“ There ’ s no doubt our costs have increased significantly with suppliers . We ’ re fortunate that we ’ ve got a lot of suppliers we work with on a long-term basis , and we can have good , open and honest , conversations with them . The last thing we want is our suppliers to struggle because that impacts the quality of the events we can deliver . So , we ’ ve managed to sit down with a lot of our suppliers and work with them .
“ We ’ ve got some really big events coming up in 2023 , with Ryder Cup , our Genesis Scottish open and BMW PGA Championship Wentworth . We ’ ve certainly seen increases in costs but it ’ s about working with the suppliers , being more efficient and trying to do things in the most cost-effective way we can . We have had to increase our budgets , but the revenues are really , really strong so as well as the additional costs there is additional income coming in .”
People power In order to truly build back better in the wake of the pandemic and address the ubiquitous industry staffing issues created by the exodus of experienced personnel during the two-year downtime , Organise Chaos ’ Goodchild suggests he live events industry focus on four key things in order to attract and retain staff ; education and training , creating structured career paths , improving diversity and inclusion , and wellbeing .
“ We are surrounded by some wonderful people , a lot of whom are ready to take the next steps in their career ,” she says . “ Sponsoring the NOWIE Level-Up mentoring programme has shown my organisation first-hand that there are people out there who are stuck in a particular level of their career and are struggling to take the next steps . As an industry , we need to commit to educating and training the people we
BMW PGA Championship
already have so they can take those next steps up and we don ’ t lose them to other industries .
“ We need to examine not only how we can invest in our teams , but also what this looks like as an entire sector because currently there is a lot of disparity between how we assess who is ‘ qualified ’ to undertake jobs .”
She also suggests that in order to better retain workers , budding event professionals should be presented with structured pathways to a sustainable working life : “ How do they get promoted to their next role ? What training do they need to get there ? How does this look when they become a mother or want a career break ? How does this look when they are a freelancer with no work ? I worry that we don ’ t offer this kind of visible path to people , and without it we look like an uncertain career choice .”
The experienced production specialist also believes there is much work needed to drive greater diversity and inclusion across the industry , and there needs to be a change of culture in terms of what is expected of people when working on projects .
“ We need to be working to quash the idea that we can all work extra-long days , for weeks on end in challenging and stressful
“ Value for money , when people come on site , is going to be really important .”
– Mark Casey , European Tour head of tournament business
environments without having the breaks , support , and welfare that we need ,” she says . “ Every day I feel we are getting better at this , but even last year I was still hearing horror stories of people working 20-hour days because shows were not resourced properly or people don ’ t have the right support channels to be able to raise their issues . If we can ’ t stamp this out , then we risk losing even more talented people to other sectors .”
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