In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Bala McAlin to discuss the balance between technology and human interaction in visitor attractions. Drawing on his background in performance and storytelling, Bala shares how Complete Works helps attractions create memorable guest experiences that combine human connection with digital innovation. They discuss the rise of AI, kiosks and automated systems, and how attractions can use technology to enhance experiences without losing the personal touch that guests value most.
In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Bala McAlinn, Managing Director Complete Works to discuss how visitor attractions can balance technology with authentic human interaction. Bala shares how storytelling, performance techniques and well-trained frontline teams can transform guest experiences, increase revenue and encourage repeat visits, while exploring why technology should support human connection rather than replace it.
Topics Discussed
Show references:
Bala McAlinn - Managing Director Complete Works
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Credits:
Written by Emily Burrows (Plaster)
Edited by Steve Folland
Produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)
Bala McAlinn: People in a similar way to going to theatre, if coming to a zoo, museum and attraction are buying a ticket and coming for an experience and they have pretty high expectations.
Andy Povey: In this episode of Skip the Queue, I'm chatting with Bala McAlinn, who runs Complete Works. Together we discuss some of the big issues around technology and human interaction.
Bala McAlinn: So if you've automated something, you shouldn't look at that as great, we can now get rid of that person, you should look at it that great, we can now utilise that person to make the experience even better.
Andy Povey: Bala and his team were all once professional performers and now they bring that magic from the stage into the world of attractions, using their presentation and storytelling skills to bring experiences to life and delight guests.
Bala McAlinn: The best visitor attractions aren't just a great collection, it's a great collection with a great team delivering it. Proactive, they are friendly and they're telling stories about their work.
Andy Povey: Demonstrated by some really significant success. Storeys has huge potential to unlock new revenue streams, generating returns on investment in the hundreds percent.
Bala McAlinn: Usually you recoup that money really quickly because if your team deliver magical visitor experiences, which are of course profitable, then you get your repeat business, you get your recommended business and you get increased secondary spend.
Andy Povey: So with the shift to online transactions, to kiosk ordering, and as we learned a week or so ago, the move to AI powered presentation of historic interactors, how should we, or how can we balance the adoption of technology with the need for human interaction?
Bala McAlinn: We crave that. We crave authentic, genuine, real human interaction. So we shouldn't then be removing that from our visitor attractions. We should be utilising the technology to make even more of that.
Andy Povey: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast for people working in and with visitor attractions, brought to you by Merac. I'm your host, Andy Povey.
Bala McAlinn: Completes Works is a training, staffing and experiences company. We use theatrical techniques to help people tell their stories better. Whether that's through training the in house teams at museums, galleries, theme parks, zoos and attractions, or providing teams to work as front of house teams. And that's a very niche thing that we do, where it's actors not in costume, but in the uniforms of the National Gallery or Kew Gardens. And they are primarily boosting income generation, whether that's through exhibition tickets, donations, memberships and then we produce shows and experiences as well. We've been doing it for a long time, since 2012. Started with the Olympic venues and we are now primarily in the uk.
Bala McAlinn: So we've got an office in London, an Office in Edinburgh, but I am sitting in Dublin in a hotel room right now because we are currently launching over here.
Andy Povey: Oh, fantastic. There's a new expansion for you and you're actually one of my favourite venues on the island of Ireland.
Bala McAlinn: Yeah, Epic. It's a brilliant museum, the story of Ireland's emigration around the world. And I will tell you how brilliant it is through a story about myself. So I visited in January for the first time and met the team, started having a chat with them about potentially working with them and they were opening three new galleries, quite a large investment, a 2 million euro investment on transforming their first three rooms. It's 20 galleries, each telling a different aspect of the influence of Ireland around the world. So, so I came and I mystery shopped it for them before the project started. And at the end of the experience, as you're coming out through the gift shop, they have a genealogy centre.
Bala McAlinn: So I booked myself in with a wonderful genealogist called Kira and we spent an hour getting to know my family history. So my surname's McAlinn. My parents are from the United States, so on my dad's side, the McAlinn, they do consider themselves Irish American. So my dad died when I was 12 and his dad left him and his family when my dad was about two. I never met my grandfather and I didn't know too much about the McAlinn. So I went into the genealogy centre thinking, well, you know, let's have a little look, see what this is about. And within half an hour, I learned so much. So I saw for the first time in my life a photograph of my grandfather.
Andy Povey: Oh, wow.
Bala McAlinn: Incredible. So saw a picture of his grave, saw all these records from the McAlinn. So we didn't know specifically where in Ireland the McAlinn came from the genealogist at Epic, who is an absolute ninja with old records and censuses and things, pretty quickly unravelled it and found out like many Irish people, that the McAlinn had changed the spelling. So my name spelled with an I. But she quite quickly traced back to my great great grandfather.
Andy Povey: Oh, wow.
Bala McAlinn: And saw that the mas were actually spelt with a Y before they left. I think it was quite common to change the spelling to a more sort of anglicised away from Gaelic spelling for ease, when in the United States. And as soon as she discovered that, we just found incredible amounts about my great great grandparents and apparently the Mactans all come from County Antrim and we saw birth and death and marriage certificates and all these things. So it was genuinely one of the most memorable visitor attraction experiences of my life. Seeing my grandfather for the first time and learning my. My family history. And I, I'm certainly not alone in having experiences like. Like that here.
Bala McAlinn: Of course, with the caveat that if your family history has no connection to Ireland, that's not going to happen.
Andy Povey: But you're in the wrong place.
Bala McAlinn: Exactly. But the. The percentage of people who've done one of those ancestry test and find out, " Oh, I'm 25% Irish is pretty high. So people in that situation, they can come and find all these incredible things about themselves and their past and their family.
Andy Povey: Bala, you and I met a number of years ago. I've seen a number of presentations by you and your colleagues, Elise and George, a load of different events and activities, and I've learned a load from each one. I still use your breathing technique exercise that I saw back in Scotland 15 years ago, maybe.
Bala McAlinn: Right.
Andy Povey: What is it? As a bunch of people, what's the magic you bring to the world of attractions?
Bala McAlinn: Well, I. I guess it's relatively simple and that's theatre and performance. So I was an actor as. As was George, as were the majority of our team. So they are techniques that are quite pedestrian or normal for somebody who's been to drama school or worked as a performer, but not so regularly interacted with. But for the majority of the public, an actor wouldn't do a performance without warming up, you know, standard in a theatre, you're there sort of 35 minutes, half an hour before the performance to warm up your body, breath and voice. And that's to make sure that the moment you step on stage and perform, speak, move, you're ready for it. And most people don't consider that. And, you know, I empathise with this.
Bala McAlinn: You know, most people don't consider that when working at a zoo or a museum or a theme park, because it's not a play, but it is a performance.
Andy Povey: Yeah.
Bala McAlinn: People in a similar way, to go into theatre, if coming to a zoo, museum and attraction, are buying a ticket and coming for an experience and they have pretty high expectations of the collection, the rides, the animals, whatever it is, but. But not just of the core thing of that attraction. It's all of the team as well. And, you know, the best visitor attractions aren't just a great collection, it's a great collection with a great team delivering it. And those team are engaged, they are proactive, they are friendly and they're telling stories. So if you're going to do that if you're going to be there telling stories, you should warm up a little bit the first time you speak, shouldn't be on site to a visitor, otherwise your voice will be a little bit croaky.
Bala McAlinn: Like my voice is a little bit croaky now because I'm sitting in a hotel room and you're the first person I've spoken today. So using these little theatrical tips of just a little bit of breathing work, a little bit of muscle relaxation and stretching, if you do that, you experience a better version of yourself. And that's what we to try to bring to the teams of the people in the places that we work.
Andy Povey: What a lovely line. A better version of yourself, Bala, makes me better. You can take that line, making sure you've cleaned the path, tested the rides and make sure the animals are all fit and healthy before you open.
Bala McAlinn: It's just, well, all of those things are probably on a list, whether it's written down or a digital checklist that the operations team and whichever team it is ticking off before you open. You know, it's a bad organisation. Who hasn't just checked the ride safety or made sure we've locked the lion enclosure before we open the gates? Those things are sort of a given. But have you spoken with your team? Have you checked in with them and made sure that they are ready, willing and able to deliver the experience that you want on that day? So that should be as important as, well, maybe not as important as making sure the lines are in the enclosure, but yeah, you know, I'll get that.
Andy Povey: So you talk a lot about storytelling and I think that's one of the key threads through everything I've seen you guys do. Is this a skill that anyone can pick up? Can you train me to become a better storyteller?
Bala McAlinn: Absolutely. I mean, that's what I'm doing this week at Epic. This is a storytelling project with their team and I mean that's a good example because they are masterful storytellers. The, the Irish as a nation are known for their, you know, sitting around and telling storeys and enjoying each other's company. So it's very ingrained in society here and Epic is a museum about the storey of islands, immigration around the world. So they are already very proficient. However, every person in the world can be a better storyteller, including myself, of course. It's not like sprinting. The 25 year old me could beat me today in a running race. Definitely the 25 year old would destroy me in a running race.
Bala McAlinn: However, the 25 year old me isn't as good a storyteller as I am because I have more experience. And that, that's the key. It's all about building experience. Technique helps a bit of, you know, vocal technique and, you know, body language and all these things that, that really helps. But, but nothing is more important in just building experience, learning through experience and becoming more and more confident. Experience leads to confidence and confidence leads to good practise. And so confidence as a concept is often misinterpreted. People think because someone's a naturally competent person that they are a good storyteller or good at whatever the topic is because they look like they might be good at it. But the most competent person in the world will fail at a task if they're not experienced at it.
Bala McAlinn: You have to go through the process of learning how to do it, experiencing it yourself. With something like storytelling, it's becoming comfortable at it, losing the apprehension and the fear about being in front of people, communicating, being centre of attention, things like that. The more you do it, the more relaxed and comfortable you become. And that's when you're confident. And then when you're confident at it, you, you can move to the place of good practise. And that's where somebody isn't having to think, oh, I'm up in front of people or oh, I need to remember that fact, that figure, they just relax, they know all those things, so they become their authentic self and just enjoy telling stories, enjoy presenting and then that becomes mesmerising.
Bala McAlinn: If somebody looks like they are struggling to remember the facts, or if somebody looks like they're a bit nervous in front of their audience, it's not as pleasurable to watch because we are humans and we're nice and we empathise and we see that person slightly struggling and that's what we are now thinking about rather than the incredible storey that they are telling us. So we don't want to be thinking about that, we just want to see them relaxed, owning the moment, enjoying it and then we start to really engage and listen to the content.
Andy Povey: So a recent expansion of your business has been into the production of shows, rather than providing the great hosts that are going to persuade me to become a member at Kew Gardens or London Zoo. Tell us more about that and how that's all happened.
Bala McAlinn: Yeah, so this has been a number of years now. So, so at the start of the business, were a London company. We are a training company in London. That's what were at the start. We. We then developed into also providing people as well as training people. And then in 2020, we launched in Scotland. So we're in London. Then we opened Edinburgh and, you know, obviously the timings of that were. Were what they were and actually it was surprisingly good timing. It was.
Bala McAlinn: Obviously, we didn't plan the pandemic, but opening in Edinburgh in 20, in January 2020, meant that we were there when everything reopened and the part of our business which is helping attractions tell their stories to increase income became really vital and that really, you know, rocketed our quick expansion into Scotland. So we became quite established in Scotland after a few years and then we were like, okay, that worked. What else can we do? And lots of our clients assumed that we did shows, but we didn't. They assumed that because we were actors, but we didn't. We did training and provision of staff and it was a natural progression for us to do that. That's. I mean, realistically, that's what we are most qualified to do.
Bala McAlinn: I spend a huge amount of my time as a consultant advising museums and galleries on income generation, but I'm an actor. We've become very good at this over the decades. But actually ask us how to put on a show at Christmas, well, obviously we could do that. That's actually what we trained and did for years before Complete Works. So I was approached to do this and we started it within the farm park sector, which is a wonderful place, which up until then were quite well, London and Edinburgh and very much visitor attraction. Most of our clients were art and culture organisations. What were saying, we said with the team is we don't say no to work that we can do and that we would enjoy doing.
Bala McAlinn: But when you become sort of networked in certain circles of organisations, you work with the National Gallery, they tell the National Portrait Gallery. Work with the Portrait Gallery, they tell Royal Museums Greenwich. And after a few years, you're working with wonderful, beautiful organisations, but sort of similar in. In terms of who their audience is. So weren't working with farm parks. And then a friend of mine, you might know, Andrew Wolf, he was the chief executive. So he approached me probably about four or five years ago, and he told me that there's a real market in farm parks for shows and experiences and a lot of them need help. He is now a farm park mentor. So with the success that he had through Willows, he's advising a number of parks around the UK.
Bala McAlinn: So he came to me and said, would we help them deliver their Christmas experiences? And I was a bit like, we're pretty busy selling membership at Q and doing donations at the National Gallery, I don't know. And said, can you do 10 Christmases? Absolutely. Let's go. So. So we came straight in first Christmas doing 10 farm parks Christmas experience. I think we did 21 this last Christmas. So it became quickly something that weren't doing into quite a significant part of the business. And it's an absolute joy and pleasure to do it. I mean, for myriad reasons. One, it's Christmas. So I was talking earlier about people having high expectations when they come to an organisation like Epic.
Bala McAlinn: But Christmas with your family, you know, the expectations are the highest, the excitement is at the highest. So it's wonderful to be a part of that and help people have these great days. But then I also now really enjoy working with farm parks. I love working with the Natural History Museum and, you know, Stirling Castle and all these organisations. That's our bread and butter, what we've done for a long time. But these are very large organisations and change is often a long process. If we're advising that they should move their signage or their desk to. To benefit the.
Bala McAlinn: The stagecraft of their entrance, which we are saying will be then a better environment to promote membership or exhibition tickets, that may take us months and so many meetings just to sort of move one sign shift one desk. And I'm not necessarily saying this desk is bricked into the floor, it might be a mobile desk on wheels. But even that, just putting it two metres to the side may take us several months. Whereas with the farm park, you come in and say, do you know what? I think you'd really benefit from having an area in this barn where we could do a little show. Nothing too savage. If you. A couple of people doing a little show there and then we can put a grotto in the room over there.
Bala McAlinn: I'll go for a cup of tea, come back in about half an hour. And they built everything that you've said. It's amazing. And I'm hardly. And I'm not even really exaggerating that much, genuinely. I've had so many times where I've been somewhere, made a suggestion and over I'll come back the next day and they'll have built a stage that they'll have designed it and decorated it themselves. The. The rolling your sleeves up and getting things done ethic on farmers is wonderful and I really enjoy it.
Andy Povey: It's Phenomenal, isn't it? We did an episode with Douglas from He's a great guy before Halloween and he was talking about building a new attraction overnight.
Bala McAlinn: Yeah, he does. I work with Doug. I know him really well. Him and Hannah are a fantastic set of people and they're in good company throughout the farm parks in the UK and Nafan. So we started with farm parks and we really enjoyed that it started with Christmas mentioned Doug. Halloween is just such a growth area for complete works and visitor attractions on the whole. It would be surprising to come across a visitor attraction that, well, that at least is open in December that isn't doing something Christmas based. I think everyone sort of is obviously from very small up to huge productions. But it surprised me there are still a lot of places who aren't doing anything Halloween and that there's equal opportunity at Halloween as there is with Christmas.
Bala McAlinn: People are looking for things to do whether that's you know, pumpkin carving or like Doug, full on large production scare mazes. So, so we, we've been doing more and more of those. We, we're working with fantastic farm park called Connor Fox which, who hadn't done Halloween well, they'd done a bit of, you know, pumpkin patches and family events but they hadn't done adult Halloween until last year. So, so we've partnered with them. So we're providing the actors and working with them and providing some event management to help run it. And yeah, we did last year just put four nights, 1500 tickets a night and it just sold out. So we doubled it this year and it just looks like year on year the plan now is we'll just keep doubling it. An exponential growth is good.
Bala McAlinn: It doesn't look like we're not going to be able to double it for a while. So I love that show work. It's really good. So it started with the farm parks and was for the first couple of years we're now sort of working with the visitor attractions that Complete Works has been working with more traditionally. So we did the Christmas Experience at Royal Museums Greenwich Christmas just gone. We did the Nutcracker at the Queen's House which was really beautiful. We had a. But we had a ballerina in there and it was a four route 15 minutes in each fall in four rooms. You came in and there was a little show in each and it was all beautiful and twee and lovely.
Bala McAlinn: And we are now doing shows not just at Christmas which I am really enjoying because this is what I was doing before complete works and before I started this business. So we're now actually writing and producing theatre, which is lovely. So we're doing this summer for Brooklyn's Museum. So it's the hundredth anniversary of the first Grand Prix in the uk, so. So we're writing a family. We've just written a family show about that and that'll be on over the summer, which is really nice. So we similarly we did recently for historic dock bars chatham, it was 200 years of the RNLI, so we did a show about the history of lifeboats and rnli with key characters from the history of the organisation in a promenade piece of theatre through their large.
Bala McAlinn: Through the large metal, I want to say sheds, but shed is too small a word for how big these colossal buildings through boats and shit ships are. That was a really lovely, beautiful piece of theatre. So we're now doing these historic family shows for attractions, which is, you know, great fun.
Andy Povey: Everything that we hear from all of the research that goes into what makes visitors come back is all about events give people a reason to come back, do something different. So I suppose you're playing directly into that.
Bala McAlinn: Yes. Well, it's an interesting point considering where I'm working this week in Epic, because I don't think places should get complacent. The reality is such a large percentage of the visitors to Epic will only come once.
Andy Povey: Yeah.
Bala McAlinn: Because they are here overseas for their once in a lifetime trip to Ireland. And they're not all Americans with surnames like me, but there's a big percentage that there are and this is the pilgrimage to. To the. To where it all started, but back to where your great great grandmother came from. So a really large percentage of their visitors will only come once. But with their success and growth, it's about getting those people who won't come back, who will only come once to go back to their people and tell the storey of their visit to other people so that then when they come to Dublin and they come to Ireland that they will come back. So that's really key if you are a one visit attraction.
Bala McAlinn: But yes, in the case like yourself with these shows, that's some organisations, but probably in a larger percentage organisations are looking for repeat visitors and if they are, then again there's lots of places that we've probably all been that we could go back to. But you've been there once and go it was great, I loved it, but I've seen it, why would I go back? So putting in exhibitions, shows different things to bring you Back is then key.
Andy Povey: Give people a reason to come back. You and your team are all about that live, face to face interaction, that human element which is really the heart of any successful attraction. In my day to day life, in my job, we're seeing technology developing to take the place of humans. So whether that's moving ticket sales away from the till at the front door to online in advance, or more recently food and beverage sales, or moving to kiosks so you can press the buttons on the screen and get your food ordered, that's very different to what you guys are doing. But we're both working in the same environment and actually working quite closely together in a number of places. How do you see that juxtaposition between those two elements? I'm removing people at places and you're adding them in.
Bala McAlinn: In the age that we live in, where technology is incredible and will continue to advance at a rapid pace, I think we should embrace that, but then utilise it for other things which will be increasingly lacking. And that's real human connection. If you can automate something on your desk, fantastic, great. But don't turn it into, you know, like a shopping centre where, you know, you just scan your own stuff and leave because that fine as a shopping centre, you know, supermarket people have different expectations. You go into the supermarket to buy your bread and milk, great. And if you don't interact with the person, you're not leaving, going, oh, that was a disaster. If I'd gone in and got out quite quickly with my bread and milk, that's actually probably a good experience.
Bala McAlinn: If I'm coming to a museum, a gallery, a zoo, yes, I'm there for the storey, the collection, the rides, the animals. But the people are the icing on the cake. That's, you know, what takes it from a four to a five star. So if you've automated something brilliant, you shouldn't look at that as great, we can now get rid of that person. You should look at it that great, we can now utilise that person to make the experience even better. They're not having to spend as long processing tickets or information or whatever it is. They can take that time to and use it connecting with the visitors, building rapport, telling storeys, finding about who they are, where they're from on a person to person way that currently technology and I can't to then make recommendations.
Bala McAlinn: The majority of visitor attractions you can't do in a day and most visitors are just scraping the surface that they're seeing some bits. Whereas if the visitor had the knowledge that the on site team does, they'd have a way better time because they would go specifically to the areas or the attractions are the best for them. But so many people aren't going to work that out. But a person can. If you're talking to someone, you get to know them a little bit, then you can make the recommendation go, great. I've got to tell you've got to go to whatever it is a bit right at the back that so many people don't go to because having met you and spoken to you, I think that's going to be a highlight for you. So freeing.
Bala McAlinn: Using technology to free team up is fantastic and that's what it should be used for because with all of the benefits of technology it means that people are interacting less with other people. You know, we're, you know, we're on screens now often. I mean there's so many examples. But you know, get going into the office. Ten years ago, nobody worked from home. It was work from home. When I started working, you know, decades ago, it wasn't even a concept, no one had thought about it. If you told people in the 90s, oh yeah, in the future everyone will just work from home, you know, what sort of Star Trek world are you talking about?
Andy Povey: Here we were promised jet cars, but we got a desk in our spare room.
Bala McAlinn: But, but yeah, so people do in, not in every role, but you know, increasingly in every role we're working out ways where people can work remotely. So that then means that people aren't interacting with each other as much. So then in our leisure time we crave that. We crave authentic, genuine, real human interaction. So we shouldn't then be removing that from our visitor attractions. We should be utilising the technology to make even more of that.
Andy Povey: I couldn't agree more about that. And it's an entirely different skill set, isn't it? You're not employing a member of staff to be a data entry clock. Yeah.
Bala McAlinn: And it's a challenge. It's a challenge. You know, the teams at lots of attractions are very young and if your teenage years were through lockdown, you weren't, you know, in parks, cities, villages, wherever it was making mistakes and developing your interaction skills in the way that has been happening for many generations, naturally. So humans who lost those formative years, then suddenly put them back, put them in a gallery, museum will struggle at it. So organisations need to be really mindful of this and not just force it, not just say Great. Okay, here's your job. Go out and talk to people. If somebody's just spent years at home, they don't know how to do that. So it's a skill like learning to use the till system or talk about this tall animal, whatever it is.
Bala McAlinn: So organisations may need to work and train and help their team just to be able to have conversations.
Andy Povey: My mind's racing on a hobby horse of mine, which is my local soft play centre, where the youngsters working there didn't have that support and training to deliver that sense of engagement. And I think personally, it's beholden on us as the generation with some more grey hairs in this industry, really, to support the new, younger members of the society in that area. And that's the best legacy that we could ever hope for.
Bala McAlinn: Absolutely. But the technology should be embraced as well, because it's brilliant. Yes, embrace the technology. Yes, enjoy it. But then there should be opportunities really easily to not be on the screens as well.
Andy Povey: One question that I try and ask every guest on the podcast is, what would be your advice for someone running an attraction now? They might not have the budget or the capacity to call you guys in. You guys might be too busy to come in and help them. So what can an attraction operator or owner do today?
Bala McAlinn: Talk to your team if you can't hire us, you know, just talk, Talk to your team. As. As simple as that sounds, it often doesn't happen, which I, I understand, because everyone's busy. You know, most tractions are open seven days a week, so. So when do you do this? But it's so important and it's so powerful to get your team. And I don't mean your senior team, I mean everyone. Your, your front, your frontline team, sit around the table and ask them about your visitor experience and your team experience, because they know that they know way better than most senior teams, unless the senior team is jumping on the till, going on the gallery floor sometimes. And some are, and I applaud that's great because that's how you really understand your visitor experience.
Bala McAlinn: It's seen at firsthand, but so many senior teams don't. And because they're endlessly busy operating seven days a week. But find the time, whether that's before you open, after you shut, or just doing it in smaller groups so you can still operate and sit around the table and ask your frontline team, what is it really like to work here? How do you think we could improve the visitor experience? Great. Okay, that's How? So that's how you think we could improve the visitor experience? What would we need to do to enable you to do that? And in most cases the frontline team comes up with beautiful genius ideas that sometimes cost money and sometimes don't.
Bala McAlinn: But if it does cost money, if it is a slightly different staffing resource or a slightly different layout, usually you recoup that money really quickly because if your team feel listened to and supported to do their job, they're going to deliver magical visitor experiences which are of course profitable because then you get your repeat business, you get your recommended business and you get increased secondary spec.
Andy Povey: Love it. Empower the team and you'll get that magic bala. Thank you so much for your time. I really like that. I'm a big fan of seeing you and the team present at events. When's the next one? When can our listeners come and see the magic behind complete works?
Bala McAlinn: So it's probably autumn time I think we are said, as I said, I'm in Ireland now and looking to grow and work more here. So we will be at the Avia conference. So that's in Dublin, October 13th, 14th, something like that.
Andy Povey: Yeah.
Bala McAlinn: And what we are also doing, you know, with your good self, Andy, is speakeasy, which we did our very first one at the Museum and Heritage show. So this is something that I'm passionate about, having parties, but it's more than that and this, you know, back to what we're talking about, real life, human connection. There's been a trend which I am against at the many wonderful industry events that I attend over the year and that is removing the networking events which I understand, let's make them more accessible, let's make them cheaper, let's not make everyone have to stay in a hotel. So I'm on board with that.
Bala McAlinn: But then I think there should also be the option for the dinners, the awards, the, the networking events for the people who want them because it's such an important part of these events and my experience over the years is, you know, I've seen many fantastic conference talks and some of them not even delivered by me. But you know, I've seen so loads of great talks but some of the best learnings happens over coffee, over a wine or a lemonade in the, in the evening and where you meet people who do similar things to you in the same industry and you have peer to peer discussions and lots of conferences in the last few years have started removing that to make it more accessible, to make it cheaper. So, so yourself, myself, ATS, Stephen Spencer and Associates and Navigate have launched Speak Easy.
Bala McAlinn: So we are going to put informal networking events alongside conferences that we feel are lacking them. So there will be one at Avia in Dublin, there will be one at VAC in London and hopefully many more to come. And I look forward to being there and chatting to people and peer to peer networking as well as seeing the fantastic talks and show flaws that we get.
Andy Povey: Listeners, I promise you we hadn't teed that up as a plug for the Speak Easy event, but it's actually one of the best things that we're doing this year I think.
Bala McAlinn: Definitely.
Andy Povey: So keep looking out for it.
Bala McAlinn: Exactly. Who doesn't to want once have a drink for them by handing myself.
Andy Povey: Well that just feels like we've fixed everything ever. Thank you, Bala. Lovely to chat with you as always. Listeners. If you want to know more about what Bala and the team do, head to complete-works.co.uk we'll try and catch them at an industry event near you soon.
Today's episode was brought to you by Merac, edited by Steve Folland, produced by Emily and Sami from Plaster with Socials and Admin by Wendell and Beckett Skip the Queue HQ. If you've enjoyed listening, please like comment or leave a review on your podcast app. It really helps people find us and means that we can bring you many more interesting chats just like this one. That's it. I've been your host, Andy Povey, until next time. Thanks for listening.