Building an Event Ecosystem, Not Just an Agency with Gavin Farley

In this episode of Event Matters, David Watt is joined by Gavin Farley, Founder and CEO of asembl.group – a fast-growing events ecosystem built on entrepreneurial instinct, resilience and a relentless drive to challenge the traditional agency model.

Gavin shares his journey from promoting nightclub events on the South Coast in the 1990s to building a business that now spans event agencies, venue sourcing, logistics, storage and international expansion. What began with hustle, flyers and a passion for bringing people together has evolved into one of the most ambitious integrated event groups in the UK.

The conversation explores how Gavin’s early experiences in incentive travel shaped his understanding of events, why he always knew he wanted to build something of his own, and how a health scare in his twenties became the catalyst for starting his first business. David and Gavin also discuss the lessons learned through COVID, why the pandemic became a moment of reinvention rather than survival, and how asembl.group was created from a desire to rethink what an event business could become.

Expect insights on:

• Why entrepreneurial instinct and self-belief matter more than having a perfect plan
 • How COVID became the catalyst for reinventing the business model
 • The thinking behind building an event ecosystem instead of a standalone agency
 • Spotting opportunities by solving operational frustrations for clients
 • Why live events remain one of the most powerful forms of human connection
 • Scaling businesses while maintaining founder energy and ambition
 • The realities of risk, resilience and building something from nothing

Gavin’s story is one of ambition, adaptability and constantly looking beyond the traditional boundaries of the events industry. His perspective offers a fascinating look at what modern event businesses could become when growth, innovation and ecosystem thinking all come together.

Host: David Watt, Partner at Kershaw Partners
Guest: Gavin Farley, Founder and CEO of asembl.group

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Kershore Partners podcast, Event Matters. Conversations about the realities of running, growing and scaling event businesses today. This podcast is for established event business owners who want clarity, confidence, and a different perspective on the road ahead. Our aim is to keep these conversations open, informal, honest, practical, and even sometimes a little bit informative. So you can walk away with fresh insights and ideas you can put into action in your own business. I'm glad you're here, so let's get started. This week I'm joined by Gavin Farley, founder and CEO of the Assemble Group. Gavin's journey into events industry started in the world of nightclub promotions on the South Coast in the mid-1990s, long before he built one of the most ambitious and fast-growing event services groups in the UK. What began with flyers, hustle, and a passion for bringing people together eventually evolved into a business that now spans event agencies, venue sourcing, logistics, storage, and international expansion. Based in Portsmouth, Assemble Group has grown into a generally integrated event ecosystem, supporting brands and businesses across live events, exhibitions, and experiential marketing. But this isn't a simple story about growth through acquisition or building multiple revenue streams. It's about entrepreneurial instinct, resilience, and constantly challenging the traditional event agency model in an industry that never stands still. Gavin shares how an early career in incentive travel gave him his first real insight into the world of events, why he always knew he wanted to build something of his own, and how a health scare in his twenties became the catalyst for starting his first business. We talk about ambition, self-belief, the lessons learned through COVID, and why the pandemic became the moment that allowed him to completely rethink the future of the company and ultimately to create the assembled group. We also explore the thinking behind businesses like Logistic and Venue Finder, the importance of building an ecosystem rather than a standalone agency, and why Gavin believes live events remain one of the most powerful forms of human connection, even in an increasingly digital world. If you enjoy this conversation, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. You'll get new episodes before anyone else, and keep up with the stories shaping our industry. This is Event Matters, and this is Gavin Farley. So hi Gavin and very warm welcome to the Events Matters podcast. Obviously delighted to be here in the Assemble Group headquarters. So I'm playing away a bit today. Sunny South Coast. Indeed, yeah, the Sunny South Coast. So I want to sort of delve into the backstory a bit of you and the Assemble Group. In particular, you know, how you stumbled from a nightclub promotion and being a DJ. You're not the first person I've spoken to was next DJ.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Not a DJ. Didn't DJ. I was just a promoter.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

You were just a promoter. But in that nightclub scene, very much so. And the real story about how you first got into events and why you first got into events.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah, so that was, I mean, you've mentioned there, I was at college. Actually, my business partner, Adam, he was the DJ. One pine of DJ of the Year award, actually. So Wow. Pretty good. And basically, I didn't know that I wanted to do events. In fact, I didn't know anything about corporate events world or anything like that. But I was doing leisure and tourism business. And then part of whilst I was at college, we then started the Whoosh Promotions. Good name. Yeah, which was of its time. And we started doing nightclubs, promotions across the South Coast. First in Portsmouth, and then we did a few other bits and bobs. And I still didn't really know what I wanted to do. But I had a lecturer at the time, Richard Gridley, who was the head of leisure and tourism at the college. And he said to me one day, he said, Look, here's this opportunity. They do it every two years. Company called IS Travel. Every two years they want to try and get someone from college to go and work in incentive travel. And I was like, What the fuck is incentive travel? Yeah, good. I mean, no idea, you know, you're 16 years old. I was like, okay, fine. So yeah, so he gave me this job application. Didn't know what to do with it. So fortunately, Adam's dad owned a big production company. So I took the job application to him and he said, Yeah, fine, I'll get one of the guys to do it for you. Which he did, and then I just had to read it and present it and sent it off and whatever, and went for the interview. And two things happened. Took the thing, took the job application and the response, and he said, This is better than what our guys can do. How on earth did you do this? I told him the truth. And he said, Well, that shows initiative. And the second thing was we used to have a record of achievements that you used to and uh which age 16 probably didn't have a huge record of achievements. Well, there wasn't loads, but I had some certificates in it from college, but I'd also stolen somebody's folders from college to put all our nightclub flyers in. And we sat in this office, you know, big oak desk and pinstripe suit, sort of magine the style interview. And he just stared at me and he said, Do you make money out of this? And I was like, trying to think to myself, how do I make money out of my record of achievement and my certificates? I was like, Well, you know, I hope to one day, you know, do something with them and this that and the others obviously it's this great and he just turned it around slowly. And this record of achievement was the ones I'd stolen with nightclub flyers, and there was a double page spread of a naked woman lying in a bath of baked beans. And I was like, Oh, that was that night. Yeah, we did this, we did this, and a couple of grand, and uh and obviously my passion for putting together something can selling and events all came through at that point because I was passionate about doing that, so I guess he saw that. So it wasn't anything about the achievements, it was absolutely nothing to do with college, to be honest. It was didn't have those.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

That's a good lesson to learn in terms from an interview technique. I think young people these days are so transvixed on how to get through an interview, but that's a really interesting, as you say, he flipped it round and said, Okay, what is this little lad in front of me interested in? How can I make money from him?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah, and I told the story. I think it's passion, right? I think that's the sort of thing that came through. And then when we started talking about it, then when I started to know what events were and incentive travel was and so on, I was like, I mean, the first so I drove home and my dad said, Oh, you know, Scott's called. I was like, yeah, no, I've blown it. He wants to offer you the job. And I remember going into I had a shift at Tesco that evening as self-titled butters and fat's coordinator that I went in and just said, Right, I'm leaving. And they were like, Why? And I was like, Well, I'm I'm off, fine. No, like, well, you can't do that. I was like, Well, I'm gonna do it. And I remember my was offered £9,750 for my salary.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Not bad in 96, actually.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

I was booming, you know, it was great. And I was like, This is it, my new life begins. And finished college. I think I finished college, can't remember. And then I knew I had a job, and so that was great. And then started, and then about three or four months later, I was on a business class flight to Cape Town, staying in the Mount Nelson, going in a helicopter, and I was sat there going, This is work, and that was it.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

You know, even at that age, you're full of bravado, but to open your own agency is a hell of a punt.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah, it wasn't quite that straight away, right? So, you know, I knew myself, right? I'm not I've done college, had the best time, was in a fantastic agency and opportunity. So it was that point I was like, well, I'll give this four years, because that's my degree. So I completely immersed myself in that and got to travel the world such a young age and do some awesome things, meet some fantastic someone else's expense. Absolutely. And so I was like, this is great. But the challenge for me was always I did want my own business because I suppose me and Adam had done it at college. Um Adam carried on DJing at this point and was earning very much good money, and I was travelling the world, and I kind of always had this thing. So my biggest thing every time I had a review meeting with Scott, my every review is like, How can I run the company? But it got to a point where he was like, No, this is a family business. You know, there was only about five or six people, and you know, a couple of his daughters were working in it, and he said it was never gonna happen. So I was faced with a bit of a love it, you know, what do I do? And actually, looking, even I mean he's bang on, I was way too young to do it, you know. And I obviously give that advice now, being the old guy, you know. But I was offered another role, another agency from a director at that company because it was the same sort of thing progression. So I think I kind of got to like 22 and you know, I had a company car and driving around. Yes, you had all the perks, yeah. So I mean the thing is not to blow smoke, but I was pretty good at what I did and had lots of opportunities to do it. But I always had this urge to do something myself, so that was always in the back of my head. But I had a lot of autonomy to, whilst working for these companies, to do what I wanted to do because I was making their money.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

But that's a great way to learn, right? Particularly in this industry, you know, by doing stuff, you very quickly become quite proficient or very proficient at it.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

I think if I had gone early, I would fucked it up. So I think it was the timing and everything was right, and then sort of mid-20s, I had a bit of a health scare, and I was fortunate in the most financial situation and everything at the time, and it was a real pivotal moment. I was like, I can go back to do what I was doing, or I can go and do what I want to do. And six years plus later, and me and Ad remained good friends and stuff like that, and we'd been watching The Apprentice, and we'd been watching this, and you know, so on, and we were like, we're gonna do something one day. And it was that moment, you know, when I had the opportunity to do it. And Adam's father at the time, he'd just been in the production company, had just bought a randomly a wide format digital printer called Vutek, six metres wide. So he was like, if you want your own business, Ad wanted to get out of DJ and you want to do your own business, I'll give you a stepping stone, but you need to sell this print. And I was like, Well, that's a good opportunity. We can build something we created into events, knowing that we really were probably needed to build up our cash flow, and we weren't able to sort of deliver the events that we had been doing because no one would believe us and take us seriously, and so on. And we're fortunate enough at the time a client of ours, Toshiba, I was working with them at this agency, and there was a call around, and it was like they were a bit, you know, upset that I was leaving and they were worried about the relationship, but not too worried because they got a client on the phone who said Gavin's leaving, just to let you know, and they went, We want to go with Gavin. What's he doing? Wow. So, you know, we were like, Well, I said, So we'll honour it with for the next year. You can have all the money, but we want to work with it. So we were in a small office, probably two-man desk office. We had the yellow pages as our CRM selling print and crossing them off every single day, selling print to whoever wanted to buy print, building up a cash reserve and running some events for Toshiba, and then it sort of just moved on. So, yeah, it took a while to build, but you know, looking back, it's pretty good times.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I guess you know, it was post-9-11, which was a weird time. I was running business at that time. And you thought the world was gonna come to an end, but it very much didn't.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Well, we just waved off a group actually for a company over at the airport, and I was on the train on the way back when it happened. So that was early doors having to deal with something like that, you know. Luckily, we had the cash reserves and that period didn't last very long. It's it's tough, right? At the time, it's really tough. And obviously the Well, you're you just don't know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

That's that's what ever.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah. And I think, do you know what? I think in business I've always been pretty positive around investment and growth and so on. And actually, it was COVID that I think since then I've been a bit more reserved because that came out of nowhere. And I think that's the thing for me, from a business point of view, is the biggest one that's taught me the most business lesson is how strong is your business.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, and I guess you know, when you when you started into events, so here we are nearly a quarter of a century later. Did you always have that ambition to grow the businesses towards it now? I mean, obviously, you know, as you said, we you were pretty gung-ho, as I would expect, for someone in his early 20s. Yeah. Were you always this ambitious, or is the pandemic maybe not put the foot in the ball, but has it changed the direct direction of your business?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

No, because the business has gone crazy. I mean it's gone nuts, yeah. I mean it has, but I mean that's through years of in the making, I think, and lessons and so on. But absolutely, you know, I've always had this sort of I think I'm quite a jealous person. And I see others having success of which you know I always think I should have. And you know you're as good if not better than them. Yeah, I do, and that sounds a bit egotistical, right? Say that. No, but you've got to have self-belief, can't you? But I always, yeah, but I've always had that sort of inner confidence, I suppose, ability to kind of motivate myself to go and do it. And it there's been opportunities along the way that I maybe should have taken, not taken and stuff. You know, we've had various conversations and I've had offers, and I've always had this thing of I'm sticking to what I want to do. You know, I was offered quite a big contract to go and work for a corporate to build their internal events team and stuff, you know, big six figures and so on a few years back. And it's not what I want to do. I don't want to work for one company, I want to build something myself, I want to build that legacy that whatever that is, just to know, yeah, I've done it. I did this. Yeah. And I was involved. And I think that's the biggest constant driver of you know, anyone who's setting their own business up, you know, you've got to have that. It's quite easy to go down another path because easier.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, you mentioned the the pandemic, and I think we discussed this last time we spoke about having a point of difference. What did you imagine coming from the pandemic and seeing the industry and seeing, you know, I remember we spoke way back from a consulting point of view, we knew that there would be survivors and there would be people who died during the uh after the pandemic, but just because of cash really. Yeah. So what was the something different that you saw? And what did you think that other people maybe were not getting it as righteous?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

I mean, do you know when everyone was doing like Wednesdays and Thursday Thursdays and all this stuff? I was in the office. I did not stop. Me and Ad, you know, we were debating what to do when it sort of kicked in. You know, we had a team of 10, you know, we had enough cash to get us through to a certain point, and we didn't knee-jerk. A lot of people knee jerked, and they knee-jerk because they needed to, because they were bad businesses. We were fine, we knew our runway, we knew where we needed to go, and then we had to make some decisions, but we weren't gonna rush it. That was our going into it as soon as we realised things was dropping off, and we were like, let's just try and figure out what we're gonna do here. And then furlough came. And so we knew we were gonna get through it because you know we had enough cash to kind of ride it to X amount. Anyway, so that gave us a bit of like calm. But I always had this thing in my head to build bigger, and into events wasn't the right vehicle to build bigger in.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Well, you said your ambitions was to hit 100 million quid. I mean, I think it's probably any event well, very, very few event companies have got a hundred million quid turnover.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

No, so it had to change, and I knew it had to change, and I'd always had this note and this email printed out, which was I didn't have a name for it, but it was just super event super group. But obviously, when you're day-to-day and there's a team of 10, you're still in the business and so on and so forth. But what COVID allowed me to do was to stop because we didn't have the noise, no events, no clients were chasing you, there were the problems were gone. You know, sitting in the office was fine. When the main thing for us was to communicate with the team, you know, we obviously pivoted and did a load of virtual events, and you know, my FD absolutely hated me because you know, we spent 20 grand on, you know, we were told to get our overheads down with by in two weeks to 15% of what it was. And then I said, Well, we're gonna spend 20 grand on pay-per-click on virtual events because actually, when businesses were attracting, my whole thing was like we were gonna go the opposite direction, and we were able to do that. We got a big client in, which was great, turned around to my FD and said, Told you so. I mean, there was nothing really strategic about it, it was just uh gut filled.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, but it th the those who pivoted during that period of time, and I think it it was brave to pivot to virtual, clearly. I mean, you had no idea. No one knew what they were doing.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

No, I mean no, no one had clearly hilarious. I mean, you know, look at these companies that were valued at a billion and now they've gone under, you know, in the tech platform. I mean, my whole thing was if we're going down, just fucking go down in the blaze of glory. You know, my whole thing was we'll always do something else. We can always start again. I can I go back to be a butters and fats coordinator Tesco's. I wasn't worried that I was unemployable. I mean, maybe I am, but I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be offered to do something, or me and Ad wouldn't do something else. That wasn't in my mindset. My mindset was, you know, let's just go for it. And if we go down, we go down. But If go down, try it, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, I know. But I think it's what's interesting about that whole virtual hybrid thing is, and I think, you know, looking from the outside in, where you've got this so right, is it's the moment when you realize you needed to pivot back and pivot back really quickly. Yes, the software's all there, the virtual software is all there, and it's great, and it's allowed people to build events with a remote audience, but the desire of people to have in-person events now, I mean, I would say it's of a riding. And I've seen a lot of I mean, you're talking about software platforms that would look like they were the best thing since last well, they're completely redundant now. Yeah. So you must have got that right, and that must have been a moment when you thought, okay, now we can kick on.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

My biggest thing was always live is real. Yep. That was my biggest thing through all of it, is the fact of if you're told you can't do something, if you're pent up, if you're this, if you're that, the other, and I said this way before is that you know, I remember having a conversation with a client, big global firm. They're like, I'm not sure we'll ever go back to in person. I was like, you absolutely will. They're like, no, we're getting a thousand people on these meetings. I'm like, yeah, but where did they come from? How have you got data to get a thousand people? You've got all the sales teams going out for beers, drinks, networking, rugby, tickets, hospitality, the events you run, the exhibitions you attend, all of that stuff. And the reason why they're joining you is because of all of that stuff. Take that away in the next six to nine months, you're not gonna do it, it's gonna disappear. And luckily I was right on that because you know, we would end, but what I knew we didn't want to do was come back as just the same. That was one of my biggest sort of directives to the guys is like we are not coming back the same. We're not just gonna go into events is still around because there was a risk that it would be like, oh, you Phoenix and all that, which we hadn't. The position and the messaging and the alignment of everything that we wanted to do that I couldn't do as into events had to be curated during that time to come back to allow me to do it. And assemble was what was born and curated during that period for then it to go on. Did you know what assemble was gonna include? You so it had agency, it had into events, it had agency at the time, yeah, it had just agency. So we just into events just became assemble. We always had the group in the background, and my plan was always to you know bring the best in class together, whatever that looks like. The plan was always through acquisition initially. You know, I remember during that time I must have sent out about 2,000 letters to businesses within an hour and a half of our office to say, you know, I know it's been tough. Is there anything we can do? Do you want to do this? I mean, I had I I remember prospect acquisitions. And prospect acquisitions, a lot of venue finders, a lot of you know independence stuff. I mean, I know I had 106 responses, of which I probably had 20, 30 phone calls, of which two might be relevant. But now it taught me so much around that acquisition part is you know, any business, the number everyone wants is a million pounds, you know, this is their last payday, this is I've built my life on it, etc. etc. I mean, I got to a point where yeah, I could finish people's sentences before they'd even done it because it was the conversation was repeatable. How much do you think it's worth? No, when you go and buy a house, you don't guess the price, etc. etc. So, you know, I just got into this pattern, but it was slow and there wasn't really anything working, and then that's why I sort of then was like, Well, how else can we do this? And how else can we so that's really where the group came from and you know went from there looking at the partners and people that I knew to kind of convince that they want to be part of this thing that we were building and go that sort of route?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And I mean one of the things that was genius is logistic. I mean, as you described it, doing the jobs that no one wants to do. I mean, I think I mean let's talk about that. Was that an existing warehouse business that you took and ran with, or did you say that this is what a job that needs to be?

SPEAKER_02 17:45

It was tiny little cupboard that we had downstairs that we had some bits in. That was it. Mainly our, you know, but we were in a meeting with a client and you know, I kept on hearing the same sort of thing because post-pandemic people weren't going back into the office. You know, we always referred to them as the storeroom, you know, in an office that everyone, the the receptionist or something might have that they weren't there. You know, no one was in the office, no one knew where anything was. And I remember going back and they were talking to a client of ours, and they were like, well, you know, this is the marketing plan for the year, you know, when events came back, we're gonna do a lot of third party, we need to get out, you know, sales are gonna run it, but it just seemed to me logically, I could just see there was this huge gap in the middle, which was full of printers, designers, couriers, etc. etc. etc. But none of it was connected. And I sat in this meeting and it was just off Oxford Street, and I remember it, and a couple of the project team were with me, and I just said to them, I said, You know, we do that. They were like, Oh what? I said, Well, you know, we centralise all of the the swag and the merchandise, we've got an online portal that you can order it. And they said, That sounds amazing. I said, Yeah, we go and we install it and we set it up. This was before you had it, before we had it, obviously. Yeah, yeah, in the meeting. And I could see the ops guys looking at me, and I was I was like, just let me run with this, go with this. Yeah, and we came out of the meeting and they went, Do we have that? No, but we fucking should. I was like, that is a great idea. So basically came back as I always do, sort of me and Ad had our catch-up. I said, We need to do this thing. It's like leave it with me, let's see what we can do. And but we started running it on a spreadsheet, but you know, before we knew it, we had it, and then what we said is to the guys, right? We've created this new new brand, this is what we're gonna do, add it on to everything we're selling to all of our clients, and everyone went, Yeah, we need that. I mean, shock horror, quite frankly. Yeah, and it's not, you know, it wasn't an overthink it, kind of got on with it, created it. Then we were like, Oh, we better get a website because it's becoming a thing. Warehouse grew and grew and grew, and now we're in 30,000 square foot.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

I mean it, you know, I visited a company the other day, do a lot of work in them, obviously in the event space, but but they build a lot of bars and next ones for big global brands, but their warehouse is just rammed to the gunnels with kit, which I don't think we'll ever see the light of day.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yeah, there's a lot of that stuff, and I think but the thing is what it enables us to do across the group is one is that you know, when you're running an event, you engage with that client all the time. What I was always frustrated about was not necessarily account management because they are doing that, but you know, that stickiness with a client. And LogisKit does that because there's so much more, and then they have to engage. So we get full visibility on plans and conversations and speak to different people, and then we go to shows and we speak to more people, and it just brings that level of in between those projects.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

How much is the referred from Logiskit to agency and vice versa? So I mean, you know, if you're speaking to a client, do you say, Oh, we offer this? Or if someone is using a logistic?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah, I mean a lot of actually a lot of the clients actually start with LogisKit because they've got stands and they've got stuff. So when we're setting something up, or if we're building a stand at a show, we generally have conversations and the guys are pretty good at the sort of the networking and the referral rate for us is pretty high. So they'll be like, Oh no, they this is what they do. They do this, they do this. And they're like, Oh, okay, but they've got a stand, we can see it, you know, physically, and we didn't build it. So then we're like, what happens to all this stuff? And they're like, Well, just goes and do you have access to it? No, well, we've got some of it's in yellow storage, or we do so we do all that, you know. So we bring it in, and then it's bit by bit by bit, and you know, we kind of look at it as a bit of a Trojan horse. Yeah, for sure. You know, to get a conversation and it's grown. Some of the good clients we work now have come from doing some t-shirts. And venue finder, I mean, obviously that feels like a very obvious step from eat well. Again, it's another, you know, it does what it says on the tin, you know. I think that's the spelt wrong, obviously. Yeah, I mean, we always did venue sourcing in the agency, but you kind of had to, right? I mean, yeah. I mean, look, I always think if you're working with an event management company, part of what they do is venue sourcing. Well, you assume it is. Yeah. Um, you'd be amazed actually a lot of companies that don't, which has been quite interesting since we created venue finder. But what was happening is uh it takes a lot of time to do venue sourcing, and I think people underestimate that. So what we did, and this was post-pandemic again, I was like, we need to do this. So we were very much on the mindset of the group. So we were like best in class, single service, they're specialists at what they do. A part of that is venue sourcing, and I was very keen to kind of do that as a standalone model, needed the right person to do it. So Catherine came back after a spell at Bauman, which is great. You know, I knew I wanted Kat to do it, you know, and it gave us a trust. She wanted to get on and make it happen. Again, that's a kind of Trojan horse, but you know, because it's a pretty much a complimentary service. If you're running an event, you need a venue. If you find a venue, what are you doing at the event? So again, this is where the group then started to really kick in with the sort of like the 360 remote. Referral model and then building out that ecosystem. So before too long, you know, we had then you find a logistic and assemble agency, and it was working, you know, and I was very much we need to scale, we need to go. Is there more to the full service of Assemble than those three? Or is it do you think it's well? I mean, reality, I mean, you know, we've pretty much in its entirety now controlled the supply chain in anything live events, which is fantastic, you know. Great place to be. It gives us loads of opportunity, and you know, and each one of the businesses within the group has their own client base and they only sold singular service because that's what they do. So then we work with them as as groups. We have a core assemble group team now. We work with all of the sort of all of the partners and we take their clients and their clients, we do co-hosted events, education and development, and so on. And yeah, so Wi-Fi suppliers or um technology suppliers, A V suppliers, digital marketing. So we can bring it all together and where the group really works is when a client needs all of it. And but even if they don't need all of it, well they may not know they need all of it. Well, exactly, and they don't always, you know, that's fine. And you know, there's across the partners, you know, not always everything goes through an event because of what they do. Not always everything is needed for us to touch it. The e-central team will touch it, group will touch it, and the client services team will look at it, but sometimes it's not an event, it might be an exhibition stand and some heat mapping, you know. So then they talk to each other. It might be a venue that needs digital marketing and awareness and something else. And then we marry those guys, and it's just this entire ecosystem now is sort of like just moving, you know. We looked at it originally as one of examples we're given, is like if you look at it like an old watermill, it takes a long time to kind of get going, but once it's moving, it's moving. I feel that's kind of where we are with the momentum in what we're building.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

And then I suppose the really, really exciting things is expanding internationally, Australia, probably possibly or probably, in fact, definitely, and definitely. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean that's that's making money while everyone here is asleep, isn't it? Well that's an old saying of my old man, that one.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah, absolutely. And uh it's something that's been on my radar for a while. And you bless her if you speak to Kelly Maynard from Business Tourism Australia. If you speak, I've been going on about her for years and years and years about I will and it will come. But you know, timing needed to be right, and there was lots of things we needed to kind of get sorted in and aligned. And again, it was like, you know, the other side of the world, do we do an acquisition? Do we do this? What about that? But just things aligned and it was the right moment. And um, yeah, really pleased to say that sort of Assemble now got an office and presence down in Melbourne, and then through our partner part of the group, we're obviously down in Sydney as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

So great, City Melbourne. Just what is it? Yeah, and I'm excited for it. I'm really excited. Well, you said it was you've you felt like it was like an emerging market. I mean, clearly it's not, but in terms of the events world, it feels like an emerging market. I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

I feel like, you know, I'm as excited by that. I've got that same sort of buzz, I suppose, as when sort of into events was when we were building it. I mean I think I'm in my most comfortable when we're scaling, you know, and in the awkwardness and and sort of like not on the tools as such, but you know, just in the wheeze of building something exciting. And this is what I feel about um Australia. Yeah, it's not an emerging market, it's emerged, but you know, they still the way they operate compared to London is still maybe sort of like a bit behind. The solutions that we're putting in, we're having so many good conversations already around the group and doing replicating that from what we've done in Europe, what we're doing down in Australia, across the APAC region, you know. And since we've been building it, I I think that's going to explode a hell of a lot quicker than it's taken us in Europe because we've done it. We've actually got people wanting to be part of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

So obviously, we are approaching 2030, which I think was one of your initial deadlines. Yeah. If someone came in and offered you a daft amount of money for assemble, what would you do next? Would you go again? It gives you options, doesn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

You know, we're very open to that daft money. But I don't know if have you got the energy to do it all again? Yeah, I would. I would still want to be involved. This is you know, regardless of sort of like just stop it and it's not gonna be a thing. It's not in my wheelhouse, right? But I think to when you've got the options to do something can you're done. I think the biggest thing for me is I think the thing that I worry about the most is, you know, as you're getting older and stuff. I think the biggest thing I worry about at the notice as have I achieved? Have I done enough? And I don't think I have. So there's still a I need to do more, uh, but I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah, I think someone said to me recently, you know, are you gonna die, uh lie on your deathbed and think to yourself, you know, I I should have worked harder, or you're gonna say, you know, I was a good parent and I was a good husband, and all I think you've got to know that moment when you think to yourself, I'm enough.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, I think that's it. I mean, that was definitely kind of become less, you know, work focused. I think it's definitely more balanced now, you know. I like to try and play golf every now and then and so on, but which I never did before. But I think it's important to get that balance, and it was you know, realisation moment, I suppose. My dad passed away a few years back in the hospice, and the only question he asked me was whether I've been a good dad, it's all that matters. And he said to me, You've got to get out, go and see the world, do more. And that's that moment of like realisation when you know this stuff doesn't really matter. I think I've been fortunate enough to go, this is my hobby as well. I really enjoy it. Yeah, and I think you know, I've never had well, so much so I actually had a massive issue a few years back where I used to dread Fridays, whereas the opposite to everybody else is that I used to can't wait for Fridays, but I used to hate it when we were building this because things stopped and I was more excited on Sunday because we were getting going again on Monday. And I thought, I don't know if this is healthy, but look, if you're building something, these are the things you have to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

But I think it's a great lesson in life, and it's a great lesson for the younger generation who I think a large majority of them, particularly those coming out of uni and so on, they're thinking to themselves, the idea of work sounds terrible. My youngest daughter is a classic example of this. Work sounds terrible, I want to defer work as long as possible. But as I said to her, work doesn't have to be boring at all. You know, get invested in something and you'll love every single second of it. And I think that's with with assemble, you know, dreading Friday is exactly that.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah, I I think I've been lucky in that because I found that right, and again, I think when you're owning a business, you can stop it all. Yeah, you do something else, you know, you have to do it. So I think that's the thing for me. You know, tomorrow if I wanted to buy and sell packed fish, I don't know where it's just a stupid example, but you can do it, you know, or you can do it as well as doing it because you know you are your own control of your own destiny. I mean, clients control part of that destiny, right? But you know, you do have that say, it's up to you.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, 100%. Okay, so we always finish with uh the quick furround just to find out a little bit uh more about you rather than just the business owner. So who's the most influential person that you've met? Mild man, definitely definitely, yeah. Do you read business books? If so, which's the best business book you've read?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Yeah, so books and podcasts. So there's a book called Flip It by Michael Heppel, which I've read about 85 times, which is quite interesting, and it's like turning a no yes, and um oh I love that looking at things differently. I like that one. Diary the CEO is quite a good podcast, high performance podcast is really good, and you get to listen to multiple opinions and so on.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

So uh Stephen Bartlett really quite irritating, but he does get some great guests.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah, the guests are great, and I did wonder whether I should say Stephen Bartlett, because it can be a bit controversial, but the guests are good, and Branson, you know, his biography is quite a big thing for me. Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Your favourite movie? Wolf Wall Street I can't imagine more than that. Your favourite drink? White wine. Yeah, I'd go with that. Yeah. The small mountain that you would die on, so little things that drive you absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Well, a small mountain I would die on if it would be ports downhill looking over Pompey, and that was that was always good. And ambition one day maybe to live at the top of it because you know, my dad said when the wind's blowing the right direction, you can piss on the poor people, which I thought was quite funny.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

But and finally, if you weren't running uh your business, what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Uh probably I don't know, working for somebody else, probably Hitler, somewhere earning more money than them a lot, but yeah, maybe I'd like to own a vineyard somewhere. That'd be fun, wouldn't it? One day. I thought I'd like to do post-2030. Listen, Gaminfari, thank you very, very much indeed for being guest or that matters. It's been a complete joy. Thanks, Late 2020.