Season Opener with Katrina de Jersey

You can’t “deliver a great event” if you don’t first sell a believable story. 

In this opening episode of Season 2, Georgie is joined by strategic communications and crisis management specialist Katrina de Jersey, whose career spans Olympic Games, Winter Olympics, FIFA, city projects and the high-stakes world of bid strategy. Georgie and Katrina talk about the hidden craft behind major international events: narrative, trust and the way a bid book becomes a promise you may have to live with for a decade.

They get practical about customer experience and fan engagement, from persona workshops and behaviour changes to why the end of the event matters as much as the opening moment. Katrina shares examples that stick: using local PR talent on the ground to win attention where it counts, turning a transport bottleneck into an authentic fan trail, and learning from venues that redesign the post-concert exit because that’s where frustration spikes.

Culture is a through-line too. What works in Sydney can flop in Doha unless you build with local insight and give teams permission to challenge the “experts”. They also go into risk mitigation and crisis readiness, including scenario planning that feels unlikely until it happens, and why common sense and fast decisions often save the day.

If you care about CX, event management, sports marketing, storytelling, and crisis planning, this conversation will sharpen your lens. 

Subscribe, share this with someone who runs events, and leave a review so more people can find The Art And Heart Of CX.

Georgie Stayches, host of The Art & Heart of CX, brings a human lens to how businesses design Customer Experience (CX). She explores how every little detail impacts how a customer interprets, experiences and recalls a situation - from our senses to the built and natural environments - and how this can impact brand loyalty, word of mouth marketing and revenue.

Each episode she invites a special guess from all works of life and industries to share what they consider the art and hear of CX.

Want to hear more from Georgie? Her keynote presentations inspire audiences with real-world strategies to elevate CX, understand human behaviour and build lasting audience loyalty. 

Find out more at georgiestayches.com 

Transcript

Welcome And Career Sliding Doors

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to the latest episode of The Art and Heart of CX, and I'm thrilled to be here today with Katrina DeJersey. Thank you so much, Katrina, for joining me. You have come to me via um a previous guest, uh Darren Brown, and I'm so thrilled that he recommended you. And we were just talking before we came on that we must have a lot of sliding doors moments in our careers.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Well, it's interesting you say that. Firstly, thank you for inviting me. I'm very happy to be here. But I mean, the amount of times I have that discussion with people globally, LinkedIn's a great reminder of that. You know, you you recommend someone and uh check out that you've got 50 or 60 mutual contacts. So you think, as I said to someone yesterday on LinkedIn, we're, you know, we've got 86 mutual connections. We're basically related, you know. And why can't I remember you? Why haven't I, you know, where why haven't I met you? So this is a family.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

It is, and it's it's such a small industry. So we're we're gonna be talking today a lot about the sort of sport and major international event world, which is a very small family. One of my close friends, Vic and Karkootli, who I host another podcast with about pop culture, we met at the Asian Games in Doha, and I know you worked on those as well. But it turns out we had worked together on the Sydney Olympics, didn't know each other, but found each other in a photo sitting two rows apart, watching the opening ceremony.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yeah, I think that's one of the most beautiful elements of my profession is that it comes with a global family, and that is something that is so valuable to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah, perfect. Well, that's a good segue into you have worked all over the world. Uh, you specialise in strategic communication, storytelling, narratives, crisis management, marketing partnerships, and you've worked in Australia, Middle East, Europe, China, Russia, and I was just noting down some of the events and projects you've worked on locally. You've worked with the city of Sydney on different projects, including the C40 Women for Climate conference and other different things that have come through local government here in Sydney as well as New South Wales government, but also FIFA World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games, Grand Prix Rugby, and not only around the strategy for the actual event, but you've worked on the bid process as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, I think I've traversed the world and you know multiple events at the same time. And to be honest, whether it's a bid, whether it's an event, uh, you know, the implementing an event or delivering an event, I find it's always about the story and the narrative. Now, the narrative isn't always straightforward to the average punter. There are many political imperatives that are built into a story around a global sports event, for example, uh, that won't see the light of day for many years to come. If we talk about the Sydney Olympics,

Storytelling As The Event Strategy

SPEAKER_00 3:10

look at everything that came out of that event. When I was even working on it, I had no idea that it was about the global export of Australian talent, of which we are both in that category. That was part of the story. So I think storytelling and narrative is connects everything that I've done and continue to do. The bid phase is interesting that you raised that. I worked on two, well, two Olympic bids and a Pacific Islands Pacific Games bid. I saw that Papua New Guinea, which was absolutely wonderful to be able to bring my expertise from the likes of the Paris bid and the Sochi Winter Olympic bid to Papua New Guinea. Well, what a treat, you know, to be able to share that and help them win, which they did, that 2015 bid is really delightful. So the bidding phase is is really, really interesting. It's such a long way out. And you are planting hopes and dreams into the minds of those who are actually have the decision in their own hands, i.e., the voting members. It's a fascinating and fabulous journey.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Exactly, yes. And I mean, I think we all think of you know that announcement of Sydney being announced for the 2000 Olympics. Well, those of us of my vintage that can remember that. And we, you know, we hear about countries and cities bidding for things, but I think people don't realise it is a whole industry, the bid process, and it is years in the making, and all those stakeholders brought in to tell that story and set the scene for what that event could create. What sort of how does customer experience play into that? Because you're basically telling the story of what the experience is going to be, I imagine, whether it's athletes, spectators, viewing audience, how does that all sort of come together?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Well, you are you are selling a dream, really, because it's not real yet. You know, I mean, if I look at the Paris bid uh that I worked on, which was the 2012 bid, you know, these ideas and concepts were very, and and every bid uh is very future focused. So there's a bit of dreaming involved, and there's a whole lot of, I would say, trust in in that bid team. It's a huge responsibility to be drawing up this bid book and presenting it because at the end of the day, that's going to be the Bible that will be referred to if and when you win the games, and then through your planning phases. So certainly over the years there've been Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to that extent who have to live up to the bid, the bid book, and it doesn't always play out that way, which is fine. It's it's an iterative process. Look at Brisbane as an example. They were awarded the Games 10 years out.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

If we just want to think in the in a concept of customer experience, what can change in 10 years? Can you predict what we'll be doing in 10 years in terms of creating a fan experience, fan engagement, sponsor engagement? So it's a sponsor activation. It's a really interesting and challenging concept.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Oh, uh yes. Uh when we know how much behaviours can change, you know, the core behaviours. I know there was a lot of talk when COVID hit and people's behaviours were changing, and there was different thoughts on, you know, they'll elastic band to back to what they were. And and some of them have, but there has also been a change in how people, if I just think of events, people are registering really late for things. People buy concert tickets really late, theatre tickets really late, everything, you know, from business events that we work on, it is a completely different booking cycle and planning cycle to what it was. So, how do you sort of plan that far in advance when you're looking at what would engage an audience, what would resonate with them, what they'd be interested in from those kind of fan engagement elements?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Well, I think that one of the most important things about a bid and indeed planning any kind of an event that involves the public is in my mind, speak with the public, understand what they need. And one of the most fundamentals of my career and profession is meet people where they're at.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

So you need to have a dialogue and an exchange, you need to have real, you know, engagement with your audience to be able to understand what their needs are. What problem are you solving for them? You know, so that's I think we're living in an age of that as well. If I look at Gen Z, you know, it's really important to be able to get into the minds of the future generations who are going to be in our position when they're planning these events. So, you know, I do I'll give you an example, I would say, of um the Sochi bid. You know, I recall when we were doing that bid, the decision was made in Guatemala City. Now, cities bid for the right to host the IOC General Assembly, which is where the decision's made. So talk about an industry. You said before it is an industry, even right down to bidding to host the actual decision on the bid. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. So we there were many global comms agencies that were working with all of those bidding cities at that time. This is 2007 when the decision was made. And you know, I said to our team, I was based in Paris at the time, working with a global comms agency. And I remember saying to them, just let me go to Guatemala City myself and find a local team to support us. But let's not have the big global teams come in from all over the world in their, you know, kind of fancy suits and let's actually go to the ground there and see what we can find. And you know, they said yes. So I did a number of trips back and forth to Guatemala City and I found an incredibly dynamic, young, really young team of PR professionals and media, you know, professionals. And I said, let's do this. You know more than we do. Let's really infiltrate at the ground level here. And it was fascinating because they knew every single nook, cranny, corner, they knew every media outlet, they knew how to get in front of those

Bids Sell Trust And A Future

SPEAKER_00 10:05

voting members in a really local way. So it that was interesting, just to flip it a bit and say, no, let's go to the young ones, to those on the ground to help us. Yes, they did.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

And that's because, yeah, I'm just thinking as this new generation are coming through, some people tend to think they know everything and they've, you know, worked the process and this is how we do it, but to turn it on its head and do something like that. And you know, at that point, the customer is the voting members of the IOC and making their experience stand out. And it is understanding, you know, I always say with customer experience, how does how do your customers want to feel? And what are you doing to help them feel that way? Because a lot of the time with events, if I talk about that specifically, I see events run that are run because that's how the organizer or the client, that's the kind of event they wanted to run, not looking at what kind of event their audience actually want to go to.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah. I'm one, you know, I think the most valuable work that I do is I conduct a lot of persona workshops with organizations and big, small, you know. I actually do great work with an incredible hairdresser here in Sydney, you know, I you know, from the Olympic Games to local hairdresser. But it's really important that they understand which persona are they speaking to at which moment. Yes. What problem are they solving for that persona? How do they need to engage with them in a language that they understand, responding to behaviors that they already have? And what do you want them to do as a result of you engaging with them? It's really simple, right? Yes. But I think you're right, people, especially in events, tend to program and plan an event that they would go to, that they want, that they would respond to based on their behaviors. Yes. So the persona work is super important, and it surprises me that so many people who are who are responsible for spending large marketing budgets don't get that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

I was chatting with Karen Clydesell, the director of CX at the Australian Open in season one, and and she talked about their different customer segments. And she said, you know, we know exactly, and it she said it's not uh, you know, it's pretty simple segmenting. In other words, anyone can segment and work out their customers. You don't have to be the Australian Open or Sochi or whoever it is, but it's understanding exactly what those customers, who they are, what their behavior is, what their journey is, their customer journey too. I went to a clinic recently, and the whole process at this clinic was fabulous until the end process, which was the payment. And so it's like they had planned the whole journey of the customer or the patient up until a point, and then it completely fell by the wayside at the point where you're handing over a large amount of money. And it just highlighted that lack of understanding.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

It's interesting you say that, you know, because someone who does UX really, really well is uh Venues New South Wales. And I'm not sure if you've seen some of the articles of late, but certainly off the back of Taylor Swift concerts, but also where I actually was, you know, not so long ago, an Ed Sheeran concert, you know, they did this study around exactly what you've just said. People would arrive, there'd be lots of smiling faces saying, Welcome, isn't that great? Over this way, you know, lots of human wayfinding and assisting people, lots of entertainment and food and opportunities ahead of going into a concert. But then what would happen was the concert would end and they'd think, great, well, that's over. But then people would have a poor experience heading to the train station or getting out of the venue. So they flipped it and embedded that same user experience after the event. And I think that honestly, venues New South Wales are doing an extraordinary job of customer experience in that, not just you know, the Sydney Olympic Park Stadiums, but in all their venues, it's a very, very strong focus of their voice of customer programs are really important.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

That's you just reminded me when you were talking about that. Well, two things is that when we talk about customer experience, it's not just about selling extra tickets or selling extra food or return visit. It actually is also about staff retention. And because if you've got happy, if you've got happy staff, you've got happy customers, but if you've got happy customers, you've got happy staff. And a friend of mine way back in the day worked at Sydney Olympic Park as a casual at the train station. And he said everyone would come out of the concert and expect to get the train straight back to Sydney, and of course they had to change at Lidcombe. And he said they would just be having a go at him and he said he'd sort of laugh going, I'm on $20 an hour or whatever, you know, I can't change the journey. But you know, if you've got irate customers or um patrons, travelers, whatever, passengers, it impacts your staff. And then if your staff are putting up with that, your retention's going to be pretty lousy. And then you've got recruitment, you know, it's this sort of cycle. So it's so important, those benefits of, and I'm just, you know, thinking through how good that is, is not just on your customers. It rolls out across your whole business.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

True. And it's look, it's so funny you mentioned transport and issues with transport and major events. I remember I consulted to Auckland City Council a long time ago for the 2011 rugby walk up. And we had a huge problem to solve. Eden Park was, I think, 3.4 kilometers from the centre of the city. And they knew that the transport was not going to be able to manage the number of crowds that were going to be heading to that peak. So we thought, well, what can we do? How can we solve this problem? And I remember saying to them, why don't we just get people to walk there? And they said, What do you mean? Get people to walk 3.24, whatever it was, kilometers to Eden Park. And I said, Well, why don't we make it worth their while? So together with the team, we came up with this great idea to create a fan trail from the city to the venue. And no idea whether this would work or not, but we had to give it a go. So where you have the normal business activations along the way, so obviously we were working quite closely with the business community, but also, of course, then you can hire great, you know, kind of roving performers to help with that. But we thought, well, actually, we didn't have a lot of budget. So we thought, well, why don't we just invite the locals to be our entertainment? Yes. And so we then decided how beautiful and quirky Kiwis are and absolutely adore them. So we decided to activate the front gardens of people's homes that were along the journey. So it was like this incredibly authentic, beautiful experience where people were kind of welcomed in to the spirit of neighborhood Auckland, right? Anyway, we and it was so unique and so authentic and so sweet. Anyway, people started walking, and then and the more people that talked about it, the more people that walked. And I must say, one of the highlights was Sir Richard Branson did the walk and raved about it. So that was like tick, our job is done here. But it was that was such a great example of how to turn a problem into a solution. Absolutely. And it goes back to a little bit what you were just saying: emotion. It was an emotional exchange. People just shared

Persona Work And End To End CX

SPEAKER_00 18:10

this beautiful moment that wasn't over-engineered. It wasn't, you know, it was a free and authentic experience.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yes. Two things I want to pick up on that is the budget comment because sometimes I think people have a perception that, well, we're just a hairdresser or we're just a this. We don't have a big budget for customer experience, and we don't have a director of customer experience. It's not about big budgets, it's about understanding your audience and what you can being creative, and as you say, the emotion, but also just testing it. And then I know that's you know, Karen at the tennis says a lot, just test it. You just got to test things. Absolutely. It's funny you say Richard Brant's and I go, I'm not a gym goer, but I'm recent to the gym world and I go to Virgin Active. And they have just nailed every element of the customer experience. And yes, you know, the gym's beautiful and lots of natural light, like they and lots of wood, they understand what is a nice environment. But I come home and I say to my partner, who he is a gym goer, do they do this at your gym? And he's like, God no. But you know, we just had Valentine's Day recently, and they just put a chocolate love heart on every gym tower when you went to pick it up at reception. That was it, how simple. You know, if there was a little bit of budget to buy those chocolate hearts, but it didn't have to be much. You know, they had a pride night a few weeks ago, and you know, just little decorations up. And when you walk in, they scan your pass, obviously, and they say hello, welcome. But for me, it's when you leave, when you walk and you go down the escalator, whatever they're doing at the front desk, they put their head up, they say bye, have a great day, and they give you a wave. So they completely understand it's not just the coming in, it's the going out that makes the experience too.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yeah, I you know what I say to to young people that I work with, I say to them, What's really important is to surround yourself with excellent examples of who you want to be and what you want to achieve. And I think that it's so important just to have good taste, right? Now, not everyone has good taste. I think it is an acquired skill. Uh, it's a learned thing in in some cases. Some people have just got it, and that's that. You know, I lived in Paris for five years, and frankly, they can, those women can wear a Hessian bag and look amazing. So they've just got it. Yes. But for most of us, we need to learn it. So I think just exposing yourself to that virgin experience, the high quality but simple things that you can bring into your role, your, you know, your organization to provide a great experience to your customers or to your you know event goers or whatever. I think I think understanding what worked well and why it made you feel so good, because if something makes you feel good, it's more than likely going to make other people feel good too. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I love that. And at fetching events, we always have our CX lens on whatever we're looking at. And we had an event that we went to recently where for one of the functions there was a very strict dress code of all one colour. And there was A, it's a colour not every, well, it was white. Okay. We'll say. Um, and anyone listening might know with the party I'm talking about. Now, the majority of people who go to this event are women and are of probably 35 to 55, let's say. Barely anyone owns all white. No one feels good in all rarely anyone, younger people might be a bit different. And so already we had our backup that we were going to a party. Where we were told we could only wear white. So people have got to go and buy a new outfit. They're in a colour they're not comfortable in. We assumed there was going to be technology projected on us or something. You know, we had these high hopes of what the white party theme was for. Just prior to the event, we get an email with a reminder about the dress code, but also saying, due to the amount of projection, make sure you're wearing you're dressed appropriately under your white. So now we're getting the sense of, oh, okay, there's going to be so much light in our white, it's going to be see-through. So you're coming into a party with your back up, not look, you know, this should be a party we're looking forward to. But everything was falling over. The party ended up being great, but we have no idea why we were in white, other than I would say a designer has said it'll be great and aesthetically it will look terrific as white. But there was it just crossed so many things on the customer experience journey in the lead up. And we just, and it was important, I kept saying to our team, because this is important for us as event managers to think, okay, when we're planning themed dinners or cocktail functions, and if we're putting a dress code, what is it, you know, a realistic dress code, but how does that make our delegates feel? Because we've experienced what it felt here. What's you know, how does that change maybe how we implement things?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you you are your best test case, I think. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

You've worked all over the world, and I'm curious around culture and designing events and storytelling in different cultures. What sort of things do you need to be aware of?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I think some things are really, really universal. And more and more these days, you know. I mean, I look at, you know, it's interesting, you know, the the exchange we had about Qatar and that live site concept that just when when we were there in 2005 and 2006, that wasn't really a thing that they did.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

And you know, maybe it's not even today a thing that they do. I think that that is, if I look at the the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, I'm not sure that was a massive local draw card. Yes. I think it was for foreigners as well, as well as locals. But I think, you know, you need to again, you need to be working with local teams to be able to test what is relevant and what is uncomfortable in some contexts. You know, I remember I remember doing the torch relay for the Asian games. I do remember we were in Beijing, it was one of our cities, and I arrived and I didn't have any real, I'd never worked in Bay in China before. And I arrived and I had one person with me who was my driver. And I remember saying to that driver, I need to go there and I need to go there really quickly. And he said, We can't go there. I said, We have to go there. Anyway, we did go there. We broke every you know, road rule and we got there. And I must admit, after that, I thought to myself, that actually was really culturally challenging because my expectation of what I could do in my country is not what he can do in his country. So I think there you need to have a local lens, you need to absolutely work with a local team who have the ability to contradict you. I think, you know, as consultants and experts, and air quotes, experts, it's really important not to be overbearing. Yes. Because a lot of those younger teams will think, oh, you know everything and I can't contradict you. No, please. I think that's really important. And you know, I go back to the again, back to that Sochi example and and Guatemala, you know, using a local team was the it was our you know winning kind of uh streak, to be honest, in in some one sense of the word. I find that you need to listen a lot and you need to be really open. Yes. I mean, from living in France, yeah, I remember working on the the Paris 2012 bid and an really interesting story. So 2002 to 2005, let's say, working on that bid, I remember we'd come straight from Sydney Olympics and we were selling the dream. We were really valuable pieces in the puzzle to tell the story of how an Olympic Games can benefit your city. And we would tell that story to anyone that would listen, but they didn't understand at all. And for some reason they just couldn't quite comprehend what we were saying. And fast forward all the way to 2024, and I remember I was at the games and some of my former colleagues, and we're talking from 17, 18 years ago now, came up to

Culture Changes How Fans Show Up

SPEAKER_00 27:05

me and they said, Katrina, now we understand what you were trying to tell us all those years ago, and we only understand today because we are here, this is our city, and we have an Olympic Games in our city. We couldn't comprehend what you were saying prior to now. So there are some things that you can convey, and there are other things that just you know, you need to have the experience to understand it. And by that I don't mean working on something, I mean the emotional experience of you know, of uh, of an event. So, you know, I think there's a lot and there's a lot of trial and error.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Not everything will work, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

And I I remember with the Asian game, so in Johan, you know, we'd we'd had Sydney six years earlier where the live sites were just, you know, I can remember going to live sites with mum and dad out at Sydney Olympic Park after they'd been to an event in a venue, and then we went up to the live site, and you know, it was just memories I will never lose and I'll treasure it forever. And we had the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, you know, it's a smaller kind of event, but there, you know, there was still a buzz in the city. And then moving to Dohart at the end of 2006 for the Asian Games, and I remember with uh a colleague and I we'd go for our nightly walk along the Corniche and you would see these amazing live sites with uh screens and you know, food and bev and deck chairs, and and it, you know, we'd say if this was in Australia, this would be packed and not a soul there. And I I remember the Asian Games as being more probably, you know, there wasn't, I don't think, a huge tourism audience that came in for it, in the sense of probably, you know, the FIFA World Cup. But it you could just see culturally, Qataris did not go and sit at live sites. I remember when the Qatari, the Qatar team did really well in the football and the cars driving along with the you know, flags fans, the flags, fans on top of roofs hanging out of windows. So you you could see the cultural difference on how they consumed these events and experiences. And it just it I know the best of intentions would have been there, but it sort of felt like this other cultural overlay had been put there because it had worked at other events, but unfortunately, it just was not the right culture at that time for those live sites to work.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Well, and also maybe it just wasn't it wasn't designed in the right way. Like a live site concept may work, but it needs to be a slightly different concept. Because if we look at if we look at Ramadan, if we look at Icta, if we look at breaking the fast, in the Middle East there is no end of great outdoor gatherings and and and sharing a meal. So then imagine if you translated that to a live site, you know. So it's it is it's it's nuanced and it's understanding you know, understanding the culture. And look, for me, I suppose I've spent more than 20 years living outside of Australia, and I think you've got to really love learning about other cultures. You know, and I do see uh consultants that come and go, and they're really not that uh in love with every culture that they are injecting themselves into. So, you know, for me personally, that's what my life has been about. It's been about learning languages, discovering cultures, and really understanding what makes them tick, because then you can design something that maybe will resonate with them.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Yes. And as you were talking, you just made me think, and I I'm not sure if I've said this in another podcast episode, but just a local cafe in my area that you know boomed and it's it's changed hands, but it's still booming. And I remember chatting to the owner and we'd watch these other cafes come in and out of our neighborhood. And you you knew as soon as they came in they were wrong and they weren't gonna succeed. And I remember she said, before I opened this, I came and sat here every day for three months and I watched what people ate, how they moved, when they went and got their food and coffee. So she had completely studied the persona. You know, it doesn't need to be, you don't need to be holding an event overseas to study. You know, she was looking at just a local cafe in Melbourne. She didn't live in the suburb, but she studied everything that her new potential customers were doing to make sure she nailed it. And she absolutely nailed it. Um, you know, she would be one of the only cafes, there's another one now, but at the time, she was the only cafe that opened on Christmas Day because people still want coffee on Christmas Day. And so not only did she create a community on Christmas Day, she picked up new customers who didn't usually come to a cafe, but went there because they needed a coffee on Christmas Day. But she understood it. And, you know, that's a great example of how localized, it's the same principles, but you can do it at any level.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Well, again, just goes back to what pro, you know, what problem are you solving? What do you want someone to do as a result of solving their problem? You know, and I think it's it's really fundamental. You know, if we look at, I mean, good just going back to Qatar and to the Middle East, if we look at some of the narrative work and the storytelling and the legacy, I mean, for me, the customer experience, uh certainly in a in a game sense and the fan engagement, it's not just for one event. This is an ongoing relationship that that part of the world, and and indeed any city that is bidding for an Olympic Games or a major global sports event, they want to start a relationship that's long uh lasting. And their story is ongoing. So whether it's tourism, whether it's social cohesion, whether it is economic development, these are stories that are embedded into these global events. And they're the event is a vehicle for telling that story. I mean, if we look at, you know, I've been to Saudi probably three or four times. And even in the time that I've been coming and going from there, the change is so extraordinary. I mean, we look at, for example, women in sport, which is something I'm very passionate about. If we look at women in sport in, for example, Saudi Arabia, one of the hurdles was finding a hijab that is comfortable enough to practice their sport in. Now that's actually a huge industry. Yes. I mean, these are the this is the legacy, and these are the shifts and changes that having an experience and having a fan base that's then starting to show interest, driving demand, so many things can change. History can change as a result of that. So yeah, I think that you know, finding the problem to solve and and creating really great, authentic, powerful engagement is, I mean, it's it's why we do what we do.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Yes. My gosh, you just took me, and I'm conscious of time, so we'll wrap up furtherly. But I just you took me to the um fluorescent canary yellow uniform we had in Doha that I don't know whether you had it on the torch relay. It was like a parachute material, if I remember correctly, and it was bright yellow. And understandably, it because we were in Qatar, it was long sleeve and long trousers. So very modest, absolutely understandable, but the fabric was a little bit transparent in areas. And so you ended up, I'm remembering I'm sure I had to wear like a singlet under it, and you just thought, oh gosh, they've got part of it right, but not the other part. Um, but it's interesting when you were talking about you know, uniforms, I remember talking to someone in the equestrian sector, not so much racing, but in other areas of the equestrian sector, saying that often the barrier to males getting into certain equestrian events was the out was the job pits. So you got a lot of men in equestrian

Legacy Stories That Outlast Events

SPEAKER_02 35:20

events where you didn't, you know, like I guess rodeos and quarter horsing and different disciplines of equestrian, but certain disciplines like dressage, eventing, show jumping, according to this person I was chatting to, said often the barrier is what the clothing is for the men to wear. So you just don't know with your customers, whether it is athletes, participants, whatever it is, what as you say, what's the problem? You know, I always talk about removing those friction points in customer experience, understanding what those friction points are, removing them, so you can give it a good experience.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Well, it's interesting you say that because another arm of my work is crisis mitigation, risk mitigation, crisis mitigation. And you know, I was actually with Darren the other day doing a masterclass at ICMS, and we were joined by Craig Sheridan, who is an expert in security and so on. And one of the joys of my life is conducting crisis scenario uh readiness work, of which you know I've done for Olympic Games and COP, you know, United Nations cops in um in the Middle East, and taking people through their paces so that ahead of time you can work through a scenario or what clothing is, what are the barriers, what are the tension points, and we create the scenarios and we put them through their paces without responding, without commenting, just observing. And at the end, sitting down and saying, well, okay, based on your on on observer observing you, these are the areas that you need to work on. There is nothing more valuable than stepping through that in a real-time situation uh to learn. I just think a lot of a lot of people don't do that in exactly yeah, you know, best you fail in front of us yes, and then refine it so that when you actually are on the day. And for like I'll give you a little example just quickly. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. We ran through our scenarios and you know, a group of Australians over there doing readiness exercises, games wide, so every functional area. And one of our scenarios was there's no snow. And the Canadians absolutely were rolling around on the floor, laughing at themselves silly, saying to us, What do you mean? You know, this is Canada. We never had enough snow. We said, Well, and maybe, maybe you don't. But what would you do if you didn't have snow? And they're like, Oh, don't be ridiculous. Never happened, never happened. Anyway, we forced the issue, we did the scenario, we worked through it. And you know, the thing about customer experience and this scenario is it's huge. A, your events cancelled, b, you have to have your tickets refunded. This is a global ticketing, you know, concept. And back then it wasn't as easy as it is now. You have to have that together. C, you have to move infrastructure, you have to reduce the area where there's snow. So we went through all of these, you know, all of the transport, all of it. And they did it, and it was great. And at the end, you know, they kind of said to us, thanks, but you know, we don't really need that. And and then, of course, the event happened and uh they didn't have enough snow.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

It just, yes. Oh, I've when you were talking, I was just thinking of a scenario planning. I did it on an equestrian event, and I said, What happens if a dog runs on the course? Oh, a dog won't run on a course. I said, but let's just go through. And and there's lots of dogs at equestrian events because they come with

Scenario Planning And Failing Forward

SPEAKER_02 38:55

the float and the family and in the stabling area, or people walk their dogs around the course. And I said, Let's just go through just what if a whore a dog ran on and being told no. And then I can remember the event hearing on the radio, there's a dog on the course, you know, here. But it and it was having the right people in the room for that because I remember another scenario we realized that there was a crossover point on the course where on the cross country. And so we had to be really careful about horses crossing over. And it was during that scenario that someone said, Oh, such and such horse cannot be around other horses. And we have to be really careful at the start line, you know, they have the warm-up arenas. But that wouldn't have come up if we hadn't run that scenario. But it was absolutely stepping it through, and that was an event where the the the course finished at a certain point. And for people to get back to the car park, they had to retrace their steps. The fastest way back to the car park was through the stabling. So they just all would jump the fence and come back because human nature is I just want to find the fastest route back. And so there was so much work we had to do around that and getting people out of the car park. We had a lot of stuff in place around getting people into the car park, but they're coming in staggered. They all go at the same time. And they would try and hold things like run movies and you know, leave some of the activations going at the end of the event to stagger people leaving. But it was that free-for-all in the car park, which often got forgotten about at the end of the event. So, what you could do around that.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Well, and look, it does remind me of the equestrian events at the Paris Olympics out at Versailles, which were exquisite. However, it was 37 degrees. Yes. The stand, the stands were all metal stands, and you were sitting on metal seats. It was unbearable. The heat was unbearable to the point where I had to leave the stand and go and stand downstairs, down on the ground in the under the trees because it was unbearable. And then the long walk, there was a very, very long walk back to buses and and ultimately to the train. But as the French do, there was um there was enough rose along the way to keep you entertained.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

So but that's it, isn't it? I remember someone once telling me this, and I must look it up, I haven't, but a study around lifts. And there was an apartment block or an office building where the lifts were, they couldn't, they were slow, and people were getting really agitated. They couldn't fix the lifts, but what they did was put mirrors in. So people were standing there distracted, looking at themselves, fixing their clothes. So they didn't notice the delay in the lifts. And I guess the rose is that kind of thing. You're you're entertaining them as long as there's something to keep their attention and you know, it keeps engaged. Just when we're talking about stepping through things, I remember when we came back out of COVID and it was the first time we'd gone to a restaurant. So, you know, we'd been in lockdown, and everything we were told was about keeping a distance and all of this. It's our first time back out in the wild. We went to our local pub for dinner. I mean, it was like the biggest occasion, you know. I think now it was hilarious. We got dressed up. And anyway, we got there and you walked, you know, it's winter, it's kind of going into winter when we first came out and walked in the front door. And, you know, you'd have to sign in in those days. But the sign-in book was right at the front door. So you basically slammed into the people in front of you who were standing there, and the people behind you basically slammed into you. So here we are all bunched in really tight quarters, which went against everything. So they had the functionality in place of the sign-in book and the, you know, the hand sanitizer, I think, was at the desk, but they had not taught thought through the journey of, okay, people are going to come in, they're going to need to, they actually need to walk a few steps because we're going to constantly get people coming in. And I just remember thinking, oh no, no, they just hadn't thought that they hadn't walked it through to understand what it would be like. And you, I remember at Choggum we did exercises around the delegate heads of delegation arrivals at the airport. And so we all, you know, had a role to play and we role-played what it was like. And you know, if someone got out that door, would there be an attendant? You know, what if they didn't come out the right door, right side of the car and they, you know, walked in that direction? You've got to test all of that. Yeah. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

You do, and I also think um there's a lot of planning that goes into these events.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

But at the end of the day, and this is what we were saying at the university the other day, you need to be able to have common sense and make things up as you go along because the best laid plans can all go out the window if X happens. And when X happens, you need to be able to come up with a solution and make a decision. And it might not be the right one, but you just have to make a decision and stand by it. So I think there's a lot of that that's really necessary as well.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

And understand. That it's okay that something hasn't worked. It's okay to make a change at event time or in your business. It's not a failure. You're actually failing forward because you've you've learned from it. And I think people think, oh no, I can't change that because all this planning. But you're right, it's what you do at the time. Katrina, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for your time. And I know we've got plenty of conversations in the future to have. But we I really look forward to seeing the next sort of projects that you're working on and staying in touch. So thank you again for being a guest.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Thank you very much.