time in our lives, we retain the core team. And what we're doing now is we're building on that a little bit internally. But we're springing into interaction, the freelance model as well, and bringing in some really good, excellent
00:29:11
Speaker
and a few answers to really support that team. So yeah, we're just a small team. I'd say at our max, even with the externals, we're only about a team of 14 or 15 in total. Yeah, which is incredible really, like you say, for putting events almost 60,000 people in and expecting to be a lot higher. There is an important question about your team though, Jamie. Is anybody else a Liverpool fan or are you the only one?
00:29:36
Speaker
I'm going to say I am the only one, I believe.
00:29:43
Speaker
Are you a Liverpool fan or are you going to save your money in a letter file? I'm not, I'm a Shrewsbury Town fan, I'm afraid. Stay loyal to the home town. We're actually doing alright this year, we're not in a relegation battle so we're happy. See that bot is turning a frown upside down, right? Isn't it? You mentioned earlier that things don't always go to plan. Correct.
00:30:09
Speaker
There must have been a time where you've had to revert to a plan B over the years. I'll give you an example. Shrewsbury's a town that is surrounded by the River Severn and we've been up to our knees three days before in river water. Have you got a time where you've had to adapt to a plan B on short notice? Yeah, we've had a couple.
Event Challenges and Safety
00:30:33
Speaker
We just recently did a table talk for an event that we're running in London this weekend, but next actually.
00:30:40
Speaker
And, you know, just touching on something that might be of interest to some of the listeners is your plan, your plan, and then ultimately you then throw a few grenades at it pre-event. And these are what these table topic sizes are to try and stress test it. Clearly, and I'm sure you'll talk a little bit about it, Joe, you can't second guess everything.
00:31:04
Speaker
and where a problem or a challenge may come into place. Certainly we do our due diligence and we do look to sense check our planning in advance of the event. So it's always the timing of an incident which will dictate how we can respond to it.
00:31:24
Speaker
probably got two or three I could name but probably the one the one of more recent note would be where we have a suspect vehicle out on one of our routes and given the the world we live in now we've got to be very conscious of the potential anyway and work closely with the potential for an individual possibly even a more organized group of individuals looking to
00:31:53
Speaker
to do something we shouldn't be doing. So we do take that very seriously. And at one event, we had an incident where we weren't 100% certain we knew why there was a vehicle still parked on our route. And the timing of this was very close to start time. It was a particularly wet day. So a lot of our assembled participants had been on site in very inclement conditions for a good hour at least, I would suggest. And as you know yourself, if you participated in these events,
00:32:23
Speaker
or you've taken the time to manage some of them. Typically with these temporary events, you don't have areas of significant cover for people to use in inclement weather. So we got information of a challenge out in the course. We weren't 100% certain that we could verify and validate where this vehicle was from and that it was safe to start the event. So we had to make some changes.
00:32:50
Speaker
We did so in a very, very tight timeline and I think we did the right thing. We got some messaging out there and we adapted the route accordingly. With anything in life, when you make a decision, you can look back in hindsight and say, well, what if I've done this or what if I've done that? What I would say is everybody got through that event on the day safely, which was
00:33:12
Speaker
is my primary concern and remains my primary concern. So in that respect, it was a great success, the event, and we made the right decisions. Clearly there are learnings always to take away from these types of incidents, which we have done and we've put certain protocols in place to make sure that we certainly reduce down the potential for this to happen again. But in that moment, Joe, when you're faced with those kinds of conditions,
00:33:37
Speaker
As the event leaders, I was at that particular moment, you're the person that knows the plan better than anybody else. You need to surround yourself with a couple of things. First of all, other people that can help you make some decisions, because quite often I'll be in a pressured state of consciousness, if that's the right way of putting it. I'll know the detail, but I won't necessarily be making
00:33:59
Speaker
the decision, looking at every facet, I'll be making it looking on the safety side of things, what we can do to perhaps reroute runners, all that type of stuff. Yes. We do need some other people around you that can give you that wider context, which might be how do we communicate with people? What are the knock on effects? What does it mean for us as a business and the longer term effects going forward in all that type of stuff? So it's always very important to take that step back and regardless of the timelines,
00:34:28
Speaker
and make sure you surround yourself with those people that you can do to help you make the right decision. And then after that, what is absolutely paramount is making sure that the key people on the ground know what they're doing and know where we're at and why we're doing it. So runners is part of that course, but really it starts with the management team, which starts with me and then down to my key sector managers, whether that be start, on course or at finish, and then making sure that they then disseminate the information and the instructions clearly down to there.
00:34:57
Speaker
smaller teams that work with them on the ground. Yeah. These kinds of incidents are never something you look forward to. It's a sense of satisfaction when you navigate them, which is probably the best way. Yeah. Team and then as a business to an agreeable outcome, and it isn't always perfect. And you can, unfortunately, in this day and age, suffer some negative on, you know, the social feeds afterwards and all that type of stuff.
00:35:27
Speaker
But all I'd say within the context of keeping people safe, that's the primary concern and that's what we consider as our paramount primary, you know, function on event day. So as long as that has been catered for, then the other stuff we can largely navigate through, but making sure that people are safe and get through the event safely is my primary concern.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah, couldn't agree more. And in terms of that and safety, I think that we've touched on all logistics, but the medical that sits on top of highways, and so you've got your medical plan, your risk assessments, and you must have a vast team for that involved in your events.
00:36:08
Speaker
A real tough one, I find, is the volunteers as well. It's such a huge comms plan that you have to produce. Like you say, if you do have an incident where things have to change quickly, actually that comms plan that then kicks in is very important as well, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And let's put to the chase here, Joe, where I've just mentioned social media in probably slightly negative terms.
00:36:35
Speaker
it does have a positive turn to it as well. It allows us to communicate. So in this day and age, which is, wasn't the same 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago when I started doing this type of thing, we have the ability to talk to people rapidly in real time almost with the digital framework that we all live within these days. You mentioned there that the team to deliver, it's a really interesting one. The way my brain works, and I often try and give myself little analogies
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah. And that's particularly the one that I think about when it comes to the management structure of putting an event on and then actually delivering it because they're two slightly separate things really. I do the plan with my team and then the delivery is vast compared to the number of people you need to plan an event relative speaking or consider myself to be at the top of the pyramid or the event manager to be at the top
Volunteers and Workforce Significance
00:37:29
Speaker
of the pyramid.
00:37:30
Speaker
and then down from that. And this is right in terms of responsibility and role, but also in terms of quantitative numbers. You get down to the bottom of the base, and this isn't saying they're at the bottom because they're no less important, but the volunteer, which typically will be your largest element of workforce. So if you imagine the pyramid, the base of the pyramid being volunteers, and in between that, you've got your student teams, you've got your team of suppliers, bringing in your services,
00:37:59
Speaker
your interests up here, and above that, you've got your core hydrant team, which might be your sector supervisors on your course or your drink station motors, that type of thing. And then there will be the event manager at the top, as I mentioned. It is absolutely certain that team, and specifically the volunteers at the bottom, you cannot deliver events at the scale of you. You couldn't do it. Obviously, when we're planning events, we need to go and recruit those people, people who give up time for
00:38:29
Speaker
for good courses, their clubs, because they want to be part of something. And, you know, as a society in the UK, we're incredibly generous with our time and our money, et cetera, et cetera. And law made that last because honestly, without, you know, the two and a half thousand plus volunteers that we have at the Great North Run, you wouldn't be able to put that event on. Yeah, it's incredible. The planning of being able to integrate those, as you can imagine, at that scale of workforce is significant.
00:38:59
Speaker
And whether it be, you know, feeding them pack lunches, whether it be making sure they've got the briefing notes to be on site at the right time to to report into the right person, and then understand their job role. You know, it's it's a huge undertaking to manage that level of people. And it's, it's, it's something that would become a very adept over the over the years, we're continually learning. So more recently, we're using online platforms to
00:39:28
Speaker
to recruit, to then liaise with core staff, volunteers being some of that stuff. We're seeing a real shift with the digital age as we are now being able to communicate to people whether it be pre-event in the recruitment and information share point or then ultimately if required on the day very quickly and dynamically should we need to via social platforms, WhatsApp, all that type of stuff.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah. So obviously you've spoke about social media there. What else
Operational Changes and Sustainability
00:39:56
Speaker
has changed? What other significant changes have you seen over the last 20 years? Definitely the markets changed in terms of not only what people want, I think, you know, what people are willing to give up in terms of allocate their time to and their disposable income.
00:40:18
Speaker
I think there's been a change there. I think purely from an operational point of view, things have changed in terms of delivery. I mentioned a couple of times there before, Joe, talking around Manchester and how they're remodeling their city. Where we were delivering an event in 2010, let's say 2012, 2013, so 10, 12 years ago, the city has evolved significantly in terms of the space available.
00:40:45
Speaker
So it's becoming harder to find the space where having to come up with more creative and dynamic solutions, problem solving to be able to deliver the events within the geography that we're given. That's another element. I'd say the cost has become really quite a challenge for all events.
00:41:05
Speaker
Not just the cost of living more recently with challenges over there in the East, so to speak, with the war, but it's becoming very expensive to put events on. We create huge impact on the city, people going about their daily business. You've then got the sustainability thing coming online, which perhaps wasn't as prevalent as it needed to be 10, 20 years ago.
00:41:34
Speaker
which is another really, really important thing. You know, at the end of the day, events are one-offs, and it's quite a challenge for us to be very sustainable. We're challenging that all the time. We're looking at ways that we can deliver low or no carbon footprint services into events. Just yesterday, I was talking to a provider who can provide us now with fully electric 4.5 trucks, whereas... Wow.
00:42:03
Speaker
The forklift truck plant stuff in the past has been diesel powered. We're looking at our power generation. We need some temporary power on site, not always available as a permanent supply. So we're looking at how we can bring in solar power or battery balance. So there isn't any combustion of fossil fuels.
00:42:27
Speaker
I'd say in general, we're under pressure from a lot of science, some of it's good pressure. Um, some of it's marketplace and making sure that we're bringing to market there, the most edgy, the sexiest, if you like. Um, most horrible events for people to want to do, making sure that we maintain that really high-end delivery model. Um, people feel safe and comfortable coming to our events, which I think they do. And that's one of our really unique selling points that we are.
00:42:56
Speaker
We are a company that makes sure that we take care of people when they come on site. We give them the best opportunities to run in the best places and experience the best atmospheres. There's always that pressure around marketplace, but the externals that we're always having to grapple with.
00:43:11
Speaker
As some that we all need to embrace as a, as a, as a race, you know, the, the climate stuff and the sustainability, we've all got to look at that now. Those challenges around geography and me and the ongoing budgetary costs around them, you know, aren't cheap to put on no matter what anybody might try and tell you in the pub over a point of beer, cheap to put on. And we're constantly making sure that we can work as a team to, to, to make sure we're not like a lot of companies do passing on cost.
00:43:41
Speaker
You know, we want to give people the best opportunity to take part in our events and get real value out of those. So we work where we can to ward off passing on cost with dynamically looking at how we can deliver solutions differently to make sure that we can manage the cost better. If we think about Manchester specifically, have you seen any changes in the popularity of distances that people sign up to and the demographics?
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, it wouldn't, it would be remiss of me to say that the Manchester 10K is as strong as it once was. It's not in terms of numbers. I think it's still an incredibly strong proposition from its TV audience.
00:44:23
Speaker
from its elite offering for what it brings back to the city, given the Commonwealth legacy out of which it was born. But the reality is the numbers are not where they once were, Joe. That's simple. So if you feel the numbers, then you could argue that people have gone elsewhere. Is that specific to distance? Possibly. There are a lot of 10Ks out there now. There are a lot of 5Ks out there now.
00:44:51
Speaker
And we, as you know, we integrated the half marathon into the event a number of years ago. We actually took the blueprint for that from the Manchester cycle we once did. And we used to start that up with the Yeti Had, and we used to use the mankinium way. So it seemed a natural progression to use that as the half marathon course, because we created a 13 mile criterium tight circuit when we put the Manchester cycle on. And I was at the head of leading that.
00:45:20
Speaker
What we are seeing in the general marketplace is more events are out there, so therefore there's more challenge to get people on board for your event. And that's where you're grappling after people's disposable income, which obviously at this time with cost of living pressures is a challenge.
Evolving Event Demands
00:45:40
Speaker
And then I'd say without exclusion across the overall landscape, certainly in the UK,
00:45:48
Speaker
there is a lethargy. It's quite a weak market at the moment, around 10Ks and 5Ks. And I think partly that is because of the distance versus the cost. But we're seeing pretty strong engagement with the distances at half marathon and certainly marathon. What I think we perhaps are seeing is
00:46:15
Speaker
very elite events or very bucket list events starting to emerge. And it seems that the demand for those is, I wouldn't say insatiable, but it's very strong. The Great North Run is a very good example of that. Great North Run, and we can't be remiss in this. We've always got to work hard with the Great North Run, but the Great North Run is an event that has a gravity around it and it drags people to it because people want to be associated with it.
00:46:44
Speaker
whether participating, whether working on all those sorts of things. So I think there's a few different dynamics within the market, Joe, if I'm honest. Not just distance specific, there'll be some venue stuff in there. And there'll also be some element of what the event is and the history of it. A bit like I mentioned with the great author. Yeah. You mentioned the elites there. Talk to us about the elites. Have you got a best elite moment at an event like Manchester? Yeah, I have. Look, I'm going to go off.
00:47:11
Speaker
A little bit away from what we currently deliver, because for me in my career, the best, the best elite moment I ever witnessed firsthand was when we had Usain Bolt running on a temporary purpose built track that we put on Dean's Gate. Without a shadow of a doubt, that was the stellar moment for me. And just seeing, you know, the fastest one ever to live.
00:47:36
Speaker
to date anyway, streaking down this purpose-made track. I know that's not related to Manchester 10k or half marathon, but what I think it is related to and knits in very nicely with us as a business and also the city of Manchester is the desire and the willingness to be innovative
00:47:59
Speaker
and challenge the status quo. And in doing that, clubbing together with Manchester to deliver that really typifies what you can do if you set your mind to it and you've got a vision to be able to achieve it. So what else can you tell us about Manchester this year? I believe you've got some people who've run every event since it began, is that right? We do, we do. I mean, typically every event we have, we'll have an all runners club.
00:48:28
Speaker
where we've got a number of people. And please don't ask me because you might embarrass me on the exact number. It'll go into a good number. These are people who are, first of all, runners and just love the sport itself. Most likely, but not exclusively will be or have some very strong association with the venue Manchester.
00:48:50
Speaker
And then there will be people within that cohort that just love the event. And if, if you haven't, and if we've got any people listening here who perhaps, and this isn't the sales pitch by Henry Reed's, who perhaps haven't entered an event, Manchester or other, to be honest with you, you, you undoubtedly get this unbelievable, unreplicatable experience when you're on these start lines, on these courses, on these finish lines.
00:49:21
Speaker
And that's what I'd say to you about Manchester. Manchester is unbelievable at that start line on Portland Street. It's something about the makeup of the city, the way the buildings are. It's quite a compact street. You've got fairly high sort of three story, four story buildings either side.
00:49:40
Speaker
You've got this, it's built around the place, which just seems to be unique to Manchester. And we create the atmosphere with the PA system we bring in, the people that are there. It's absolutely, without doubt, one of the greatest experience you'll have from a running point of view, if that's something you enjoy doing. The course itself, we engage a couple of really big stadiums in the Etihad and the traffic, which in itself are global icons when it comes to equipment.
00:50:10
Speaker
And we give, we give over some incredible places to run. I've mentioned the Manchester Square already. But specifically at Manchester, it's very well engaged with spectators as well, to Old Trafford and the run-in as you come up the Chester Road. And it will have entered that last bit of Bridgewater vibe and get onto Dean's Gate. It's second to none. And then you're finishing on this street, which has got the, you know, the beacon tower next to it. You've got TV cameras there.
00:50:39
Speaker
You've got these crowds banging on the boards, the branding boards. Honestly, it's even now 20 years into doing this, it still, you know, raises a few hairs on the back of my neck in terms of that atmosphere. And that really is what unique about the event. And if you, if you twin that into, you know, that statement I gave you before about the city were always really keen to close the road down in their, in their vision, that was opening the city up. When you give the city roads over to this type of endeavor,
00:51:08
Speaker
That's when you create these incredibly unique atmospheres, and that's what Mantis has got in space. Yeah, but what a great way to finish. Well, I was going to finish. I'll go ask you one more question, though. What's that experience that you described in there for participants as well?
Post-Event Process and Debriefing
00:51:25
Speaker
How does it feel for you and your team post-event when that last finisher goes over the line? What's it like? There's probably a couple of phases for me, Joe. If you don't mind me giving you a couple more minutes and eluding to them.
00:51:38
Speaker
So when you work through the planning of this, it's almost like, I don't want to use the word stress because I think there is stresses and pressures to it. But you, because I know how to navigate my way through this, as my team do, there's an elevation of intensity in the planning as you move towards the event days.
00:51:57
Speaker
And that culminates typically probably the Wednesday of event week, because most likely that's when you've boxed off all your, um, your paperwork. You've pretty much sent as many emails as you can send to the relevant people. Notes are out there in the world. Um, you've squared away the last bits and bobs with police or, or, uh, you know, key stakeholders in the city. And at that point, there's a little bit of a.
00:52:23
Speaker
Right, I can take my foot off the gas from a planning point of view and I can focus now on delivery. That coincides with going to venue. So typically on the Thursday of the Friday, you'll go to venue and that's when you'll be there until you've seen through delivery. That then will see a gradual steady increase of your workforce arriving on site, suppliers, you're doing your final briefings to keep people on the ground, suppliers, stewards, your management staff itself.
00:52:53
Speaker
ultimately leading to the point whereby you do your final event brief the night before in the hotel, which again is another thing ticked off the list of things that we need to do as event managers before the event. Finally getting that information out there and ultimately getting to the point whereby
00:53:10
Speaker
You know, the alarm goes off at half two in the morning for Manchester and out on the ground you go and we start building stuff. Once you start closing a road, that's kind of like, right, the tide's coming in and we can't stop this now. Right the way to the point whereby you close your final road to link up the final section of route, maybe, which is something that we do do in Manchester, try and allow for a bit of movement in the city.
00:53:34
Speaker
And then ultimately your first participant goes off. I'm always very pleased when the first participant gets through the route and finishes, which is with the elites. And then we're literally going into the next phase, which is still a high sense of pressure and stress to be able to then get the roads reopened. And so a different kind of pressure comes on, if you like. To maybe get to the point and answer your question as you first asked,
00:54:02
Speaker
The joy of seeing the last participant come across the finish line for me is probably the Tuesday after the event. At that point, I've squared away the last bits and bobs. You know, I've got my last bit of contract and that might be a marquee or a bit of plant hired, uplifted from the site. I've got back up to the office. I've squared away a few emails, maybe a couple that have come in that are a complaint around noise or this out of the other. And I can finally say, right.
00:54:28
Speaker
I'll do the hot debrief stuff and we always look to debrief really well internally so that we can take any lessons into next year. We can take them very early and move them into next year's planning and then perhaps have a couple of days off. So that to me would be, and again, this might be something that your listeners are really interested in, you know, don't understand that just the last person crossing the finish line, it's not the end for us. It's probably the middle, if not the end of the week after where we can sort of say, right, okay, that event's not fully delivered.
00:54:58
Speaker
Where can people enter if they want to sign up for? Please get yourself on there. We've got a really good website. The team here, look after now. Visit us on our social or sign up to be part of our social network. That'd be great to see people there and get updated with any new announcements we've got. Joe, come and join us. Come and be part of something that really is, as it says on the tin, great.
00:55:24
Speaker
fantastic atmosphere, great place to be, lots of like-minded people, and enjoy, from start to finish, an enjoyable experience. Brilliant. Jamie, thanks ever so much for coming on. It's been really interesting. It's been a pleasure. Hopefully, catch up with you on the ground soon, and good luck with your event in Shrewsbury. Thank you.