Having been taught about hard graft from the age of 7 down at the local stables by an infamous Mrs M it was to the silver service world in which I trained and diligently worked as often as possible in a Posthouse Forte and a café, waiting and clearing tables. Then onto busier pubs more suited to my twenty’s social life, onto nightclubs and so the story goes on, until I found that even the UK was too small for me.

I found Antigua and was unable to leave it for 4 years, its final gift to me was the discovery of my love of events when a friend, far too pregnant, passed ‘The Follies’ torch to me for one season and a certain gentleman with the surname Branson gave me some pretty brilliant advice in a toilet queue and I headed back to the UK to formalize my new passion via any qualification I could find.

I also found my Aman’do’, Amanda Withers. A person to whom I have nothing but trust and respect for. Not only was her nickname deserved, but we managed a level of communication that rarely required more than a look and some covert hand gestures. Someone I still call my good friend. A person whom I once asked to hold a bag for me that had A LOT of cash in and didn’t have to think about it again until I asked for it back. Only years later did we have the conversation about what was inside the bag to Amando’s complete and utter surprise.

It was pure graft; nothing less would have managed the feats that we did. Such a small team faced with many, many challenges both inside the venue and with the people that called themselves the directors of it. Stories of which I have been challenged as to their marveled truth.

What I witnessed, working inside the industry, were departments such as Housekeeping downgraded to the bottom of the pile. This made, and still makes, little to no sense to me as they are the very root to any successful delivery. Small teams under enormous pressure as the venue fights rising running costs against some owners who don’t see the value in re-investing into their loyal staff with better pay and human rights over the need to derive some form of profit. A complete lack of understanding on how to combat the BYO drink option due to the extortionate bar prices laid onto a captive audience and on it goes.

I drew my line in the soil and started on the road to setting up Above The Crowd.

My aim is to be seen as a different kind of consultancy, an extra pairs of hands more than willing to be put to work whilst observing the best and that which needs improvement. A business who has surrounded itself with amazing likeminded collaborators and contributors all linking hard-working arms in an effort to be able to give the best and most tangible advice as to how a venue or event can really stand out Above The Crowd and grab hold of as much of that almost Brexit proof £47b per annum prize.

It is this team I also take with me to the door of our government to ask some essential questions such as;

• Why although there is a governmental events board that meets, to what benefit is it to the half a million full time tax paying employees and who knows how many part-time? (I can’t stand the phrase Casual Staff; they are certainly not that in the events world) and to all the rest of the industry?
• Where is the support for this rising industry that hosts over 7000 outdoor events, who knows how many thousands of weddings, private celebrations, meetings, conferences and trade shows?
• Why doesn’t the MP for Tourism have a direct role within it?
• Why does our £47b industry sit in ‘OTHER’ on their hard to negotiate website?
• What are they proactively doing to ensure that our human rights are improved upon within the workplace?
• How are they going to support the mental impact of working inside one of the top 5 most stressful vocations?
• What had the government done to protect this industry from the effects of Brexit?

These are, however, just words and we are in the business of ‘doing’ and I intend, along with the ATC Team, to demonstrate just that.