two years on your own as a onean army oh it was longer than two years I did it for four years as a oneman army there were people in my industry who didn’t

want us to succeed because this considered as so unorthodox they would call venues and tell them not to host me

how did you survive three years with that sort of attitude oh mate I’m very resilient person what would you tell

that Sim ran four years ago make sure you really understand what that audience is cuz when you understand the audience you understand the

[Music] value for everyone listening siman is the CEO and founder of format

award-winning event production and creative agency a lot of different facets which we’ll get into which I’m very curious about also the board member

of the Scottish games Network and has over eight years of marketing and production experience so I’d love to

hear more about what format actually is because I think from first glance it might look like just events but you do a

lot more than just events right so could you just tell us a bit about what you do yeah of course I’m the CEO of the format

group and there are fre arms to our business so format group is the parent company we have format GG which is our

event of the business that deals with a lot of the events that we have so our ultimate gaming Festival that people

mostly know us for our B2B industry mixers and our talking panel events that we coordinate and organize and we have

even more events that we’re adding to the events roster in 2025 we’ve then got format Forge which is our creative

agency side where we’ve worked with a number of creative and digital clients over the years to provide creative and marketing Services as well as event

Management Services to events that might be seeking a bit of help whether that’s from a strategic planning standpoint or

executing their own events we do have everything from trailers social content paid media the whole marketing Chang gr

what we do in House of our team and then we have format collection which is our physical retail products consisting of the likes of energy drinks clothing and

other physical products that I’m not talking about just yet that are coming out very very soon wow so that’s a lot

so that’s why I really wanted to talk to you because I want to understand how you managing everything because it looks

like they all kind of from the outside anyway it’s like a well old machine so it would be very curious to hear kind of

how you’ve effectively done that so I want to jump in at the start with the kind of events I would love to know more

about that so format GG is described as a revolution for gamers and non-gamers

so it’ be good to hear about the origin story here like what inspired to start this and like how have you made it into

a reality yeah of course I was practically born with a controller in my hand like I’ve always love video games

and the interactive entertainment industry as a whole I just love the immersion that video games provide you the better the music and the better in

film in terms of how they transport the user into the world itself with music and film you’re just a passenger whereas

with video games you’re in the driver’s seat and that’s what I’ve always loved about them is just that interactivity and personal relatableness that we find

with these products and I always just I chose a traditional games industry background went to University studied

game design got the whole first class on us that Shang set up my own game Studio but whilst I was in my first year at

University I realized that there was a severe lack of Industry events in the city in particular there was just

Manchester one of the most creative cities in the whole world and in my opinion the best city in the world and has just got barely any games industry

events and it kind of saddened me really so I just decided that I was going to host a one-off meet up for gamers and gaming enthusiasts I literally just

chucked 50 Quid on Facebook ads I was expecting like eight people to turn up to thing be in mind this is in the

Golden Age of Facebook ads but IED experience back then so you got a lot more bang for your book with 50 than you

do today so I was expected about eight people to turn we literally turned up with a Jenga set a board game and a

Nintendo snz and we had about 100 people turn up which really blew our mind we

literally packed out this small bar in Manchester’s Northern quarter with just like a 100 people and I say this was

just meant to be a one-off event because I was bored and I just wanted to meet fellow Gamers and then the manager came up to me at the bar and he was literally

like you know you can do another event here right you know you can do another event please do another event please bring please bring all this money into

my venue on a Wednesday night again please thank you so we decided to do another the month after then that got

110 people we did another event on the third month and we started getting small increments of just going up and by the

fourth event we started getting local game studios coming to us asking can they showcase their games off so we had

a bunch of Indie developers and just gaming fusers about 150 people and it started like turning sort of this like

underground dingy sort of like underground bar sort of AE if you’ve ever been to like V q64 or anything like

that in the past it was kind of like that before that even existed effectively and I I was a huge night life lover as a

uni student I used to just go out clubbing all the time absolutely loved it and my biggest business inspiration

of all time for the event arm of the business was the warehouse project created by Sasha lord it’s anyone who

doesn’t know it’s the biggest in my opinion is the best rave in the whole world like what they’ve created is absolutely phenomenal I remember going

to the warehouse projects and just thinking why does this not exist for video games why has no one taken the

most adaptable medium on the planet and thrown it into night life culture like it’s the two complement each other so

well like everyone wants their own tribe of people whether that’s introverts Gamers which is it’s a naturally

introverted industry the games industry yeah and then I quickly answered my own question as to why no one had done this

when I started out doing it is that it turned out they weren a big fan of raves so I had to overcome a huge culture of

implementing the things that people love into a culture that’s quite foreign for them because nightclubs aren’t cated to

introverted people they’re not cated towards Gamers so we effectively created that night life movement and Revolution

for the gaming community and as we continue to do this over monthly consistent events every it was

practically me doing all this I was a oneman army doing this for like two years just at the initial starting point

of it and we just getting bigger developers at one point we had EA Sony and Ubisoft all under the same room in

this tiny little bar in Manchester showcasing like shadow of the coloss soft Mario versus rabids like big IPS

and then we basically just decided to take it up a notch in 2018 and host a massive event in Manchester’s Print

Works and it’s it was kind of the event that kickstarted me I’ve done it for about two and a half years as like this sort of like hobby you could call it

like I was passionate about it it was bringing some money in but it wasn’t like loads them out it was still a hobby at this point and we hosted a one-off

event in 2018 and it got a thousand people there was a queue just queueing outside of the venue going across

streets we disrupted traffic at one point like just being able to cause gridlocks and it was just a phenomenal

experience and from that moment on I knew we had something special so from that point on I basically took

on the challenge of building a NTI Revolution for the games industry and in the nearly six years seven years that

have followed that Journey now since then it’ll be seven years in September we’ve become Europe’s biggest games industry night life movement and that’s

just the events arm of the business and that’s kind of where it came from it came from a place of wanting to create a

nightlife movement for the games industry and create a place where Gamers can come together whether you’re a developer content creator or a consumer

and actually have that onetoone interaction with the creatives behind your favorite products that you don’t get a lot of mainstream consumer events

today because I feel like mainstream events are forgotten the purpose that they were founded for which is to bring

people together it’s very commercialized it’s very capitalistic and it’s designed to kind of go against the consumer

whereas we’re not about that we’re about bringing together the creative and consumer on the equal level whilst also having a fun time and putting fun back

in games industry events has kind of been lost along the way over the last decade I’m so I want want to go I want

to go party now it’s that’s that line quite a few times no clearly off the

cuff now that that’s really cool so been doing that so two years on your own as a

one Army there’s so many ways I can take this oh mate was longer than two years I did it for four years as a oneman army W

and because as I say I funded the whole thing out of my own pocket for go we did it took us it took us three years just

to get one sponsor for our events because we were very unorthodox event like there were there were people in my

industry who didn’t want us to succeed because they considered us so unorthodox they would call venues and tell them not

to host me because they really didn’t want this night life move how did you survive three years with that sort of

attitude against oh mate I’m very resilient person I I come from a counselor State uh a very low income

back C family like I learn and I’ve often found in my life after speaking to multiple entrepreneurs throughout history and my 28 years on the C is that

I’ve often found the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that have come from Humble or low income backgrounds because they’ve learned how

to innovate with limited resources whereas when you look at brands that have more resources they actually tend

to create less Innovation because the strain on their resources there to force them to basically innovate a little bit

more obviously that’s on a situation by situation basis but that’s kind of a common demand later that I’ve that I’ve

kind of gathered from speaking to multiple entrepreneurs and business owners over the last decade and a lot of

it just comes from the fact that if you’re determined to do something you’ll make it work like you can make it work ultimately and I was pumping my own

money into had a job alongside my uni study so I was literally taking whatever money I had left from my job after

paying my rent and everything and putting it straight into the business just to be able to get things up and going where that was just like I cannot

even tell you it took us one year to buy a roller Banner because of how how like

when I say I was a student starting like I I had no graphic design skills I didn’t have any events management skills

I taught myself all of this stuff along the way they don’t teach the stuff in game design courses they teach you how

to be an artist a program or they teach it at the most to be a level designer and there’s kind of it

it’s kind of rigid so a lot of this stuff was selftaught and I was going against a very traditional industry at the time all my own eventually we

started to bring more revenues in in the terms of sponsorships ticket sales exhibitor fees and I was able to bring on a whole team people to help me I had

some very generous Volunteers in the early stages that did take some of that weight off me on the nights but a lot of

it for four years was just me as a oneman Army against a traditional industry and here we are now the industry love loves us yeah that’s super

cool like I actually dabbled in this I want to start an event business someday

so at Evolution my previous company it was recruitment company I did meetups so

I invited everyone who’s been on the podcast before and plus ones and it was like you know leadership Meetup and they

always did really well in the sense like we had 20 people then 30 people but then he ended up doing one it was last year

in Stockholm they had 300 people come in and just like you said everyone’s like there’s so much money slushing around

here we have amazing City but there’s no like event to bring people together that isn’t like you said super capitalistic

cuz when you go to some I guess you know networking events you can feel it like it feels like okay this is a B2B

networking event you just have that sort of vibe there’s some which are more cozy but I think what you just describe

sounds very much like the type of event I would love to go to you know because you can get business done but oh yeah

you just have that nice atmosphere of you know this isn’t trying to squeeze every penny out yeah exactly and we’ve

catered to all audiences we’ve got B2B events so we’ve got dedicated Network events that’s our reformat industry

mixes where but even then that’s done in a more casual atmosphere where we’ve got some very generous sponsors very big

names in the industry who attend this thing and but it’s no sales pitch like they go on stage for a few minutes to

say who they are if you want to come chat to me here I am because you’re not you’re paying to get access to people in a very private cozy setting effectively

and that’s the approach I went with it like don’t get wrong we’re a business we have to make money and we make good money from obviously some elements of it

I’m not prepared to turn us into every other event we’ve seen it now in the last year where events that have grown so big and capitalistic they’ve closed

down not everything is peach you behind the curtain and often I find that events who have to become so capitalistic often

it’s kind of a warning sign effect of you’re having to capitalize your event on every single Avenue you’re losing

you’re losing track of what your original end goal was you’ll understand this as an entrepreneur and a business owner you can never lose track of what

that original goal is because otherwise it bleeds into all the work that you produce and you produce a little mess

and that oils down to your customers your clients whoever that is that you’re trying to pinpoint with your business

and from an invent standpoint the best events don’t try and sell you stuff like you’ve paid for a ticket you should

immediately be getting the experience of that event the minute you’ve paid a ticket I see an event as an experience

whereas a lot of events have see them as a product and I’m not here to sell you stuff as soon as you walk into format

format The Base ticket gets you everything there’s a few stalls that you can buy clothing you can buy energy drinks stuff if you want to but it’s not

a requirement of you to be able to enjoy the event whereas a lot of events have tied in the experience to physical purchasing products which in a cost of

living crisis and when things have never been high it’s kind of a really bad business decision to be doing that you should be offering the base experience

for the initial asking price that you’ve asked to your audiences and that should reflect in your ticket

prices yeah 100% so I want to get into the listener here who’s trying to

potentially put on their own event because I feel like you’ve done it for four years before you from the sound of it like started generating real Revenue

so if someone has the vision of wanting to start to do an events what would you tell that simran four years ago that

please don’t do it this maybe do something else differently here like if you’re just trying to put in your first gaming event for example what would you

tell them yeah don’t wait four years to start capitalizing on it that’s one thing I would say like there’s an event

recently that I’ve watched over like the last year and a half and they’re doing really well so far they’re still quite small but they’re getting sponsorships

already and I I I Mentor this person quite a lot and I say you’re doing a lot better than I was was already doing four years ago and they’re like I look up to

you I want to have what you have and it’s like listen you’re already starting off better than I did cuz I didn’t understand any of this stuff I didn’t

understand business I didn’t understand like how to put a pitch deck together because no one taught me this stuff and

a lot of that I would say is that if you’re going to get into this really do research into the type of audiences that

you want to Target that you want to have whether you’re a recruiter games industry film music whatever you want to

whatever your event is that you’re trying to host make sure you really understand what that audience is because when you understand the audience you

understand the value that you bring to yourself and to other people and then from that you need to start putting deck

together like really value yourself get a good web ple if fact this isn’t even one piece of advice like this is multiple piece of advice but I’m going

to bundle it first alls please get a good website everyone’s always like oh you don’t need websites yes you do like

you 100% need a website like I take pride in the format website it looks incredible I know it looks incredible

because I sat there meticulously planning out every detail of it because I’m into Brandon design which ties me

into my next your brand is everything how you project yourself to the world I know people who don’t have successful

businesses but their branding is on point and people think they’re doing really well because the brand is successful and when you first actually

start off when events you’ve really got to own it like you you are one person army or whoever you’re in business with

like you it’s literally you you are the brand you’ll have to carry it so getting good branding in place getting a website

in place that really communicates what your event is getting good photography a good videography and it might be that

you know you have to put some money aside for that sort of stuff like it doesn’t have to be amazing that I’m aware that the format videography and

photography is amazing but over the years like it wasn’t always like super incredible like we worked within our means so start off and work within your

means don’t overspend because I can understand a lot of people initial begin over spend on these type of events for a little return but yeah getting a good

website understanding your key audiences and start reaching out to people get sponsorships to get together because a

lot of these big events they generally have three main sources of revenue sometimes only one but typically it tends to be sponsorships ticket sales

and maybe vendor like fees depending on obviously what type of event it is and you got to think about your outgoings as

well and what it’s going to cost to run these events that’s why I say when you’re first starting off keep it small with big Ambitions like try and test the

water because when you first time you can tral a lot of different things and then really understand that audience base and then from that point build upon

that so yeah get please get good logos in place like please just get some think about actual brand design think about

your core five brand values and what represent because it would shock you how many entrepreneurs and business owners

and events people have speak I’m like what are your core brand values what are your five values and what what a brand

values I’m like how can you build a business without understanding what your brand fundamentally stands and I can

list all five formats right now Community Heritage Innovation diversity

and also Community that’s there our five brand values and what we founded on as a business that’s what we do and being

able to really understand your see so that was a long Widing answer basically know there’s a bit of a practical element in there and then there’s a bit

of a knowledge based answer in there really understand who your audiences are what your brand is and then start getting those practical elements into

place get a website start getting decks put together and start doing Outreach and you know you might not get it

straight off that very few events get any form of funding on their first event but you just got to constantly keep outreaching to people I constantly

Network 247 even as an experienced event organizer because you have to so you have to be willing to really do it

events events is a lifestyle it is not a job like you have to want it so if you’re truly serious about it you have

to want it yeah no I can I understand that was a long-winded answer then well

I was going to potentially challenge you on the website thing a little bit because if you were starting on a website straight away in my head what if

you do a test event and then that changes your whole idea of like what events you want to do yeah so I’m

guessing when you were doing your event business you probably didn’t have a website on the first event but you then

got the website later so I was wondering like when is it right time to actually start investing in those type of things

yeah of course as I say and I would agree with you on that point like this is this is going to sound like very

primitive how we started ours was literally just a Facebook event we created an event and then click promote through meta business Suite so obviously

it depends it’s up that could be your starting point right that could be your starting point but one thing I will say

is that you’re going to want a centralized location that everyone can go to understand what the event is

understand what it is and it might be grow that business out over time maybe a website isn’t that but I would always say having some sort of centralized

location where you’ll be able to do that is really key and going on ticket pages are fine but ticket pages are very

limiting in what they can be that’s why I always up for a website and there’s plenty of free website options out there you can do like you don’t need to go

fancy you don’t have to build custom builds like what we’ve done like you know you can get on Wicks and that’ll teach you some creative aspects as well

because when you initially start off you’re going to be everything you’re going to be the graphic designer you’re going to be the programmer you’re going

to be the event or organizer you’re going to wear so many different hats I think just getting your head into that mindset early on is going to be

fundamental for the challenges that you’ll face moving forward and it’ll just give you an understanding about how events really do conduct themselves

online like all those successful events have websites all of them because most of time that’s what people go through

people look for a website so I want to touch on the event business for a few more minutes because yeah you have so

many different sides of your business so the event business you mentioned the website is a big source of I guess traffic so I wonder what does the I

guess what is the lead flow of attendees to your events do most people come from the website is it more from kind of

advertising like how do people find out about an event yes so from it our website traffic comes from kind of two

main directions so from the website perspective we either get people get direct searches so a lot of the time they’ll see like ads for it they’ll see

or you know they’ll see a content creator sharing news of the event but then they want to do a bit of independent research so they might see

their favorite influence sharing they’ll go right I actually want to know so that direct link could be from a link that someone has shared on their social

channels or it could be their manually search then there’s obviously the paid ad side of it which is Instagram

Facebook that sort of thing that people click on to it that generally tends to lead directly to our ticket pages but

the reason why I heavily emphasize a website is because it comes a collection point of data that you as an event

organizer can collect is that when you take things to ticket pages that obviously you can get some information

from a ticket page like we’re we we’re an exclusivity partner with skiddle and we can get access to certain things through that but websites if you do them

right and really do your Google analytics correctly you do the backend side of it or work with someone to do that it can give you age it can give you

gender it can tell you how long people are spending on certain pages and you can use that as a metric to optimize

your journey as an event organizer and that’s why I really emphasize websites because they just help you understand

what areas people do ultimately people search for tickets like on format first thing do people want to know where the tickets are so they go straight for

there but then off then the biggest thing is people want to learn more about the event that’s our second most popular page so that’s why I kind of really

highlight it because it’s not just a place for you to sell tickets it’s a place for you to get crucial audience

data that you can build up and use that for any marketing campaigns that you use for your events yeah I did a party in

Cyprus and I was trying to be very organized so I invested a bunch of money got a venue and I was tracking everyone

on folk it’s like CRM so it’s like oh I’m going to collect their data there and then I can message them about the next event so that got me thinking

there’s got to be a better way to do like CR M management for events is it any different to how companies

traditionally do CRM like do you track all your attendees and then put them on newsletter like how do you manage your

data when it comes to like your customers yeah so the one benefit of the format Group is because we’ve got so

many Avenues of the business from clients product we can really draw data in from so many things so people who say

buy something on the form map collection website they get an op in where they can learn about the events as well so they might buy some merchandise but most of

the time people who already buying the merchandise know what the event is anyway but they can opt in so youve got that other side of it our clients as

well they can sign up to and learn more about our ongoing activities and vice versa as well our attendees can learn

about our client side of things as well so amongst those attendees might be a creative Studio that’s looking for some

work to be done so we’ve got multiple avenu that you can do it but it varies from business to business because obviously certain businesses have more

Revenue than others some that so depending on how much money you have you can invest really deep into it I know

some companies that have insane CRM experts that are working on this stuff and they even build systems for them to

be able to do that so it it there are there are default methodologies of approach to it like a lot of people use

the same tools like I say we use we use Google analytics because Google analytics is really really helpful for us in terms of obviously a lot of that

is connected into all the other merchandise websites that we have which is connected to our merch site our our

agency site it’s connected to so many different moving components that it just gives us that centralized location where

we can look at all this stuff but companies all fundamentally use a lot of the same tools it’s just that they have more resources available if that kind of

answers your question yeah I’m thinking if you are first starting out and you’re building this like is there something

that you should really keep in mind when it comes to your CRM like is anything that you did now that you wish you

started doing at the start yeah so as say I was a huge novice of this so I’m not going to claim to be the ultimate

CRM expert there are people in the format team who understand the the implementation of it a lot more I was

super basic in my understanding it so I was using a lot of web website analytics tools just to help me track where people

were getting lost where people were not like clicking on where low engagement was I was a I was using our social media

tools to see what content was resonating with people at the time and then I was just using ve I emphasize very basic

Google analytics just to be able to actually figure out like how this stuff

works fundamentally from that side of thing then as we continue to grow and grow I was able to lend the expertise of

people who understand this stuff a little bit more when you’re first starting out and you’re wanting to get something Place lean on people for advice like speak to someone who stands

it’s like advice costs nothing at the end of the day unless you want it like full time but yeah and there’s plenty

there’s a lot more resources that are out there now that when I first started there’s entire YouTube courses that you

can sign up for there’s digital courses on CRM that you can do there now as well i’ probably benefit from doing one of

them if I had the time but there’s so many more resources out there now because as this creative sector has

grown so much in the last 15 years so is the demand for those skill sets within it so there’s more people teaching you

this stuff as well so really lean on the resources that are out there like I learned I learned a good chunk of stuff

off YouTube when I first started this business and it it’ll teach you so much out there now that it’s at your hand

it’s at your disposal it’s never been more easy to build a business but you need to it’s never been more easy to

build a business but it’s never been harder to become a successful business and to do that you have to will to put Graft in and you have to understand the

people that you’re already that you’re trying to Target fundamentally yeah I’d agree with that statement I think it’s

very easy to get started but I think because it’s so easy maybe people think it will be easy to win but

if you just like you say put in that graft it’s inevitable because yeah a lot of

people don’t so if you do you just win like as simple as that oh yeah

absolutely and a bit of piece of advice I give is and this is something you might even actually disagree with me on you know like graft is great and you know I I’ve been at the opposite where

I’ve had a successful business and I helped run an unsuccessful business that sadly didn’t work out you know graph

sometimes isn’t enough like you know you can work really hard on something and it still might not work out but it’ll teach

ultimate lessons from that and at points you are going to fail throughout business and it’s when you learn from

those failures and carry them into your successes that’s how you build the real meaningful successes so don’t beat

yourself up if your graph doesn’t work out you just pick yourself up you learn from it you tie that into the next thing

yeah no I’d agree like you win or you learn and I think the learn part if you’re doing something and you put in

110% of your effort in good example here is recruitment I went six months where I

didn’t do a single placement that’s like full-time hours and I’ve generated zero Revenue internally I could think oh I’m

useless but when I zoom out the next two months I did five placements which was worth loads so sometimes it is just the

season you’re in it could be a timing thing but then sometimes it could be something that is more strategy based

like you say it might be like the opportunity vehicle that you’re in it might be just you’re too early or it’s

just not the right time maybe the competition is way too good right now I’m not saying these are excuses to kind

of say this is why you failed but sometimes that is the case like my business is doing very well now but I

realize it’s because I’ve had a lot of success grafting with recruitment which is Business Development I’ve done a lot

of writing and I’ve done 200 guests on podcast so I can use that as a leg gen tool and I love going to conferences

like I’ve got all these Infinity Stones which make ghost writing and personal branding useful but if I started this

two years ago I’d be screwed but I’m still the same person so I think like you said like you can just hopefully

separate the fact that yes success but if you learned then it will be a

stepping stone to a future hopefully much bigger success so you’re definitely not worth beating yourself much up

however now that I’m saying that during that time where it was an unsuccessful business I wonder could you have

realized sooner and like is there a question we should be asking ourselves to realize that like if I’m put in graft

and graft and it’s not getting anywhere how do I know that’s due to not my lack of graph but like a

strategy thing like could you tell that story yeah so you’ve hit the nail on the head with that last word strategy so a

big thing for us is you know we had we were listening to a lot of traditional voices in the industry but one thing we would have benefited from is a real

business Mentor who had done exactly what it is that we’d done we were we were a game Studio like we worked on a

game studio and don’t get wrong it the business wasn’t a complete failure like I just class it as that because ultimately it just didn’t earn enough

Revenue to survive long term we did it for three years and you know we made a successful product like I’m still very

proud of the product that we made we made a video game and you know it did relatively okay like it did good like you know it kept the business aoat for

about another year and a half which you know more than most yeah more than most exactly and we lasted longer than most

startups don’t even last the first six months whereas is like yeah in gam is like 10% actually survive or like make

money on that game yeah exactly and we made two games and we worked on a few freelance projects as a work for high

Studio as well so I don’t consider it a complete failure But ultimately the business had to close down so technically depending on what your

perspective is you could class it as a failure or you could just see it as a learning experience depending on that but the big thing I think we would have benefited from we were a young team when

we started I say started it straight out of University like you know which obviously again traditional game design

courses we a bit we broke the mold a little bit like we wanted to run businesses we didn’t want to be putting boxes where we were just being taught to

be sent to a game studio and go work in a studio environment we we were being taught to be employees when we wanted to

be business owners if that makes sense most and this is kind of an issue I have with education as a whole really is that

they teachers to become employees not necessarily individuals and this is kind of like when I do guest lectures at

universities or when I go into colleges or very speaking events if I’m speaking to students or young impressionable

people I say don’t ever allow yourself to be put into a box because if you want to be a business owner you have to constantly think outside the box and

that’s one thing I think we didn’t do as early successful business is we tried to follow the mainstream sort of approach

that you know that traditional companies that you look at from the outside were doing really well you know we did everything we did influencers we did you

know we did press like we did trailers and like we sent it to people that’s great but at the end of the day like the

markets either going to bite it or it wasn’t and you know there were some factors that were outside of our control like a pandemic happened at the time

which you know some that did play a huge part in what happened like with the business all those years ago but

ultimately I think a big thing that we would have learned a lot from is having more wiser Sage Council from people who

really understood what it is that we were trying to do and really understood that side of it as well and it’s difficult as that when you’re a business

starting out when you haven’t got investment being pumped in or you’re trying to get a publisher for your game and you know it’s just not the right you

get the same excuses you know it’s a great product we want to sign it it’s just now is not the right time so you’re having to do a lot of that your own back

but I think one thing we definitely could have done is just really finding those key business mentors to work with

and that can really assist you on your journey because I I have a business m Mentor format that really helps me on a

day-to-day basis who just gives me advice everyone’s always saying like you you come across as like this hugely

independent guy and yeah I back myself like I know I’m good at what I do I know I’m insanely good at what I do but even

the most successful people like need advice and they have people that they can lean on for support So in your in

stages find the right people because ultimately you are a collection of the people you spend the most time with I

believe it was Steve B who said that you are accumulation of the five people that you spend the most time with and I’m a firm believer in that and if you’re

going to set up a business 90% of the p time people you’re surrounded by are the

people you set that business up with so you better Dam make sure that you get someone who understands what it is that you’re trying to accomplish surrounded

by you yeah you don’t know how much that resonates like I started April 1 my

business but I’ve been in like six cohort coaching programs so on LinkedIn

you might have seen a cohort so it’s like you basically get group setting where you with a mentor I’ve done that

like six different times people who help with personal branding some who’ve helped with speaking sales all of that

jazz and then some of those like three of them have went to onetoone coaching for me and now I’m working with two of

them which help me in my business that is pretty much the only reason I’m like doing any form good like you like you I

back myself but you don’t know what you don’t know it’s such a good quote and like there’s so many things where I

spoke to four different ghost writing agencies and all of them had very cool things which I weren’t doing I merged

them all together but then on the next call I shared ah here’s what’s happened and then that agent was like oh I’m

stealing that that’s very cool because they weren’t necessarily doing that even though they were successful so it is a

constant thing that’s super useful just constantly chat and what you said at the start is very important a lot of this

can be free like a lot of this if you just put time in to like have that coffee chat or just Network like you say

a lot of people will give you a lot of time for free like for example this Thursday I’m doing a live um so this is

after the recording comes out but I’m doing 90 minutes on LinkedIn with alif FAA roasting profiles and I will give

the same advice I would give on a paid coaching call but these things and opportunities are out there I think Amir

at has a very good example that spreadsheet I’ve recommended people looking to join the industry to go on that because if you send a 100 messages

you’re going to get five calls and those five calls could change your complet completely change your life oh it’s

massive it is absolutely Outreach and being there in person is so key for this I go to every event that I can possibly

get to because really every single one not every single one I haven’t got time for that I’ve got I’m curious like how many events are we doing are we talking

a year because this sounds like a lot oh right okay well everyone’s always ruing events I’m actually part of a huge event

organizers call where we all kind of get together and we say right listen we don’t want to trip on each other’s toes

what dates are you all planning all make sure and because today again oversaturated Market is that there’s

always something happening but that’s also a benefit of you starting a business there always something happening like I’m going to Gamescom

later this month like getting getting my ass out to there to be able to get that side of things done there’s other events

that are happening I’m going to an event the week like a 2day event the week before format Liverpool because there’s

Business Leaders there that I have to network with like I physically have to be in the same room as those people big

people like it’s a week before like your biggest Festival like are you insane I’m like yeah but as a business owner I’ve

got to think those people are in that room I can secure an initial sponsor later down the line or I could secure an

exhibitor or a client for our client business and you know this is this is the burden that you take on as a

business owner is that you will struggle to switch off like your business becomes part of your identity I do think as I’ve got older I really do push the message

of be kind to yourself like at the end of the day like remember that you are a human being and I think that people as

entrepreneurship and business building has become more oversaturated key voices in the industry as well who I think have

become a little bit more toxic than they should have done like you know it used to be all about building your business

like everything it needs to consume your daily life whereas I think we forgot that you should work to live not live to work because ultimately what are you

working for if you’re not living which is I fell into that trap myself I used to be this grind mentality guy like it

was literally like listening to a Gary ve impersonator every single day like he’s to hustle and grind like every

single day but then I found what am I actually grinding for about not spending time with my family or taking time to

actually go travel the world or do all these things that I’m working hard for to begin with anyway and it can become a

bit of a disease which is why I’m constantly telling people remember what it is that you stand for your brand values and remember why you started this

to begin with like most of the business owners I knew did it because they wanted to provide for their families but then they work all the time and they don’t

spend time with their families so which is why I don’t go to every single event now because I remember I also have a

life outside of my work but then I also prioritize which events I go to so in terms of events I do prioritize what

events I go to like I I can’t be every single one but I try and go to as many than as a can because a lot of stuff

there is free like where you would sometimes pay to go to a certain conference to meet someone these people

are at these other little events that you’ve never heard of and you can get access to them free of charge because they’re free meetups or free little get

togethers like really learn where the people that you want to Target go to

whether you’re in Hospitality recruitment I imagine from a recruitment stand point I mean recruiters are in every industry anyway but the T of

clientele that you were after I imagine was it game specific that you were after basically all the big gaming events I

was curious you said I have a few questions here because I love me some networking but you just said learn about

these small events go on you going to Spill the tea like is there any small events that I should know about oh yeah absolutely so that well it’s not really

small but a lot of people don’t hear about is Scottish games week which is fantastic like the the best of the games

Industries best of the games industry in the UK is in Scotland Rockstar uh we’ve

got all sorts of big companies up there that people don’t think about it because everyone’s always like oh it’s all in London it’s like actually the biggest

companies in the UK are in Scotland and they’ve got a huge weekl long conference you’ve got games talks live where all

these big companies go to there that a lot of people don’t hear about games talks live you’ve got the likes of

gamebridge in Middlesboro where you’ve got like the big like double 11 guys up there you got the radical Forge guys who

run that side of things there’s a small event called format the ultimate game and soal you might have heard of it I’ve

heard the guy who runs it bit of a dick though personally you might not want to go to that event I’m joking by the way yeah I was gonna say format sounds very

familiar yeah it sounds s now do come to format though if you listen to this when is that event uh that the Liverpool one

is September 26 and another great event I do have to shout out is the guys at game Republic as well in Yorkshire like

if you are looking for those networking events they’re the events to be at Fantastic the guys at game Republic do

an amazing job do go to that there’s all these small events that you hear of like there’s the Bristol games meet up

there’s Guilford games Festival that happens in Guilford which is like there’s so many of them you don’t think because we all just think egx games come

like no like there’s a lot of these event there’s a lot of these smaller events that you can be going to every

single one of those events I haven’t heard of before and it’s my job to go to events as well never heard of game have

you I’m quite disappointed no that one I’ve heard of because I’m going there calm down I me the small ones and but

that’s really cool I’m clipping that because that needs to go on LinkedIn because I’m sure a lot of people um don’t know about those events but it’s

super cool because you mentioned some of them are free which I think some people forget like not everything has to break the bank oh no absolutely like Gil for

games Festival is completely free and you can go speak to big studios there like if you’re a member of game Republic

like you get access access to all their events for free I think it’s like a yearly subscription then you get um heem

of events for free like those guys do Insane levels and games talks live like

depending obviously that there certain events that you can get to there with those guys if you’re a student like you can get access for your education

Partnerships and there’s just so many amazing events out there that I highly recommend to people amazing I

wna if you’re up for it share our networking strategy for Gamescom okay

absolutely so my I always have a strategy I think I said this to you when met and develop b my big strategy is the

best deals are done at the bar I find out where all the business owners that and you can clip that that is a quote

that I will never have anyone steal from it the best deals are made at the bar okay so I find out where all the parties

are I find like develop Brighton this year I didn’t even go on the Expo floor

I I literally used it to walk through it to get to the meeting sectors or to where a new people were I I go around

the Expo floor because I know that majority of the time that the people I want to speak to are not there they’re

in meetings or they’re at events and that’s where that’s my strategy as I find where the key people are obviously

a lot of these events do tend to have like official meeting systems I do highly advise people to take advantage

of that because there might be a key figure that you really want to speak to and if they you can book an official meeting with them like please do it

because obviously their times going become more valuable and obviously you don’t want to pin it completely on chance that you might get to chat to

them at some event so if there’s key people you want to Target try and put meetings with those people as early as

possible but most of the time go and find out where the people you are that you want to Target are hanging out at

these events and be present there because like some like format like yeah we do do a one round the Showcase FL we

try and eye up what games so our coo he was playing the games at developed bright and I said to him right go find out what games would work very well at

format so if you can delegate that that’s absolutely great but most of the time find out where the people you want to speak to are and that is my strategy

for a lot of the events I go to is I find out where the people I want to Target are hanging out I go there or if

there’s some sort of meeting system I book meetings with people but at the end of the day if you’re a business owner you’re there to do business like you’re

not there it’s not a holiday like obviously enjoy it like try and enjoy it as much as you can but if you’re trying to get some real return of interest on

your time for going to this because timately that’s another thing about business that people forget is your time costs money like it’s the biggest T it’s

actually the biggest interest I would probably say is that think how many hours you’re spending on something is that returning the interest that you

need it to do also as a business and as you’re first starting out you’re going to sacrifice your time because obviously

time time equals money but when you’re at events like this you need to prioritize your time so yeah that is

actually a talk that I’ve submitted to multiple conferences is that it’s a talk that I have here on my computer that I like to do is it’s called a games

industry Survival Guide for attending events it down because a lot you don’t actually see any talks about going to

have you done that talk yet oh yeah I’ve done it before I’ve done it I was gonna say I was gonna suggest we do it on

LinkedIn live because I’ll do it I’ll do it on LinkedIn live with you because there’s no there’s no recordings of it

yet so if you want if we do it on LinkedIn live we can make it engagement and if we do it potentially be before

games one might be a stretch but like that could be very interactive I think that could be quite a good one to do

right before format Liverpool the games industry Survival Guide to attending events yeah that that would be sick because I would love to give a talk on

that I gave a talk on LinkedIn branding our Nordic game and I really enjoyed it and it was impromptu CU there was like

hey do you want to give a talk like sure we did like an hour of Q&A and everyone was like what cuz like everything you’ve

just said I can assure you because I’ve been to these events people do not have a strategy they roam the floor they book

one or two meetings on meet to match and then they’re like great now what yeah and some of them think the Expo stops at

5:00 P p.m. and they go home I’m like no that’s when it starts you go to the no

the parties the best bit so when we went to develop Brighton I had a whole list of every event like the itinerary was

insane like rco was literally like we’re not we’ve not got enough time for this and we’re right we didn’t have enough time for everything pick and choose

exactly it it was literally like right we’ll spend 20 minutes here we’ll go here and like you can get lost in that

but ultimately time is money at these events and I had a strategy I was like we’re going to Target these events I’m gonna have these meetings at these times

whatever free little bit of time we’ve got in between these events I’m going to try and book a meeting in between the events and there was literally not some

I was never not doing anything at develop Brighton it got to point where some industry mates like oh you off to

another meeting and like kind of sarcastic ially in my head I was like why aren’t you like oh wait you’re doing work

you’re making me feel bad no not necessarily but I feel like it’s some of that Vibe sometimes you know yeah it’s

like why are you here if you’re not working like like don’t I love catching up with people like yeah I love it like

if I see you at an event in the future like Harry how’s it going mate let’s grab a quick drink some point soon but ultimately we’re business owners we’ve

got to prioritize our time and if there’s a big publisher that I need to speak to about maybe getting some client

work or maybe even being able to like you know be able to get them as an exhibitor at format then I need to be at

that meeting ultimately to be able and because everything I’m doing is for the business or for our attendees or for our

clients absolutely everything and just prioritize that I’m rambling here a little bit but yeah I will absolutely do

a LinkedIn live with you about the games and survival guide to aveng events because a lot of people don’t have a strategy and I think having that

handbook if you like presentation just helps people really come to formul how to maximize their time at events I’m

making it less daunting as well I’m doing the meet the Gamescom strategy for my clients now because a lot of them

didn’t have a strategy before and yeah a lot of it is just like being a lot less formal with your invitation messages on

meet to match that’s a massive thing that’s helped a lot so being yeah I’m sure we can talk for hours on that but

like the messages you get on me to much I hope this email finds you well and you are having a lovely week I would like to

please take advantage of your script writing services about how we can incorporate this into our B just say

I’ve seen your stuff it looks cool can coffee question mark literally my my my calling card I’ve started using it just

coffee question mark after saying something that is clear that you’ve looked at their profile like hey the one

tip I would give which has worked really well for me so I always book out on meet to match I’m pretty much booked and I

attributed it to this one little bracket I put I say I appreciate you’re very busy based on your schedule no worries

we can meet at a party or an event I’m sure that’s how we met wasn’t it I’m sure you re because I think I sent

probably that message yeah you sent play play develop I remember but then I was like our stuff is clashing like it

actually worked out better you were just like listen here’s the events I’m at let’s chat and again bring it back to my point the best deals are made at the bar

like yeah now we’re having a podcast and we’re chatting and it was because I opened the door for that to be a

possibility so it’s not as crazy and people yeah some people might not accept

your invitation because of logistics but they might want to chat to you but they’re not going to be the person who’s going to go through and really follow up

cuz people got a lot of stuff to do so if you give them that opening to do that is game changer yeah absolutely like

believe it or not that everyone’s always like how do people reject meetings with you like because sometimes what I’m trying to offer them doesn’t align with

their schedule but I often found them when people were saying they come meet me on me to match they were saying but listen one of our people or our team is

going to be at this event or they’re going to be on the show floor do you want to meet them as a substitute and then they can relay it back to me and that’s what I did and we’ve secured

another sponsor format Liverpool just off that back like literally we had a separate meeting with one of their staff

they took it back to them then they had a SE the actual person I wanted the original meeting with made some time for me the following week and we have

another sponsor yeah perfect lovely so I’m going to park networking because I feel like we’re going to go into that

deep on that live so yeah I want to talk about the other parts of the business because this is very interesting because

I feel like it’s very hard to make a profitable event business I feel like that’s a statement that is just true and

it looks like you’ve managed to get the attention and traffic that you’ve had from the event business and then you’ve

kind of used that to Market these Services which are a lot more higher margin which I found very cool no

absolutely like don’t get me wrong like I initially was always planning to just build an events business but wow big

thing for me is that I I love branding like I love Brands like my two babies

are behind me my two biggest Inspirations so you got format there on one shoulder Nike above the other

because what Nike have done is when people think Nike most think clothing I don’t think clothing I think about all

the community activities that they do I think about the agency side where they often fashion services to some of the

biggest brands in the world they have their own they have their own merchandise for like water bottles and

all this other they they do agriculture work like did you know that they do agriculture stuff my green screen’s gone

down that’s fine I’ll leave oh no not the green screen it’s not a

curtain yeah you don’t have real pictures behind you like me you’re fraud yeah no but Nike is one another one I

can think of Red Bull Red Bull’s probably actually a primary example yeah that Red Bull are not an energy drink

company do not mistake yourself they are not an energy drink company they have Esports they have formula F1 they’ve got

so many arms to that business and I I applaud Red Bull whatever your thoughts of them are I don’t care what they have

build is phenomenal and this is what a lot of the best businesses do ultimately they pivot it they use the initial thing

that they started off and did really well and pivot into other sectors which is kind of what I always really wanted to do with it because there’s so much

stuff we wanted to do like we launched our own clothing line ear this year next year I want to do a fashion show well we’re already launching more clothes in

October we’re launching a new Range I can say one of them we’re even launching bomber jackets and bags like everyone

but from that I want to do a fashion show format fashion show you w think that from a games industry brand because no games industry events ever do their

own fashion shows but I want to do that because ultimately gaming is such a diverse like array of so many things

like and some some game studios try that like some game studios do try and Implement other Industries into their stuff but ultimately that’s that was

kind of one of my aim goals was to build so many different arms of the business the agency side allows us to work on cool client projects I’m announcing

another one in two weeks time that we’re working on last year we did a commercial with resle who were an augmented VR

reality Studio where we got to literally make a Nike ad for them which was Insanity being on an actual set with

like models and sports people like I worked with Britain’s number one Fe emale boxer and one of Britain’s number

one NFL players like yes we do have NFL in the UK and that’s just an exciting arm of it and you won’t think that

looking at it we are rebranding our main website later this year to really reflect this sort of stuff because we’ve just had so much to talk about and then

we’ve just used that to Branch out into things but to bring it back to your original statement setting up an events

company is very difficult because as I highlighted earlier in the podcast sorry my glasses keep slipping down I imagine this is really it’s super hot here in

the UK for anyone who’s listening right now and I’m sat here in a jumper for Branding purposes and I’m absolutely

sweating so my glasses keep falling down for anyone who’s watching this thinking why does he keep touching his face that

is why um you probably didn’t even notice and you’re gonna notice it now every time I do to bring it back to this

what I mentioned is that a lot of events they rely on kind of depending on the type of event and sometimes they don’t even have this many Avenue sources but

before format for example the main event like we’ve got kind of free main incomes sponsorships tickets and exhibitor fees

but say you’re running a B2B conference event you’re probably just relying on sponsorship and ticket sales and if it’s

a free ticket event it’s literally sponsorships and you’ve got to think about your outgoings like production are

you paying the speakers to be there like so many variable facts and then you’ve got to think about your net profit on

that and then you’ve got to think about things like the lovely little things like tax how much are you actually taking away how much time are you

spending on this stuff and that can get really difficult and it breaks my heart because events are the backbone of any

industry whether it’s recruitment TV film like it’s how people get together it’s how Community comes and flourishes

together but yet there’s almost a love for events but almost like a kind of taking them for Advantage approach I’ve

found throughout the world like you would notice if they left but you don’t appreciate them when you have them I’ve

often found as F whereas some in the event seor we appreciate events because obviously we live and breathe this stuff

like we absolutely love it obviously I’ve got multiple arms to the business but events is where I started and I love

events like I love the magic of events because they’re a journey similar to video games the reason I love video games to take you on a journey I’ve

implemented that same methodology into my Approach when I design an event but a lot of the time events are the backbone

of any Community or any industry I don’t know what it’s like in recruitment do you even have like recruitment like festivals and stuff I imagine it exists

as a festival for everything yeah there’s something called wreckfest I’ve never been I’ve been the one to go to

where the clients go but there there are events yeah and you would notice if these things are not here that’s why I’m

always pushing for people to support the events like really support them whether if you’re a big brand and you got money

like helps sponsor an event like you’ll get that return whether it’s from Brand awareness or whether you want to do that

or if you’re an attendee go to these events and support them because a lot of the time you will notice if they’re not

there it’s just that obviously I had the foresight to recognize that we needed over arms and the busit that we can pump

additional stuff back into the overall Archer and a group of the format group I feel like events I’m I’m

painting the bridge the analogy of like a YouTube channel cuz a YouTube channel

could rely on its own on ad Revenue but it’d be a lot more sustainable if you use that traffic to then take it to a

product and I feel like you’ve done this a little bit here in the event kind of example and I wonder is that a bad

thing like should an event business be okay with breaking even or losing a

little bit of money but then using that traffic to push that into high margin Services because then in my head that

would make the event stay like the event that you like which is the ones which are less capitalistic like we said

earlier in the chat so I wonder is that just not a viable strategy I think it depends on the

business and what you’re ultimately trying to achieve so for me personally I get I will agree and disagree what

you’re saying so I get that there’s other opportunities that could come from doing an event that breaks even but then as I mentioned you’ve got the time of

your personal time you have to think about events unless you actually organize an event you don’t understand

how consuming it is like I’ve just been given a bit of coaching mentorship to someone organizing their first event and

they they it’s going to be fantastic like I know it’s going to be a fantastic event they’ve gone all out for it kudos

to them I can’t say who they are but I’m very like I’m very excited to go to this event but they came to me like I’m

spending like six hours of my my8 to nine hour working day on this thing and

like we’re only just breaking even I’m like well that’s a question you got to ask yourself actually this is a perfect way to answer this question like that

I’m saying are you trying to make money off this like what are you trying to ultimately aim for it and they’ve said I

can’t I’m trying not to reveal too much because I don’t want to reveal like what their ultimate aim is but they like but there are other things that we will

benefit from so for them that works because that can TI of things but if you’re wanting to make money off the

event and you think that that’s not viable then you have a need to change pivot and capitalize on your event a

little bit more to grow it but I don’t think you need to become capitalistic to organize a good event like you even if

you do like a corporate event that is designed to make money you can still make that event fun it’s that to me

personally I feel like a lot of people put profit ahead of customer which at that point there’s no point in even doing an event if you’re purely an

events company looking to do events and you prioritize profit over customer

eventually your events are GNA can I swear on this thing are you going to bleep that out you can swear yeah

eventually your customers are going to think your event is but and they’re not going to come back and then all that

excess profit you made that’s going to go very quickly whereas if you did actual value for the consumer because

what you remember is they’re paying money they’re investing your time like your customers are ultimately an investor they’re investing in you to

give them the return like that experience that they want and if you’re not facilitating that then you better hope you have other arms of the business

that you can rely on because otherwise that’s not going to do so I realize that hasn’t answered your initial question

which it it’s a very open-ended question it depends on what your business ultimate business aims are and what your

goals are it’s not a one-size fits all like for over arms of the format business like I would potentially maybe

do like one of our reformat industry mixers and break even it meant that we got clients from the the people that

attend that but format the ultimate game social absolutely not like this thing is a colossal amount of time like there’s

25 game studios it’s it’s an expo in one night it is literally an expo like you’ve got music performers you’ve got

Esports you’ve got content creators live streaming like all these conversations that we have to have behind the scenes

to make all these moving components of the event actually happen that’s a lot of time a lot of overtime on my time a

lot of the time like the way I see it is I’ve sacrificed a bit of money with the extra time that I spend putting into this stuff outside of my work hours but

obviously it depends on what your ultimate aim is like I’m very transparent about this stuff like businesses need to make money and it

it’s a double-edged sord of you have all these great ideas and you want to stay true to your purpose but then you need

money as a business to operate you do like I meet some event organizers like oh you actually charge for tickets don’t you like do you not think that’s a bit

think no I don’t because I’m providing one hell of an experience I’m providing the ultimate night outmate you’re

getting a rave which some people pay 50 Quid just to go and listen to the music you’re getting live music performances

you’re getting content creators Esports video games in that environment like

you’re getting an you’re getting a memory like that effectively that’s what you’re getting for it but yes I’m

diverting here a little bit from the original question is basically depending on what your business model is and what you’re hoping to achieve I think it

depends if you can calculate that Roi and guarantee it then maybe doing a break even event is but sadly events

need to make money to survive and it’s too of and I’m probably getting a little bit heated over this because I meet so

many good events that just break even and it makes me really sad because they deserve to make money for their time

because eventually and I’ve seen this happen before is that someone has a really great event and they just get burned out because they don’t see that

return of interest and then they just don’t do event again and it never happens it’s sh again you notice them

when they’re gone like you do you don’t take them for Advantage when there but you notice them when they’re

gone I think you what you mentioned about focusing on that Customer because they become returning customers and I

feel like with events that’s everything right and to only to get a returning customer you need to be fun but you also

need to have money to actually put on the next event so my question here is a practical one like could you take us

behind the scenes of organized doing that massive event like how do you make sure it scales makes money but also it

stays fun because you’re doing two things at the same time which some could argue go against each other when you

have a bigger event maybe it’s going to be less fun yeah of course so my approach to format is that ultimately we

are we’re not an expo and we are not a conference we are a nightlife event for the games industry so from that there

are mulp so obviously it it operates like if you break down the event to its absolute cm core form it operates

similar to an XO like you’ve got game showcases okay but then how do you transform that a lot of that is about

Journey so I come from a game design background so my unique perspective in game design probably enables this to me

I plan excessively the journey that I want to take my attendees through from the minute they walk through and I call

it the Skyrim effect for anyone who’s ever played like Skyrim or a Bethesda game they always have it where they have you start out on Summit you exit and

then they introduce the world to you and you have this big whoa that a similar approach that I take with events so from

that that’s how I’m able to maintain that sort of Community Field to it I never rent out even though I could I

never rent out these big empty Halls that you just find because it creates Dead Space you want to create a social

atmosphere so for format Liverpool we’ve got two warehouses now you’re thinking warehouse and thinking well Sur that

he’s just contradicted himself no because the nighlife venues fundamentally built for nightlife events

and when you add things like the showcases in there you add the Esports Zone it’s going to create a healthy flow of traffic that’s going to force people

to engage with the event like put it this way you physically cannot experience everything at format you will

not be able to play every game you will not be able to watch every music performance you will not be able to pay

the L unless you want to do a speedrun of it and I challenge you to do it because I would love to see someone try and speed run a format event and try and

do everything that the event has to offer and I would love that I would absolutely love it if someone actually proved me wrong on this but I heavily

curate the experience and obviously we have to make business business so what I do is I go out and find sponsors that

can either tie into our reformat industry mixers that can you know from the B2B side of it or I try and find

people that align with the main event itself whether that’s a game Studio a publisher a brand an Esports

organization music like we have brands that you would for example we’ve got an audio production company that sponsor

our events based in Canada and they’re flying over from Canada send the now people why do you need an audio production company when you’ve got a

venue well these people want to scout clients out so they’re paying us money for that access to be able to come and

basically get access to all these companies sorry I’m diverting away from your original question here sorry I I one of these people I like to Waffle

when I explain the process because it’s such a huge process that goes into this

because I understand what our initial brand values are and what I’m trying to achieve with this event I I know what I

don’t want it to become if that makes sense I know what I can’t say what the end goal was but my worst fear for this

event was would be to become one of these huge capitalistic events that maybe one closed down earlier this year

maybe I don’t know I won’t say much about it but when you go to events like that and there’s a lot of dead space why

is there a lot of dead space because they’re not providing any real value to the people that get involved they’re

overcharging because they’re hiring these huge spaces that they don’t ultimately need because people just want

to have a fun experience and that’s at the core of what we do and yes we have loads of Brands like we get funding from

the Liverpool Council to do what we do but we tie all that in into what we’re trying to achieve and we try and

maximize that as best possible we’re a business ultimate that has to make money like we have to make we have to make money on this is this answering your

question or am I it is we’ve got a couple things there we got the Dead Space is a huge one because I’ve been to

a few events this year where it’s like yeah you could fit like five

times the amount of people in there and you still wouldn’t necessarily bump into people now yeah from Harry Fu’s

perspective it was still okay because I’m the type of person who would go up to you and be like hey nice shoes let’s

chat like I would actually force that to happen but for the average person that much Dead Space yeah it’s work it’s like

a lot of mental energy to actually start conversations where it’s happening more naturally both playing a game at the same time it’s just a better experience

so second that fantastic and I love the Skyrim analogy because I can picture it very well because sometimes you go to a

conference like to be honest bright and develop interesting experience when you go in you’re like okay and then it takes

a long time to find that conference area and then it takes a long time to go to the meeting match area which is a

completely different space it’s obviously just Logistics that’s happened to be the layout of the hotel but I can

imagine that wouldn’t that would you would have designed that differently if you wanted to yeah so obviously you’ve

got limitations of the space so how I’ve designed form at Liverpool for example and I’ll share some insight we’ve got two warehouses that you’re going to go

into I’m calling one the crazy warehouse and I’m calling one the fun warehouse so the fun warehouse I’m putting all like

single player games or like your stuff you can sit down and kind of consume there’s like even the music artists in

there like afro beats R&B like people who quite chill chill then the crazy Warehouse has got like your Rave like

your DJs that are going full out lasers everything I need to I need to get this date in the diary man what’s the date

again September 26th but if you want M I’ll put you on the guest list for the VIP industry mixer as well yeah because

this is fun I might bring someone because this sounds like a good time everyone on this podcast is like wait I just have to invite him on a podcast to

get a ticket to the VIP no I try and see what happens Business Leaders want to reach out to me and come to our industry

mixer and network with key Business Leaders like that might be a conversation for us to have Harry if you know Business Leaders that might want to

come yeah that is a conversation we will have don’t you worry um I cut you off

because I really wanted to get that date so 26th of September that’s really cool 25th is the VIP which is our reformat

industry mixer which a lot of people always ask where they can buy tickets you cannot buy tickets to this thing

that USP it is you have to be invited which is why a lot of big Brands sponsor us because they know they’re getting

access to the key decision makers that they want to speak to basically imagine an exclusive event where it’s business

owners or heads of departments or CEOs that’s what you want to be in the room with effective a lot of the time at

these events and then starts the 25th and then we’ve got our main Festival which is on the 26th September then

we’ve got the Afterparty on the 27th as well the Afterparty is a little bit more chill like people turn up to that really drunk and basically just continue to get

drunk right but it’s a three day long Festival effectively like I used to be really hesitant on calling it a festival

people have had to drag that out of me like I didn’t ever used to want to call it a festival because I had a definition

it’s like entrepreneur I never used to want to call myself an entrepreneur but I’ve warmed to it over the years I used to call myself a businessman which I

used to have a bit of a negative stigma with the word entrepreneur but what’s the stigma with Festival I’m curious uh

because I have a definition of what a festival is like when I think of a festival I think of the likes of Glastonberry I think of the likes stuff

like that basically and I think format is an i back it like we are Europe’s biggest games industry night life event

but to me a festival is like you know multi-day sort of thing but ultimately we are multiday then it’s just that you’re not there intents you’re not

there intents and frankly I wouldn’t make people sit in tents I all sounds like a better festival San yeah

expectably and it’s in the evening it’s it’s 6 till like two in the morning some people don’t even leave till 4:00 like we’ve L had people stay from like 6:00

till 4: like they just don’t want to go like it’s just like yeah yeah and then you got the after party so

I’ve been warmed up but I call it the ultimate game in Social as opposed to a festival because I think that perfect

cones what format GG um events are amazing i’ I’ve been missing out clearly

because I yeah this is just too cool go on the website t format. g and the video

sells it like I don’t even have to the thing is you know how you pitched a clients like when people ask what format is I don’t even tell them I don’t give

them an elevated pitch I literally play on the video I’m like this is that’s yeah my my pitches show the notion Board

of my client work and then they’re like this is what happens do you want to start and they’re like yes it’s a lot

easier when you just show them um what the actual thing looks like fantastic so before we close out

here just curious is there anything you’d share that you we haven’t covered

today that you’d really want to share to potentially aspiring um entrepreneurs or

anything that you want to cover yeah of course um as for me would be three pieces of big advice I like to

always end on so for anyone who wants to embark on the Journey of Entrepreneurship or business ownership

or business leadership understand that a lot of the time this is going to start off from a negative but I will turn it

into a positive because this is from my personal experiences that it can be a very lonely Journey it can be there are

incredible highs and then there are incredible lows at certain points and I of to find that all business owners like

you see like the people we look up to online like there are people that I look up to and I know deep down they’ll have

their own dips and Dives as a business as they do that okay it is not an easy Journey so please don’t become overs

saturated with thinking that if you start out and it starts to get really tough that’s fine all businesses go through tough areas it’s how you

approach that and manage it so please understand that understand what you’re getting into before you sign up to it

because you need to do all your research beforehand like you need to understand who your core Market audiences and you

need to understand that there’s going to be failures and successes along the way but you’ve just got to persevere through them and adapt and survive that is the

law of the animal kingdom you adapt and you survive that and it’s the same in business so remember that my core second

thing would be please Network I meet so many people who don’t like networking and it this is one of my more blunt

things that I let say if you don’t Network you’re not going to succeed that is ultimately how it was you need to go

out and talk to people unless you are that .1% a person who launches something it becomes a multi-million pound success

overnight and you can hire people to do networking on your behalf 99.9% of the

time you have into Network and it’ll help you grow as a person you’ll meet different Industries you’ll meet

different people and that will pivot you as a business businesses change all the time you started off making Footwear now

look at them look what the Red Bulls and energy drink now look at them like they literally got on your arms so I really

encourage people to network go to as many events that you can as possible and please just try and Forge meaningful business connections at every single pip

and then number three is ultimately understand your call brand five five core brand values understand who you are

as a business because if you don’t understand your identity how can you understand expect others to understand

you I like that two solved number one exactly yeah if you network you don’t

feel lonely because it doesn’t that’s a thing we can have in control thing we might not control is the the troughs of

business but we can control what we do with that which is yeah I I I love I

love I love nwork it’s just too fun it’s too fun it’s too it’s too useful it’s

it’s everything but I appreciate why it’s scary which is why we’re going to be doing a LinkedIn live event later this so whenever that comes out lovely

simran let close off where should people go to find out more about you or to connect with you yeah of course so um

for those that want to find out more about me personally I’m very active on all social platforms so I’ve lit got everything from LinkedIn X you can find

me a simam wium super easy like there’s no da usern names simam witam or simam

witam on everything super easy accessible and I’m always open for a conversation if you’re a business owner that wants to get involved our events or

you’re looking to promote your brand you’re looking for Creative Services get in touch and then if you want to get in touch with format it’s format. where you

can find out and get in touch with us amazing Sim thank you so much really enjoyed this conversation no you’re very

welcome Harry it was a pleasure to be here