A longstanding relationship kept alive with thoughtful problem solving and creativity

Alive’s Managing Director, Chad Simpson, has partnered with events professional Glen Morrissey since 2012. As Glen’s career has progressed across a variety of companies, he’s continued to join forces with Chad and Alive when a project needs clever thinking and a safe pair of hands.

Turning the brief on its head

The first time Chad worked with Glen was on an event for Barclays in 2012. “It was an internal conference to introduce our new retail CEO,” explains Glen. “The brief from my senior team was to be conservative. But, after talking to Chad, I went to them with an alternative approach.”

Chad’s proposal was to move away from the predictability of a hotel ballroom and, instead, hold the event at the Circus Space; an old power station converted into a performing arts venue. He suggested using their performers to add an element of surprise by building the set around the audience. So, as attendees arrived, they were intrigued to find the room not ready…and then the set-building performance began. The opening of the conference was marked by a trampolinist placing the Barclays logo high above the stage. It was an unconventional but eye-catching way to start the event, with an already impressed audience – and a great way to introduce the event host.

Brilliantly creative

Glen says: “I knew the delegates were senior leaders who’d run their own events, so I loved Chad’s suggestion of doing something more radical that would set this new leader apart. It was an adventurous response to the brief and quite a gamble. But I felt there wasn’t a lot that could go wrong, and I trusted Chad’s team to pull it off.

“It was very clever in that it presented this leader in a memorable way, but it wasn’t expensive or overly complicated. It was completely fit for purpose and typifies the thoughtful, brilliantly creative way Chad and his team approach events. Even the fact that the venue was around 300 years old – a similar age to Barclays – was meaningful as it helped convey the message of evolution and fresh thinking. The CEO was thrilled with the conference’s success and so was I. It showed him that, as events professionals, we’re partners who make a real difference.”

A partner you can trust

Over the years, Glen continued to partner with Chad and introduce him to his colleagues. At Bloomberg, for example, he introduced Chad to a colleague working on the first external event at the company’s acclaimed new offices. “They needed a reliable partner they could trust to get it right,” he says, “so it was a no-brainer to put them in touch with Chad and his team.”

Going virtual

In July 2021, Glen went to Chad and the Alive team with a whole new kind of conundrum. By then, he was global head of events for GfK – a leading provider of data and insights to the consumer goods industry. Glen was responsible for organising an event to launch some powerful new software, but in-person events weren’t allowed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Holding a virtual event was the only option at that time. So, I needed an events partner with the production capabilities to handle the technical and operational challenges around that,” explains Glen.

To comply with COVID-19 legislation, Alive set up a closed, carefully managed set. And used extended virtual reality to beam in the speakers who couldn’t travel to the filming venue, so it looked as if they were in the same room.

Getting the content right

Practicalities weren’t the only hurdles Glen had to overcome for this event, however: “I needed more than a production company. We needed to articulate the complex story around the breadth of our solutions in a way that would be easy to absorb, so it was about getting the content right as well as the production.”

Glen introduced Alive to the product owner so they could get right under the skin of the product.

“Alive did what they’re so good at and, after spending time understanding the messaging, suggested an alternative way of narrating the message,” says Glen. “And it worked. The whole event was a triumph and set the bar for GfK’s future virtual events. Our external speakers, who were senior academics, praised the production’s professionalism and the thoughtfulness of the content and said they’d happily partner with us again.”

The event was broadcast in several countries, in several languages, and served as a great brand awareness channel to a global audience. It clearly demonstrated the performance of the platform and how we provide intelligence on purchasing behaviour to our clients.

Making the most of the space

More recently, Alive worked on another challenging but very different event with Glen. IFA Berlin is the largest consumer electronics trade fair with over 2,500 exhibitors and 250,000 attendees. GfK had attended IFA several times before. But in 2023, Glen decided to host a dedicated space for the comfort of their colleagues and clients.

The venue offered Glen two areas for the event: “One was very large and echoey and would have been very costly to transform into a usable space for our plenary session. The other was smaller but very visually unappealing. I knew I could trust Alive to make the best use of these spaces though – even in the short timeframe that we had – and I was right.”

Alive suggested using only the smaller room rather than both rooms. This presented logistical complexity because this one room would need to host private meetings, networking space, a plenary session and a cocktail party. But the benefits included the opportunity to create a more attractive room more cost-effectively, and GfK could really own the space without losing its audience by being spread across two rooms.

Transformational ideas

Alive’s imaginative idea was to build two offices within the room that could be collapsed and moved aside for the plenary session. Glen liked this left field suggestion and asked Alive to manage local production teams for the build to help keep costs down.

In collaboration with Glen and the local teams, Alive dressed the room and built the two offices within it – one with a door and a boardroom table for private meetings, and an open office for informal chats. They also added comfortable seating around the room to encourage contacts to linger and chat.

Before the plenary session, which was attended by 75 trade contacts and streamed online, the office structures were flattened against the wall so the branding on their external walls could still be seen. A desk for the speaker panel was erected and seating brought in for attendees. After the plenary, participants returned to the main exhibition and Alive switched the room to its previous setting. In the evening, the furniture was moved once more and high tables were brought in for a drinks reception.

Glen loved Alive’s suggestion of using only the smaller room: “It was an ingenious use of space. Our local GfK teams (who’d been to IFA many times before) and even IFA’s senior executives were all incredibly impressed with what we’d achieved in the space.”

A close an eye on the detail

Glen was also glad to be working with such a practical, resourceful team: “IFA is a challenging event to work on because the venue, Messe Berlin, is so vast, and many of the services such as wifi and cleaning are provided by external suppliers. Alive helped us ensure everything ran smoothly and the space looked smart and on brand without going over budget. They sourced alternative furniture from that offered by the venue, for example, and ensured the temporary offices were built with a high-quality feel. With events, it’s as much about the tiny details as the big ideas and Alive make sure everything’s carefully considered and implemented.”

Commercial success

GfK’s plenary session in this room attracted as many attendees as the presentation on IFA’s main stage. And GfK held a high number of productive meetings and conversations there during the event. It gave them a great opportunity to communicate how they serve clients, following a recent acquisition, and the breadth of their solutions.