been able to accelerate it because we ’ ve got a team of specialists in the business and that was already there when we acquired the event businesses .” We then move on to how this year has played out , whilst it has been a tough journey Paul is keen to focus on the positives . “ I think for me , the learning we ’ ve had through this year is how do we blend what we ’ ve learned digitally , with a live , play . I think the real success story for us is in the educational content we ’ ve been serving up , we ’ ve done about 8,500 master classes , and we are about to launch content designed to attract UK and US audiences with our first series of 12- hour learning sessions . “ It ’ s on our new platform , is on-demand and is effectively our version of Netflix . It is where we want to house all our video content and will be where you can learn and educate |
yourself . It will represent a further step up the value curve as it will be priced at significantly more than it cost to attend one of our shows for example . “ We then think there is an opportunity to bring these communities together in a live format , you might do this course with 200 other people and want to meet them in person or meet the teacher in person . And we also think there are opportunities to move into e-commerce as delegates will need product to complete the course leading to the potential for on-line marketplaces . “ It is likely to be small in the first instance and more likely to be affiliate revenue than trying to take on eBay but its new revenue . So fundamentally it is about ‘ loving our live ’ as the place where people come together but using the digital to have a more ongoing relationship .” |
We finish by discussing what Byrom sees as the next steps for the business , the growth so far has been impressive but how does he see that going forward . He says : “ We are definitely acquisitive , that is a big part of the story of how we ’ ve grown . We will continue to be and want to look at more event acquisitions as |
we continue to be positive around live . We think we can apply our digital and print expertise to create the value we were discussing earlier and what ’ s great about acquisitions is they allow you to get into new sectors , but we are platform agnostic about how we get into a new sector in as long as it ’ s got scale .” |