Podcast Episode 13: How to Lead Major Industry Events – Alex Pratt on Balancing Success with Well-Being

Leo Judkins: [00:01:00] Hey everybody. Welcome to the iGaming Leader podcast. I'm here, joined today by Alex Pratt.

Amazing journey in I Game has been in the industry for a long, long time. I've been at iGamingBusiness, now Clarion, Group Managing Director, and, yeah, welcome. Welcome, Alex. Really excited to talk to you today.

Alex Pratt: Brilliant. Thank you, Leo. Excited.

Leo Judkins: Hey, uh we've got to start with ice, I guess, right? So, man, what an event. The feedback's been phenomenal. That must have been such a difficult move for you initially. You must have, you must have really been sweating as you, as you, Kind of move from London to to Barca

How were you feeling beforehand while making that decision? 

Alex Pratt: The whole journey of that move was stressful. To be fair, in the last six months, I oddly was quite confident. I think that's because the way we did it, we worked with customers. So actually they made the decision for us. 

[00:02:00] And we had so much data, so much research has said it was the right place that we just had to, I guess, go for it. I think it was the bit before which drove us. into the process. So when I sort of rejoined Clarion Gaming to head it up back in 2020, back end of 2020, so during COVID, and yeah, it wasn't the nicest place to be. I think everyone was questioning events. ICE was being, now, it's the biggest event, so it's the biggest spend, and a lot of people were saying, is it really worth it?

So we had to look at everything, including like, is the location right? And it was never going to be an easy journey that made everyone happy. I'm so glad we did it now and now I can like live in glory and not be fired, but I could tell you it was like a really brave leader led decision, but to be fair, we found these incredible couple who are consultants that randomly met,  the CEO of Clarion randomly met in Singapore, and they helped run this whole process.

And it was, if I showed you the excels, you'd be in there for days of the depth of analysis that they went into. So no, it's brilliant. I'm so happy.

Leo Judkins: [00:03:00] Love it mate. One of the things I really loved as we were talking before the event is how you were even pulling up stats, you know, from registration. Kind of how the registration was flowing and registrations from different countries and how they were compared to previous year, you were saying the UK is a bit behind, logically, right?

Because it's not in the UK anymore. So what does that, what does that look like? That whole journey leading, leading up to the events actually kicking off?

Alex Pratt: That was actually, it turned out to be quite stressful. The bit I think I spoke to you about is just before Christmas. It then got really stressful. The problem is, the way we'll measure registration will be weeks out from the event. The issue we had is, the event was taking place, God, what, three or four weeks earlier this time.

So, Christmas and year would have occurred in a different part of the weeks out earlier. So just before Christmas, our registration was flying up year on year. The UK was down, but only marginal and then Christmas here and everything just fell off the cliff.

[00:04:00] You expect that. But then you're kind of like, Okay, when are people coming back to work? When's it going to hit? And it was just after January. Obviously, the registration started piling in, but the UK just suddenly didn't really come back.

We’re about a week into January and we're like, Oh, Oh, my God. Like we had at that point, we were 60 percent down on UK registrations, and that makes up 40 percent of our normal attendees. And we're like, well, actually, we need to. Is this going to be made up of other places? And interestingly, it was the companies that were coming, but the individuals, the volume of individuals.

So if you'd use it like someone like Hippodrome would send 56 people to ice last year, this year they're sending nine. So you're because they're sending the right people and actually they can't just stick them on it,  on the purple line to get down to Excel. 

Luckily, as time went on and tons of people were piling into analysis and creating Graphs that were far bigger and cleverer than me. It came in and look, LatAm was up 33%. Spain, 432%, Africa, 20%. 

[00:05:00] And actually, for me, there's so many reasons why this was a pivotal moment for ICE and it's, look, it's 89 years old, but it's always been positioned as this global event. But actually it was a very heavy UK and for the first time, UK's still number one attendee, but actually. Those other countries and those other regions really kind of filled that gap. 

So yeah, it was a relief in the end, but it wasn't enjoyable for about a week or so because you just You're always going to hope for about 10 or 15, 000 people to rock up on site, God knows why they don't register before, but you're sort of crossing your fingers and just hoping, and luckily they did.

Leo Judkins: And it's like it kind of gets out of your control as well, right? You've done all the work and now you're looking at the numbers and you can't really do that much about it anymore. So I can 

Alex Pratt: And we'll run, we'll run some UK led campaigns at that point and talk about the fact that it's cheaper to come to Barcelona than London if you don't live in London and, and try and move, but to be honest, most people have made a decision by then. 

Although actually, I think a few get persuaded by social media and FOMO, I think actually no, and it was still, it was still like only 100 quid on the fly, 120 quid.

[00:06:00] So I think a few people jumped at the last minute, but yeah, it's, it's kind of out of your control, which is hard.

Leo Judkins: It's always yeah. Well, we would have had the same conversation if we would have been horrible, you know, so I'm happy that you're not fired. 

I wanted to kind of start at your start. If that's all right. I saw that you like it when you've been in the industry for a long time, but you kind of came out of uni, you started in sales.

And I always love talking to people that kick off in sales. What? What?  tell me a little bit more about that. Why did you kick off sales? And what did that teach you about, you know, leadership in general? And how did that help you in your career?

Alex Pratt: Yeah, look, it was a conscious choice, but one that I didn't really have much control over. I did sociology at Portsmouth University, Portsmouth's lovely university, but the combination of those two doesn't set you up for walking into some high powered, like, grad program. So you open the Guardian and the first three pages are just ad sales jobs, so. You go on the train, I ended up working for the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. 

[00:07:00] They had their own publishing magazine, membership mag, selling the tiny little box ads. And it was, I was there for four years and it is UK engineering and that God knows when that was 2000. I mean, UK engineering is hard anyway. It's always going to be tough, but at that time it was no, everyone was kind of struggling, but we also had 32 competitors. We were a weekly, a monthly, the internet didn't, I mean, it existed, but no one was selling ads online. It was hard, hard work, 

I mean, there was no skype. No one you skype. No, I remember we had a fax machine. You'd wait for your order to come back through direct mail, but you do direct mail by yourself. You print it out on the printer, put it in lots of brown envelopes. But yeah, it's brilliant. And it really, I think it sets you up for resilience. I mixed with people that you wouldn't normally mix with.

[00:08:00] And weirdly, I just, whatever I'm in, I become passionate for. So at the time I was, people used to be, I'd go to the pub with my mates all three years out of uni and I'd be banging on about CFD and FEA analysis and like drive trains and stuff. I can't even remember anymore. I remember going from that to the game industry and I made my first call and like in engineering was all about like, what are the, what's the response, right? I'm not going to read a book, blah, blah. And it was like one man. And I remember speaking in a conference, Michael gave me your chart. Well, and I was like, well, where are you looking? No one even cared about the response. No, they were just like, you can literally make a phone call and people were just booking ads. And I was like, this is the best industry ever. But you applied the greatest things I applied. the work ethic to, to that. And suddenly it's not from an arrogant perspective, I think a lot of people, because they were my competitors, they would kind of doing the bare minimum because that was making them lots of money.

But if you just applied actually the 32 capacity ethic, my God, like we broke records immediately on the first issue. And all I did was pick up the phone. It was,  wasn't anything special. yeah, 

Leo Judkins: [00:09:00] What you mean. It makes a lot of sense. Right. Because you've been taught and you've set a certain standard and a certain bar for yourself. Right. In that previous role, picking up dials, running dials, doing a hundred calls a day, whatever it is. Right. 

Obviously a lot of competition and they come into gaming and I'd love to talk a little bit about when you like. When you joined the magazine, iGaming business, there was, I think it was a quarterly, quarterly print at that time, smallish and you like it exploded as you were there.

So tell me a little bit more about that, about that journey and how you grew it and how that all kind of manifested itself.

Alex Pratt: amazing. Really. I started, but it's the best weekend you could ever start a job. We started on Friday. I flew to Vegas on Saturday. I luckily, and I don't know if you've had him on here, but I highly recommend a guy called Rob Dowling. 

There's two Rob Dowlings in the industry, but Rob Dowling at the time Pentasia and Bruce. And he, Rob's brother, I call him my sort of father of gaming. So I sort of went to Vegas with him. 

[00:10:00] They were the biggest customer of the iGaming business, but we were also the biggest platform for them. So they were starting up as well. They'd use our boardroom and our creative and we'd use, I'd use him to help me like me and understand people.  and it was just a brilliant time because it was, everything was exploding. I was young, naive. Didn't know what the limit was. I got on the plane and on the back of every, in, the internal flight in America, that every back of every seat was, I think it was one of the old casinos that don't exist anymore.

I was like, but I think about how there's online casinos in the back of headrests. And it was just such a sector that was. Growing up really fast, but also so friendly. And I think that for me, that's always, always, being all the way through, actually, that it's just a really friendly, helpful sector.

And you could go in and be quite vulnerable that you'd know nothing. And, And, you suddenly met the world and people introduced you to people. 

[00:11:00]  And yeah, it was, and then I met my first meeting was with 18 short, that's now a consultant in, in Malta. who was the marketing director at the time for Chartwell. Yeah, and it's brilliant. She's my mother of gaming, Robin, Robin, Nadine, my mother and father. She's also the godmother to my child. 

So I mean, it really is easy to kind of become this close relationship. But,  yeah, she taught me about how marketing works. He sat there and got this, yeah, a member of this yellow pad saying, look, this is what we want as marketers.

This is what, how it works for what we measure. And it's little things like that. You just go on this journey and then look, the growing that magazine was just a whole journey of mistakes and successes of that. Should we try this? Should we try that? We see. I remember going to a show and seeing people have webinars. Well, let's try webinars and 20 years old. We're still bloody doing webinars. 

Everyone's still doing them.

Leo Judkins: Yeah.

Alex Pratt: [00:12:00] yeah, or reports or subscriptions and data. There's so many things we launched and failed. The. Or so many that luckily survived, but it was,  yeah, it's brilliant time, stressful, but brilliant.

Leo Judkins: I, I, I bet. What were some of the most difficult times that you've had there, Alex? What were, like, moments where you thought, oh my god, this is just, where is this gonna go?

Alex Pratt:  There's probably back then We launched cat magazine, which is a joint venture with casino affiliate programs. com. The,  later became called IGB affiliate magazine when we bought them out of that joint venture. We also launched Cap Euro with them as well, which then became the affiliate events you see all the shows now. there was a where we nearly lost that entire business

Like overnight. That was stressful. and actually I remember sitting in October, probably it was our first Barcelona event. So it would have been around 07, 08, probably 08. And we sat at this table and were like, this is amazing. Like, the affiliate market was super young at the time. It was so connected. 

[00:13:00]Our aim was to legitimize. Affiliates like make them be proud of the job they do, like give them a voice, give them a platform, whether it was in the forums on their forums, or at the same time, the guys that owned it had seen an opportunity and launched their own online casino and poker, unfortunately, they weren't. honest with the market about owning it and actually they started to compete with their own customers and that was our business but they were tied into ours and that turned into a whole load of stuff that you could probably find online and who knows where. 

But they fell out at that point the industry then suddenly felt that they didn't want us to organize the event so created some something called GAP, gamblingaffiliateprograms.com I think about 20 of them met in a room in Amsterdam to talk about whether they like relaunching their own event, like they don't need us anymore.

It was a rapid three weeks of rebranding to IGB and it had to be something generic because we're still joint venture partners who might go back.

[00:14:00] And it's the only reason they're not called it anymore. But for years, it was called London Affiliate Commerce, Barcelona, Budapest, blah, blah. Any insert city. I have to buy every. Possible domain in any city we might end up at and then just calling the customers and just being and the thing that got me through was that I'd always been completely transparent, honest with the market and actually people trusted me when I said, Look, this is going forward.

This is like, and we had to have. I don't know if you've seen J Todd, he used to APCW, he was quite actively watching YouTube channels and that has to be J Todd proof. Like J Todd has to be able to come in, look at our accounts, look at this business and actually nothing is wrong with it. Like we're transparent, we're part of the market. So we did a lot of work and yeah, it came out luckily. 

The events continue, we continue, but it was really stressful because at the time I went to a business zone by a very small floated company on aim and, and it was one of the bigger parts that made the profit for the business. And actually the event certainly made a big chunk of that. So there was stress around that and. Yeah, losing, losing the entire business, but luckily we did and everything became good.

Leo Judkins: [00:15:00] Great. I mean, it's that that must have been like you said, it was super stressful because it feels like it's spiraling. Right. And it's a lot of stuff that is then out of your control, because other people are having these meetings and kind of setting these things up. And how did that affect you, like, personally?

Alex Pratt: God, it's such a long time ago now think the problem is back then I was quite young and fairly naive, but it was for me, it was, really personal because it was about who I was as a person rather than the business and actually I always really believed in karma and being a good person.

I don't know if that's like something weird in my upbringing that I always want to please people because I had the therapy the other day and she couldn't work out why I've got this innate thing that I just want to make people happy. I want them to be happy. So I think I found that really difficult. I had a really good CEO at the time. 

He taught me a few things. 

[00:16:00] One is just actually, look, you just got to stay true to yourself. saying? Sorry. is like one of the most powerful things you can ever do, rather than trying to defend and defend actually saying, look, we, we messed up or I'm sorry, and actually it gives you all the power back because actually at that point, the, the other party or person, all they can do is either say, well, I don't accept that and get angry or. Accept it and actually I think that helped a lot. But it was difficult and I don't think I had a lot of the tools back then to understand like how to deal with those sorts of things

Leo Judkins: you power through it, right? And it's like you said, it feels then a personal attack almost, because it questions your integrity. So that is so tough, especially when you don't have the tools. 

Alex Pratt: I mean, we have that a lot, a lot in events The difference in my background is publishing events. We just fell into and made it up as we went along. it was easy to make mistakes for the first few years because the industry wanted the event and we were their partner.

[00:17:00] So they would forgive you all along the way. And actually, they were with you for those mistakes. I think as you get bigger, and certainly when you're in Clarion, yeah. And you, you'll see more as this corporate, you're not seen as individuals and people with events. Everything is laid out like there's no hiding.

If something is bad, if no one turns up or something goes wrong, there's no hiding from, and it really is criticism that you're an individual, which doesn't often happen. I think in other sectors, because you can. Your mistakes are often not seen or could be hidden pretty fast. 

Leo Judkins: and everybody talks about it right straight away. And well, when you've seen it now with ice, it's turned out very positively. But that's exactly what happens, right? If something goes wrong straight away, and people love a bit of complaining as well. So it's usually under a microscope straight away too, right?

So, when you think back to events, let's take an event in general, and you know, there must have been things where that's, there must have been situations where that's happened and that must have really kind of hit you. Have you had those situations? And if so, how did you, how do you deal with it?

Alex Pratt: [00:18:00] yeah, tons of times.

And the worst is when you're on site and when we were a smaller business and I have a slightly different strategy now. But we throw events out everywhere, like we see opportunities and we did them in France and French and Spain and in Sweden, we'd follow any kind of trend or and and let some work.

Some didn't. but some of those where you're on site and. no one, not no one, but half the people don't turn up  in answer to your question, I used to just go and hide in the loo. That was my.

Because there's nowhere to go. You can't go to the staff room, you can't go anywhere. And I used to, Richard Wannakesaro, who now works for Sigma, would search for me, and I'd be like, I've just got to go to the loo. he'd just put the He'd just put the seat down, you'd sit there, close the door, and you'd be like, Oh, my God. 

And sometimes he might cry. Sometimes you just, and it's just, you just have your own quiet place to get away from it all. It is really hard. I think something you always learn in events. It takes a few years that it always will be okay. 

[00:19:00]Like nothing is going to be the way Although it may feel like the worst thing in the world. It will always be okay. And I think you just have to do your best and be honest with people. And for me, as I've got older, it's human to human. Like you can be as angry as you like at me, but I am, I'm a human and you're a human. So let's like, like relax. Like there's more to life than that moment in time. It feels like it's everything, but actually there's so much more to life than getting really stressed. Although

It's hard, it's hard to think that in the moment.

Leo Judkins: exactly when you're in the middle of it. Right. And especially if you're like you said, you know, your people pleaser, you want to do your 

best and you have worked like the outcome is something different from how much time and effort you've put in. So you know how much time and effort you've put in and that's a ton, right.

And because you want to do your best. And then there's this person that turns up out of nowhere, hasn't put in the time and effort and criticizes that thing that you've rightly or wrongly so. 

[00:20:00] That thing that you've put so much time and effort into that, like, that must be so, that's such a contrast between who you are and, like the effort that you've put in and then the feedback that you're getting, that's, that's tough.

Alex Pratt: Customers in gaming that the vast amount of them are confident and not afraid to tell you what they think. When I was younger, I found it really hard to deal with those situations and those situations of conflict as I got older. More mature, more experienced. Actually, I think it's, it's just much easier just to,

Yeah, attack them as an individual and actually know that. And that could be where a customer is. In the past, I probably haven't been polite either to myself or a member of staff. And in those days, I probably would have let it go. Now I'm like, well, actually, do you know what?

That's not how the world works anymore. If you, if you're going to make someone feel like that, you're, you're not welcome at this event. And that doesn't matter how much money you're spending. I think that's been a, I think it's been a shift in society about making people accountable for behavior.

[00:21:00] I know I'm Also, I think a shift in the confidence I have in order to be able to say, actually, that's not okay. And in fact, part of our briefing pre-event, we do big event briefs for the staff. Part of it is that there's a section called, it's not okay. And it's not okay for you as a member of staff, but also not as okay for you as a, as a, attendee or an exhibitor to not feel okay on site, no matter what, whether it's behavior of someone or, you know, someone might be exhibiting something in a certain way and so we'll rely on things like code of conduct needs to deal with that but i think yeah i think over time i've become more confident to deal with that stuff

Leo Judkins: Let me ask you about that then Alex, because we talk here on the podcast, we talk a lot about authentic leadership. It's a bit of a buzzword, right? And,  but we all know that being yourself is like the way to go. 

That is what, that's what real leadership is. However, I think the problem for most people is not that they're not authentic, it's that they're afraid to execute on their boundaries, if you will, you know, to be like you were saying, this behavior is not okay, right?

[00:22:00] That's like saying that it is difficult. and I think that's kind of what you're describing. That changes over time, right? As you get older 

but also as you put in the reps and you realize that, you know, when things go wrong, actually the world is not going to burn down. It's going to be okay. You, you realize those things happening.

So how's that now? What's, what's, what are some things that have helped you to set stronger boundaries around what you do and do not accept? 

Alex Pratt: Look, part of it's just education and learning. I've got a girlfriend now, she opened my eyes to feminism a while ago. I read the Sheryl Sandberg book and I was like, Oh my God. 

Then read, I can't even remember the name of the book, but there's a whole book around data. And around everything from, I don't know, the way a car is designed on the,  the bag that explodes to the size of an iPhone to the temperature we set our room to all these things and things that aren't fair.

[00:23:00] And then as you start to dig into these sorts of areas, I start to care more. And I, and I think me as a person, I think I've just started and I, not that I didn't care before. I just need some awareness. and understanding and I guess experience and lifelike. I would say if I held my hands up, I remember a lady that worked for me many years ago, got pregnant in no way to do anything legally wrong.

But I actually don't believe I dealt with it in a sensitive way as I could have in terms of like understanding that actually their feet swell and they may not want to come in understanding coming back to work and really being sensitive about that and actually well not realizing how nervous that person is to come back to work having then had a child multiple children now and seeing the other side it makes me much more aware of how people feel and I think I've tried to as I get a bit older.

I've tried to think more about how people feel and what's morally right. And actually it's okay not to make money. If you can do what's right,

[00:24:00] It's about a balance between driving a business that can be really successful, but also just doing what's right.

And when I come across it, I get angry these days and I do something about it. I think there's something's changed in me now where I also don't want to be that leader that sweeps under the carpet.

And I remember a couple of years ago, there was someone at work that felt uncomfortable about someone's behavior. And. I've heard about it via someone else and they hadn't raised it because they were like actually no one's gonna do anything about it. What's the point? And I was like, this is ridiculous Right.

so I spoke to her. We dealt with it. We investigated it and I want people to know that if you're going to raise something, we will do something about it. And the only way I can do that is by standing by that every single day and then every single opportunity throughout our business and that we will get things wrong all the time.

[00:25:00] But yeah, for me. Just one of those, I guess, personal pillars that I want to act on. I want to, I want people to feel safe and I want people to enjoy work and, and be happy. And I want someone, look, unfortunately, the majority of times it is sleazy men or men that are using unconscious bias or don't realize that they're behaving in a certain way.

But actually there's stuff that can be mended through discipline, but a lot of it's around education and actually understanding that,, I talk a lot, too much to be honest. It was being aware that a female or someone from an underrepresented group often doesn't talk up in a meeting. And actually,  you as a leader need to be able to make time and try to get their voice in the meeting, whether you’re an introvert, all these things. It's just being aware of these things. So some of it's not intentional. 

So yes, it has become a real sort of passion for me. And, I'm certainly not as good as others, but it's something I want to constantly educate myself on and become better at.

Leo Judkins: [00:26:00] I think it's amazing, Alex, because that adaptive leadership is all about your awareness of it, right? It's you. It's not about you being perfect with it. 

And you still, like you said, you still go wrong. And that's, that's fine, right? That's, I think that's one of the big mistakes we make in leadership. In general, we think everything should be perfect straight away.

As soon as we make a decision on how we maybe change our behavior or how we change the way we work, we think, ah, it needs to be, that's the way I'm going to, and it needs to be perfect. 

And then it goes wrong. And of course it goes wrong because it's the first time you're kind of practicing it, but it's in that journey, right?

Of, falling over and getting back up just like a baby learns to walk. It's the same thing, right?

Alex Pratt: I think half the problem is there's too many, in the past there was too many examples of incorrect leadership that you tried to emulate, and now there's too many YouTubers telling me that I should

Leo Judkins: yeah, yes.

Alex Pratt: This guy going mental. And a bit for me, and I thought, I've seen some great leaders, young and old, there's some incredible like, in gaming right now, we've got two, fortunately they're both called Amy, but leading the sales team, and they are brilliant leaders.

[00:27:00] They're really vulnerable, authentic, and actually they've learned that really fast. And for me, that was the difference when you realise you didn't need to be perfect. Like, I remember when I was splitting up with my wife and I was moving. It was during COVID and I was moving from,  into another place.

And I started putting up a background cause I was like, God, in a few weeks, people are going to know. And then I'm like, coach, like, why are you not telling people what's going on in your life? I guess part of me didn't want to get into it.

And actually once I did it allowed people to understand what I was going through and why I suddenly had this weird background, but also it just. It just allowed you to be seen as a human. and that things do go wrong. You don't need to hide it. And like the other day we had,  someone leave the company that had worked with me for 15 years and may have had a few wines, but I got a little bit emotional in the speech.

And it was an impromptu speech. Didn't know I was going to do it. Did it. And actually. It was interesting that one of the guys that's worked with me seven at a time came up to me and was like, that is the best speech I've ever seen. I've never, honestly. And then two weeks later, he was like, I'm still thinking about that.

[00:28:00] I was like, bloody hell. I thought I looked like a blubbering wreck, but it turns out like you still have moments where you're always learning. And it's like, if you can, if you can be a bit more, yeah, it's that authentic.

You don't realize that it's the bit that actually people want to see, not the golden gecko standing on stage telling you to always be closed.

Leo Judkins: coffee is for closers.  I love it. And, and you know what I think as well, Alex, is that when you, when that happens, right, like the example of you and your wife breaking up, when you, Actually step into that, right? Your authentic self and, and, and just openly communicating about it. It's no longer in the back of your mind all the time.

Right? And now 

it's not a weight on your mental energy. It's not something that you're constantly thinking about. And as a result, it massively impacts your, I think your performance, your, your overall wellbeing, how well you sleep, all of that, right? It's, [00:29:00] it's, it's, and we hold on to so many things. And if we would just let go, or if we would just talk about it, it, it, it changes everything.

But it's the fear of talking about it, right? Is why we often don't do it. The fear of judgment. Is that how you felt as well?

Alex Pratt: Yeah, definitely. I think you're right. What you do is you store things in the back and if you don't talk about it, it doesn't, you don't need to deal with it. And I think I

do that quite a lot, to be honest. 

I'm in a similar group to what you run. But it's a mixture of sort of founders and MDs and things like this from

multiple sectors. It took me a year. to realize the best thing about that group was talking about actually what was going on in your per, not your business. Brilliant. We all have the

same problems. We'll solve it together. But actually it was about what was going on in my personal life, whether it's health or troubles at home or like finance or ambition or like kids, all these things. And I remember we do a once a year goals retreat and it's fascinating. The first time I did it, my goals were all business goals.

[00:30:00] Everyone else's were like, Lifestyle and health and family. I was like, Oh, I've got the year later. I almost broke down there. It was a time when I split up with my wife. It was moving out. He's so much going on. I haven't talked to anyone about it. And my God, I remember one of my goals is that I need therapy. But it totally changed my relationship with the group and what we talk about and how we help each other. have to be so brave.

Or it feels like you have to be brave. Actually, once you've talked about these things and being yourself, it's not that brave, but at the time it feels very hard. 

Leo Judkins: it just got to get over yourself, right? You just got to take that first step. I see it all the time, especially with new people coming into our group, you know, big hesitation. And then as soon as you pull the trigger on that first bit of emotion that you share, wow, what a game changer, you know?

Alex Pratt: Cause it's all about relationships. We've got people in our group where they've got co-founders or business partners, and actually it's all about relationships. A lot of the problems they have are, it's not business, it's the relationship with the people they work with.

[00:31:00] And actually that's a, that's just, that's a human, that's life we need to learn together. 

Leo Judkins: I've got a few questions from, our iGaming leader mastermind 

[00:32:00] One of them, by the way, Alex was, how do you, how do you stay looking so young after all these years?

Alex Pratt: ha! Botox, no, and not even Botox, I'd love to say it as Botox. I love running and I did something years ago called the whole life challenge, which I've not affiliated with. And it was brilliant for me for about a year and a half. It's like seven habits. In fact, it's, you've got how it's written back there, but it's like a wellness, drinking, sleeping, flexibility, exercise, and you change and you get points. And I love scoring in competitions and that actually changed my life forever.

I have just in terms of just being aware of lots of different things, like, and some things I will repeat or not repeat. But being thankful and thinking just being happy, I think keeps you young.

And I've had a fourth child, after nine years of having three. Well, I've got, so I've got three that has, the youngest is nine and I've just had a fourth about a year and a bit ago.

And to be honest, I tell myself that keeps you young. I mean, you've got no choice.

[00:33:00] If I get old, I'm not good. I've got to be, I've got to pick it up.

Leo Judkins: Yeah, I love it.  We had a question from Richard Marquis. He's  a flutter and he said, you've seen the evolution of the industry events firsthand. What constitutes a good event in today's landscape? And do you think the current packed calendar is sustainable? I mean, there's a great question.

I think there's  so many, right? And so, so how, what's your views on that?

Alex Pratt:  the under pack calendar is not sustainable. Don't know how many times I've said, if you keep spending money, they'll keep doing it like, but I can see consolidation happening and I could see changes, I could see. People merging their events with themselves. I can see halls declining. I think we've probably got a year. More of it. And I think we'll see change next year. I've made all the state not sending mistakes. 

[00:34:00] They might work for them and actually work for us. We saw the business and it's brilliant. But there is this innate. I guess when you're an entrepreneur and when you keep chasing and you keep inventing you and you keep expanding. And so I get really a question. Why are we not doing an event in Brazil? Because everyone's doing one, you can make money. Probably if I threw one out there, I would make money.

But it's not what the customer wants. Actually, the amount of time, resource and effort, to launch events all over the world is a massive drain, especially on your team.

It doesn't make sense from a business perspective. And like, when I took over, that's why I closed 26 products since 2020. And that was training products, that was some content, but that was Ice Africa, Ice North America. I did close the Brazil event. They've been there for 12 years.

I mean, stuff all over the world. Because actually, we just focus on our core and the margin goes out. The people can just focus on that. We can not bomb our data or they may think we do anyway. So yeah, I think it will consolidate. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I've never seen a market like this.

I think what makes a good event. Look, it comes to a personal perspective. For me, events have changed since COVID and are and will keep changing. I think experience has become a lot more important now than it was pre COVID because that we speak to a lot of companies now that use the events, not just To buy, to meet buyers and sellers.

[00:35:00]Actually it's to meet their team. A lot of them in the evenings aren't going to the party. So actually that's having team dinners because that's their time to me. I Also think as a consumer, I've always felt strongly about this. Just because we're in a B2B environment doesn't mean we're not a consumer anymore.

So I think actually giving that consumer feeling, I think sustainability becomes more important. And choice, of where we go. I think that experience element's really important. I think there is an increasing focus on ROI or value, actually value. We've done a load of analysis recently about what data across the entire Clarion portfolio, what, what are the data points that drives repeat repeat business and increase in spend.

[00:36:00] And. The event industry as a whole relies on NPS and still does, investors do, and will keep NPS, but NPS has zero, zero, relevance for future spend or you coming back to the show, because you could have a bad taxi queue or it could rain and that'll influence your, your NPS.

 What it is, is, the importance of show. Value for money, not ROI, because value can be measured in different ways. It could be branding or whatever it may be. And an obvious one,  intention to return. They're the three biggest bits of importance. So for me, value is something we as an industry, not just going gaming, have to start focusing on. 

Because for far too long, we're like, oh, it's really hard to measure events. Carry on coming and that's an attendee on exhibitors. So, but we're sitting on so much data now and we previously weren't. So some of the data we've got coming out of ice this time, we've got, if you've got the app, we can see dwell time on stands now because we can, as long as you're on the Wi Fi now, so we can see dwell times.

We can do all your click data or your search data on exhibitors. We can see. We can see what meetings you asked to create. We can see if they happened or if that person didn't accept your meeting. We can see what you said in registration, [00:37:00] post registration. Can then cross that all with the data from our websites and exist.

So we can start to build a picture of what a good event looks like. Not just for the whole group, actually down to an individual level. And for me, if we can start to bring in AI and a kind of almost like a co pilot, that's where I think we can deliver the best of the best. Event. We know what people like you do at the event and what they want to achieve. And that copilot will then work with you to design the best event possible for you

As well as creating meetings. And look, that is. Blue sky, but it's not, it's not that impossible. And having a company like Clarion makes it possible, but a good event could be a dinner, right? For me, some of the best moments of my life have been,  a dinner where I've sat beside someone that's inspired me.

Or by accidentally met someone,  one of the event bars. I think it depends on what you're going to achieve. And actually, I guess that's part of our role is to start to understand that an individual and see if we can deliver those personalized experiences.

[00:38:00] And that's where we want to bring an AI to do that.

Leo Judkins: Yeah. I love it. I love what you did as well with the chatbots. Really cool. 

Alex Pratt: The thing about that chatbot, it's brilliant, it's reactive, but it's not proactive, it's not able to go, do you know what, Leo, these are three people you should meet, and I've already spoken to them, they want to meet, you, this is where I'm going to, and this is a dinner you should go to, and, like, do you know what, you shouldn't stay an extra day. I mean, I don't want it to say that, but, 

Leo Judkins: No, but it should be. Yeah. It should be like that, right. It should be like a CRM CRM setup. Right. Exactly. I love that. 

Alex Pratt: and there's no reason why we can't do that.

Leo Judkins: No, no, I bet. It's just, yes, you've got to have the data and then the triggers for it. So, Carl is, a co-founder of a marketing agency. He was there with his team and he was asking what are some of the patterns that you see for people that really win at these events?

What separates the most successful attendees from the rest? And I guess that's, that depends on your goals, of course, but what are some, you know, what, what are some, some of the things that you've seen that make. People feel that they've had a real good success at an event.

Alex Pratt: [00:39:00] Yeah. I think if looking at it from two sides, one from an attendee perspective, I think both are very similar. and it's so a lot of this stuff's obvious, but planning, but being really clear about what your objectives are. What are, what are you there for? I think, like, something I do when we go, when we go to G2E, for example, when you add it all up, expenses, hotels, flights, our stand, it costs us a fortune, so we have to be really clear about what our objectives are there, and is it new business, is it retention, and that should feed into all of your plans, and then utilize, know, Utilize everything the, the event company organizer has.

So whether it's the app, whether it's material that you can use, look at the sessions, look at the speakers. Can you think outside the box of, like, I don't know, events when I was a little scrappy. Challenger brand. I'd be running and drinking outside the venues and then me as an exhibitor might get annoyed about that.

[00:40:00] But actually, I'm sorry, exhibit exhibition. I actually love it because it adds to all the experience and value. So I just think a lot of it's about clear objectives. I think from an exhibitor perspective. I think the same thing, but then you really need to think about, and especially if you're a small to medium business is where you're spending your money and being really clever about that.

Before I was owned by Clarion, I used to take a stand at ICE and I'd spend quite a lot of money, but I'd really think about what that, what the objective of that stand is and in an offline environment. I see tons of mistakes of whether, where you put the text, where people are going to stand, like what are people doing on the thing.

I've seen some really good companies I know that will literally run an entire day like role plays, people coming on, like net. In a generalist way. But as English people, I tend to find they're not very good at running an exhibition stand.

We're not going to walk into the aisle and grab people. And I'm not saying that there's somewhere in between. Americans are brilliant at it. They're confident. I think you need to think about who you're putting on the stand. If that's your goal is actually a new business. You need to think about who's managing it.

[00:41:00] And then I think you need to think about how you're going to measure those results. and there's lots of different ways. So we will work with customers, like say it's branding. We can do work with the people registering as they come in, as they come out. And we can do that over years to see actually how we are increasing or changing brand perception.  And we can utilize our online and things like this. If it leads, it's much easier, but actually really think about that. I'll talk to you about it. Reach out to Adam Azor at Thought Radar. I parade him out all the time. I've had him speak at a conference for me for gaming marketers. He measures everything.

He measures dwell time, he measures leads, he measures leads to conversion, even if that takes a year and a half. makes all his decisions based on that data, plus if they're looking to get into new markets and branding, but, I think don't expect the event to, pay your money and expect you've got to spend more.

And it's the same as how I used to run a business. We split them and only sold half of it again. We used to run a business called sport business, which was B2B sport. 

[00:42:00] But before we sold IGB we had a big sponsorship product. And what you'd say generally in sports sponsorship is whatever you spend on sport on the sponsorship, you have to spend again to activate it.

Just because you've got a giant stand doesn't mean it's going to work, or a double decker, or a flashy, or you bring a footballer, it's a bloody expensive channel, and you've just got to think about how you're going to utilize it, because it is so effective and brilliant if you do it well,

Leo Judkins: And I suppose there's a lot of opportunity there as well for you as an event organizer to help people with that, right? Because the value that people will get out of that, not just out of that event, but in the follow up and your education on on how to actually monetize the value and being there 

Alex Pratt: We, talk about selling campaigns to customers and actually we talk about the event is the thunderclap moment of the campaign and it doesn't have to be our event. We'll do it for SPC, we'll do it for Sigma or and for us, that's the conversion part of the funnel. Like that's where, and we don't really have that many conversion products, really the events are our conversion products.

[00:43:00] So everything we do before that, whether it's PR, content marketing, webinars, display advertising, retargeting is all about driving your target audience onto your stand for all pre show creating those meetings.

So it's, you've got to think about how are you going to drive that awareness and down that funnel to have that meeting on site, if that's your aim. And then also, what are you going to do after to continue that conversation? Because actually rarely the conversation doesn't start at the event.

It doesn't end at the event. So it's just part of that marketing journey.

And it's just thinking smart about it. And I think there's some really clever marketers in gaming. I think there's also some. really good marketers, but could do a little bit better,  who sometimes have got a little bit too much money.

And actually, if they thought about where they spent and that will happen as we start to see budgets tight and they will one

Leo Judkins: Yeah. 

So I've got a question from Luke Cousins, Sean Brasington and Fintan Costello, they're asking about, Work life balance.

[00:44:00] You do a lot of travel, right? You run international events, a lot of pressure, you've got four kids. How do you, how do you maintain your energy, and what does your kind of your strategy look like post event to make sure that you're, you actually, are able to just be there again because the work doesn't stop right when you're away it's it usually piles up so so what's your strategy there have you found something that works

Alex Pratt: Yeah, loads. And to be honest, my work life balance is actually pretty good these days. I make far more intelligent decisions and actually the team's much bigger. So there's less pressure and I feel bad for my other three kids because I probably was traveling far too much in a way, a lot, a lot, a lot.

Now I don't go to every event anymore, I don't accept every meeting or dinner and to be honest, I can't, just don't have the time.

I choose to spend time with my family and friends, like on purpose. And actually if I'm going to not, it's gotta be for a reason. I think I work a lot smarter these days. Like I really, I kind of grid my days up and I really focus on making sure I prioritize those big blocks because they're the things that stress me because I never get around to them.

[00:45:00] So trying to, I tackle email in a way that I start at the top and I build that into a time so it doesn't drag me constantly throughout the day. So I start at the top and I delegate it, deal with it, delete it, and all these different tasks you get taught over time. I'm obsessed with having nothing in my inbox.

It stresses me out if I don't. And then I block out, I block out every single one, and I should say this because it looks like I'm busy in my diary, and now people will probably abuse it, but from like 9 till 10. 30, I block that every single day, for just, Catching up on stuff. Initially I blocked it for, I think, for 45 minutes.

And I remember my coach going and saying, what would happen if you doubled it?

And so I did nothing. It just, and I can use it now and again if there's urgent meetings or things to do, but it really just gives me permission to, yeah, to use that time effectively. And more recently, actually, I've started to think about a different time.

[00:46:00] I had a really good session with a guy recently that talked about thinking time. And actually quite often I was using that thinking time to carry on doing projects and ongoing big, big deep things. And actually that's not strategic thinking time. Like solving the questions, like how do we create more value and events like bigger ones.

And actually I'm one to one of my next things is to build a bit bigger chunk every week. And he had some good suggestions like names at that time. Cause actually he said Your calendar is the best marketing device for you. So actually, if you want to grow a five million dollar marketing agency, call it the five million dollar idea time or whatever it is.

And so, yeah, there's lots of, lots of things. Like, I still probably work late sometimes, but actually. I will finish at four because I've got to pick up the kids sometimes. And I think  having a really good boss that allows me to work flexibly contractually, I'm supposed to do X and X.

And I try to behave in the same way down, downwards. It's about trust. And I say to people, look, if you're not doing the job. You're going to get fired anyway. So work the hours you need and take the days you need. It's true. 

[00:47:00]  And if you can fit it into your, and I think it's really important that the world is really different now and whether you're remote work, got kids, not got kids, got, whatever is important to you, you just got to prioritize what's important for you. And then as a leader, as a worker, you'll just be so much better. 

You'll have more loyalty to that company. And I've seen it all the way through. I'd say, yeah, brilliant. I love my work life balance. And sometimes it goes crazy and busy and Mondays kill me. And then I remembered, actually, I always feel like this on a Monday. Once I have got on top of the first four hours, I'll feel better again. It's, So at the moment, yeah, I feel horrendous after ICE, but I had a good day yesterday and hopefully a better day today and then slide into the weekend. And

Leo Judkins: What I love about what you're saying is, is really that time blocking, right? We're taking charge of your time and then actually being disciplined about your boundaries around it on how you use that time, being intentional about, I think you're, you're absolutely right. Your calendar flow, you know, follows your priorities.

 it's, you know, you should literally be able to open somebody's calendar and that tells you their priorities. And if it doesn't, then you're living on [00:48:00] everybody else's timeline instead of on your own.

Alex Pratt: I still have that happen all the time. But I think, I think, look, a big thing for me is like , when I have to have shared custody with my partner, I, like, life changed at that point.

Like before I took advantage of having, she didn't work that much, so I could do whatever I like, be wherever I like, work as long as I like, and actually, you know, The kids got to be picked up and given food.

And so that means I've got to work my bloody ass off for six hours and probably put 10 hours of work in there in order to be able to then deliver that. And actually that is easy. It feels like you're working hard, but it's brilliant. I

Leo Judkins: Yeah. 

Alex Pratt: It works really well for me at the moment.

Leo Judkins: Thank you very much, Alex. Amazing, amazing interview. I really love talking to you. Thank you.

Alex Pratt: I've had such a pleasure, really, really different, really inspiring.