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COMPANY PROFILE
COMPANY PROFILE: EVENT LAB FROM BASEMENT PROJECT TO LEADING MULTINATIONAL EVENT SOLUTION AGENCY MATCHING FREELANCE AND FULL-TIME EVENT PROFESSIONALS TO SOME OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CLIENTS, EVENT LAB HAS SEEN A METEORIC RISE – AND IT IS SHOWING NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN. TPMEA CATCHES UP WITH MANAGING DIRECTOR, NADIM JAMAL TO FIND OUT MORE… When it comes to industry-wide issues, the live event sector can be broadly split into two types of people: those who get their heads down and make the best of a bad situation, and those who don’t accept the status quo, and do something to fix the problem – Nadim Jamal and Murad Shisha fall very much into the latter group. As former UAE-based freelancers, the pair experienced a genuine shortage of representation within the local community and, sensing an opportunity to build something that would transform the regional landscape, took matters into their own hands, creating event solution agency, Event Lab. “We started the company from our living rooms back in 2013, with the very simple goal of helping match event professionals to opportunities,” Jamal told TPMEA, thinking back on the origins of the company. “We were already helping clients build teams on many freelance projects we were involved in and as we identified this gap in the market, we realised that if we were to formalise this as a professional service, we
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could scale it to help even more people find great opportunities in a win-win arrangement that benefits candidates, clients, and us.” With a strong conviction to recommend only “good people who want to do good work”, the fledgling company quickly incubated a co-operative culture, which emphasised the importance of approachability, professionalism and friendliness and earned them a wave of clients. “Once clients and candidates came to understand the value of the service, the business really took off, growing organically and quickly,” Jamal recalled. Six years ago, the Event Lab team identified another gap in the market and formed a Guest Service Staffing department which prioritised planning, hand-selecting, training and management onsite according to international standards. “This was about so much more than just deployment of Ushers and Hosting Staff,” Jamal noted. “It’s about working closely with clients to really understand their requirements, planning to the smallest detail, and ultimately
delivering an unmatched experience to guests by deploying top quality guest services personnel and managing them with precision on site.” Working closely with both governmental agencies as well as most of the largest event agencies operating throughout the region, Event Lab has placed Guest Services staff at the most prestigious venues and events in the region – from large-scale events in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to providing ushers for every event since the opening of Coca-Cola Arena and Etihad Arena. “We now have more than 12,000 Guest Services staff from throughout the GCC in our database,” Jamal revealed, illustrating the scale of the department. “On one weekend in 2019, we provided 1,200 Guest Services staff at the Special Olympics, as well as 350 Guest Services personnel at the Mother of the Nation Festival.” As Event Lab has grown, it has expanded its scope to include all manner of fields of work, from graphic designers to operations, technical, production, site managers, ushers, and hospitality. “We help our clients find the best matched