The conference delegate, exhibition visitor or exhibitor, or member of the press at a product launch is often so involved in taking part in an event that they don’t think about what’s gone into producing the live experience. Probably furthest from their minds are the people who set everything up before they’ve even arrived – the event crew. However, anyone involved in organising an event, particularly those of a significant size, will know all about how important the crew is to its overall success.

These days most Event Organisers use external crews, but what are the benefits of hiring a crewing agency over building an in-house team?

"For an event company to be successful it needs to show versatility and creativity within its offering so that clients can repeatedly come back to them," answers Philip Atkins of hospitality support company Off To Work. "To achieve this it needs to be able to adjust quickly and efficiently to the needs of each event and see every occasion as unique. By working with external crews, it allows a company to bring in specialist talents for any event, and not be weighed down by large fixed-wage overheads. Using crewing companies is all about allowing individuals to concentrate on their own expertise creating enormous synergies which the end client and guests benefit from."

Roy Wallace at technical event solutions company Barracuda agrees, adding: "External crewing charges are much easier to define to our clients in budgetary terms, and it saves a lot of admin time after the event in calculating costs, such as overtime, etc, because with external crews you have a fixed call charge – four hours, eight hours, or whatever is required. This also makes it much easier to work out the set-up and de-rig costs."

More than you bargained for… So you can get far more that just the obvious expert help in setting up from crewing agencies.

"We find external crews can also speed up the installation and taking down for us in a big way," says Wallace. "And, as some venues require the space soon after an event is finished for other functions, it works out to be much cheaper for the client to have external crews on site, as it saves on extra venue charges, which can be expensive."

Crewing agencies also allow Barracuda to take on more and bigger work.

"This was perfectly illustrated recently," explains Wallace, "when we did the Eye for Travel European Summit in May at the Business Design Centre, London, with more than 75 Exhibition Stands, one main conference room/auditorium, six breakout conference rooms and more. Had we not had this external crew facility available, we could not have handled this particular project."

Barracuda was also involved in organising a World Cup event last year at the Harney Nichols restaurant in Kensington, London. "With the venue being a public restaurant, we had hardly any time to set up for this function, which included installing a big screen," Wallace continues, "and without external crews, we could not have not have contemplated doing the job without involving huge logistics and expenses!"

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next