Back in October I attended the London Lifestyle Awards as a guest of of Showslice. That was their first “sliced” event and was honour to be part of it. Showslice brings the sharing economy to the events industry by offering event organisers to share their production costs with another event(s). On this occasion, Woman of the Future Awards took place on Tuesday the 27th October followed by the London Lifestyle Awards on Wednesday the 28th October at Hilton London Park Lane. The London Lifestyle Awards were created in 2010 by Jason Gale to celebrate the businesses, the people and the places that make London a world class city and it was a very exciting and entertaining event to attend. Shortlisted business included restaurants, bars, nightclubs, sports clubs and other venues, hair stylists and more.

The highlight of the evening for me was the performance by London Cabaret Club, it was just WOW! Also the food was very good the service team didn’t know what the dished were so we had to ask the head waiter (I ordered the vegetarian dish). Nevertheless, overall I had a positive experience at the Hilton London Park Lane.

As you know setting up production for an award night, festival or sporting event is very costly and sometimes setting up and de-rig can take longer than the event itself! So Showslice is a great solution for those who care about the environment and want to save costs. I asked the team at Showslice to tell me more about their innovative concept.

How long Showslice is in operation?

Showslice officaly launched in November 2014 at IBTM Barcelona coming runners up in the innovations zone that year. Having only been operating for 2 weeks this was an achievement and the idea of Showslice was received well by the international community of event operators.

Who is your target audience?

Showslice is able to work with any event owner on a larger scale. To provide the savings and sustainability aspects of what Showslice can offer, each event needs to be sizable in manner i.e. require some form of staging, sound, lighting and production. These can be any events from concerts, gala’s, awards ceremonies to large AGM’s and association dinners. Currently there are over 1000 of these events taking place in London alone each year. Showslice can connect all of these through their platform and network to help organisers reduce logistics, cost, time and waste whilst also providing a collaborative approach to planning. This can create larger and better events for clients whilst still operating within their budget.

It is not just about cost savings but also about growth and guest experiences for our clients and mitigating the risks involved with planning a larger event than the previous year. Providing the X factor if you like without incurring the costs associated with that should you be doing it on your own.  Event owners often have their budgets and are going to spend it. Ok that’s great however by combining your budget with another organiser or several, Showslice can help facilitate much better rates which can then be used for additional equipment which is staying in one location for the week. For example, holographic projection are difficult to set up, expensive and time consuming. But what if organisers could share this technology over a week? What would your guest experience be and media coverage from an event such as that? This is all possible with collaboration through Showslice.

Background of founders

Damian Oracki, Showslice founder, is an event services entrepreneur who has worked on the supplier and temporary infrastructure side of the events industry for just over 10 years including London 2012 and the Rugby World Cup 2015. As a supplier, he has worked with a myriad of production companies, event management agencies and venues where he provided services that included the logistical, venue management & health & safety aspects for some of the largest events in the world.

Damian was often involved in setting up large back-to-back events sharing the same infrastructure at one venue however, as with most event professionals, Damian constantly found himself moving on from one stand-alone event to the next, quite often within the same London mile from each other. Stemming from his frustration in the lack of communication and collaboration between event owners, coupled with the increase in industry budget cuts and the growing awareness of climate change, Damian founded Showslice, an award winning confidential online platform and service that helps event owners connect and collaborate to share infrastructure costs back-to-back.

Jon Gunn, Showslice COO is an experienced project and venue management expert. Having managed several large venues and events over 20 years he played key operational management role in ensuring the success of the Commonwealth Games Manchester 2002 and the Olympic Games London2012. Jon opened and operated some of the UK’s most prestigious venues over a 20 year career such as the Grand Central Pools, Sports City Manchester, Etihad Stadium, National Squash and Athletic Centre.

How did up come up with the idea?

Having worked on events for several years Damian noticed that whilst setting up the infrastructure (Staging, lighting etc.) this took a large amount of time and staffing, then there would be a technical rehearsal, then the show itsself and then the de-rig of equipment. This could take over 2 days depending on the size of event but certainly at least 13 hours per day from start to finish. At the end of the de-rig another company would come in and start putting up almost identical infrastructure. Imagine if these two organisers had communicated between each other, the time, logistics, cost and waste saved. Damian started designing the platform enabling event owns to communicate with each other and a system where Showslice can connect all of the above from venues, suppliers and services in one place reducing the amount of time, equipment staffing and logistics required. Nearing completion of the platform Damian contacted Jon who thought this was a real solution to many of the issues facing organisers, venues and suppliers. Once the platform was completed Damian and Jon started developing a network of clients and logistics needed to pull all of these resources together. Now Showslice are working with some of the largest names in the industry (The London Mayors Office, Centaur Media, NSPCC, Ricoh and the Prince’s Trust) to name but a few growing their network and making valued connections for clients.