Profile
SUPPLIER FOCUS
Maelstrom
ALTERNATIVE VENUE
Exhibition London
Maelstrom Event Solutions
MD Matt Lambert talks
water-skiing, short lead
times and solving problems
on the show floor
How has your business changed over the past five
years?
We’ve gone through a significant growth period,
which meant that as well as offering event
management solutions for the exhibition industry,
we have now set up our own in-house graphics
team offering event design. Many of our organisers
and their exhibitors use us because we can offer a
competitive rate as we already work on their shows.
What’s the one thing you would change about the
events industry?
Short lead times – whether it is a reduction in
build-up time, last minute feature briefs or simply
exhibitors sending in their stand plans later and later,
a significant number of the problems we come up
against could be avoided with a little more time and
planning.
What issue most affects your working life?
Trying to keep a healthy work-life balance. Due to the
nature of helping to run and manage over 50 events
and exhibitions across the UK each year, we all spend
a long amount of time away from our families and
friends and work long hours. Luckily, we love what we
do - but when I am home, I always spend as much time
as I can with my wife and daughters and try to get out
water-skiing.
Why do you enjoy working in events?
It keeps you on your toes and it’s good to have earned
a reputation that organisers can count on. It’s also the
variety of shows we work on and the people we get
to work with. I’ve been working in this industry now
for over 25 years and along the way I’ve made many
friends who I am lucky to work with day in, day out,
which is pretty cool.
EN learns more about Exhibition London, a
significant space opening soon in West London
Located in White City, Exhibition London is a collaborative
project from venue specialists Broadwick Venues and Unibail-
Rodamco-Westfield, opening this November.
Named after its proximity to the site of the Franco British
Exhibition of 1908, Exhibition London is housed inside the
repurposed, Grade II-listed Dimco East building, a striking
Victorian structure completed in 1899 and originally built
as an electricity generating station for the Central London
Railways.
The building famously starred as the Acme Factory in the
1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but more recently
served as a part of TFL’s White City bus station, as a bus
garage, before undergoing the extensive transformation into a
stunning new event space.
Exhibition London is set to host a wide range of high-profile
live music shows and corporate events including brand,
awards dinners, conferences, seasonal parties, exhibitions,
fashion, pop-ups, the arts and ticketed culture for up to 2,000
attendees.
Exhibition London spans two floors of 1,271sqm of useable
event space and can host exhibitions for circa 1,500 attendees.
It will sit at the heart of Westfield London’s £600m expansion.
The venue includes a state-of-the-art sound and lighting
rig plus modular staging. It includes two bars and kitchen
facilities. Menus will change seasonally and can be tailored to
guests’ needs and requirements.
The unique aesthetics and dynamic, adaptable venue format,
along with its central location and excellent transport links,
make Exhibition London an exciting setting for a myriad of
exhibitions, corporate and brand events.
Westfield London also provides a wide range of branding
opportunities. The ability to harness the centre’s 30 million
annual visitors in conjunction with a cutting-edge venue is
unprecedented in London. EN
October — 61