The secret to design better conferences with Elliott Sparsis

0:00So I'm going into 88 Wood Street to meet Elliott, the founder of Together, an events-like space. I'm going to ask him loads of questions about it, but let's go. Come with me. He's got just so much like theatrical feel to it. It's got the plants here. Right, so come through here. The lifts are through there, but I'm just going to show you the like kind of reception area to start with. so they've got this huge table it's nice soft seating live herbs growing these curtains i mean it's just so stunning and loads of natural light it feels very exciting and then we come to the lifts so before we even enter their space we're on this walk bridge with these like yellow features and then we're looking back over this space here which i showed you downstairs so take a look over there is a really kind of exciting being walking across this footbridge and then we actually arrive into the space here which is just like yeah and that is it so let's go and find Elliot and we will chat to him.

1:11Three years after we've started this podcast we thought it was time to make sure that those lessons and the takeaways from our amazing guests were actually actionable something you can really put into place so we have launched show notes a bi-weekly email get into your inbox and that will give you the key headlines that is indexable findable actionable we can really start to make a difference in creating healthy happy workspaces so the link's below or you can head to stansons.co.uk forward slash space look forward to seeing you sign up Elliot thank you so much so much. Pleasure. Coming to Space by Stansons.

1:57We're here 88 Wood Street at Together with Elliot. And like literally, I've just had my first glimpse of the space. Mind blowing, you're gonna love it. So come on this journey with us, Elliot. Together. What is that as opposed to a co-working space? So Together is, think of us like a hospitality business. We're very similar to a hotel business. We don't sell bedrooms, we sell big meetings and event spaces. And we have all of the infrastructure built into our space. large kitchens, culinary teams, AV booths, AV engineers, and we're a full integrated big meeting and event business. Wicked. And what is it that makes, like, from meetings, events, and what sort of clients are we talking about, that sort of thing, who are you taking this best?

2:39Yeah, yeah, there's a real range. We have a lot of media clients. So we had Fremantle in our space a couple of weeks ago, at a production house behind America's Got Talent and X Factor, Simon Cowell was in here giving a keynote conversation. on the other spectrum we have a lot of the banks the law firms the private equity businesses in here having big off sites bringing three four five hundred of their clients into our space for for multiple day events amazing and so how how far in advance would this space that would be booked out for yeah i mean very crudely the number of delegates a space is booked out that many days in advance yeah so 300 capacity is crudely booked 300 days in advance think about it like that is an easier way of looking at.

3:19So we've got real sight lines in terms of what our book looks like, what our diary looks like, how many delegates are coming through the space. This week alone, this is Friday, we've had about 2 ,000 people through this space this week alone, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So high volume, we do pretty much all of our business Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Fridays, Mondays are very quiet. So it's an interesting business to run, for sure. Amazing. So that's nuts. So you're basically both tucked to the end of the year. We are forward sold every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for this year. Forward sold.

3:49With the exception of August, we do no business in August. But we send all our furniture away to get cleaned and beached and we repaint everywhere. Okay, so you've been active by the Chloe. It's not just that. You don't have to be there as a business. Okay, wicked. And right, so you can see why this is booked up for a year. Let's go. Show us where Simon Cowell was. Yeah, absolutely. Come with me. So this area where we are now is called the gallery. This is where we serve breakfast and lunch. a client has their arrival experience. We focus a lot on the experience of just the quality of coffee machines, there's snacks, there's drinks that clients can help themselves to.

4:25So when a delegate or when a client comes in, they buy everything for a minimum of a day. So they're here for a full day. So we want to try and make that experience as high as possible for them. So we made a big investment in these coffee machines. They're Swiss made. They're almost a smidge over£30 ,000 each. There's an 18-month waiting list for them and the quality is just incredible. They can obviously help themselves to drinks and things like that. And then we have these drawers, please take a peek. It's kind of suggestive, but yeah, there's snacks and things that clients can come in and help themselves to.

4:56And it just really improves that experience of clients being in here all day and just gives them little touch points so they can enjoy. Yeah, amazing. And so this gallery space is generally where breakfast is served? Exactly. So these large credenzas here or what we serve breakfast and lunch on. It's buffet style typically. That said, we did have a big plated lunch and dinner last night. We had 400 people in here, plated dinner. We had 18 temp labor, temp staff coming in. But typically, yeah, it's buffet style. Format of a day, typically, client comes in, registers, has a buffet breakfast. They then move their 300 or 400 delegates into our largest room in here, which is a maximum capacity of 500 people.

5:36Just before we go into this room, I want to point out that you'll see branding everywhere, and that changes. So I'm going to ask Elliot about that as well, because that's always moving. It's just so flexible. Oh my gosh, look at this space. This is amazing. Yeah, so come in. This is our biggest room. It's actually just been turned from a big plated dinner we have yesterday, but maximum capacity of 500 people. This is London's biggest integrated LED wall, nine meters by three meters, and just gives our clients real impact. It's immersive. They can really bring the experience alive of bringing 500 people into a room.

6:12See, this room had 500 people. Exactly. Yesterday, yes. So yesterday, we had a seated lunch in here, 500 people with then presentations happening. We had Accenture and Amazon were in here. So it was an exciting day for us yesterday. I bet. And so this is quite flexible though. This can change if it's not this much space is needed. Exactly. So it's about 5 ,000 square feet, column free, four meter floor to ceiling heights, one room, maximum capacity of 500. But then we've got the ability of dividing this room into three. So we've got two demountable acoustically treated air walls, slide out, allow our clients to then cut this room into three.

6:52So it's very typical for a client to have 500 people in here in the morning and break for lunch. We put the air walls out. They then have three different breakout sessions with three different services happening in those rooms. So the logistics, the dynamics. It's huge. How do you handle that? You have an onsite team. As we mentioned, it's akin to running a hotel. So we've got 10 full-time operational members of staff in here. Yesterday, we brought 18 additional temporary staff to help us run the service. So it's, yeah, it's a high operating process. Is there any other room like this in London?

7:26Yeah, I mean, this is the first room in London with an integrated LED wall of this size. So above ground, tons of natural light. Our business plan is never to go underground. Clients are in here all day. That sense of wellbeing with natural light is really important for us. So we are in architecturally interesting buildings. This building is incredible. It's a Richard Rogers built building. It's timeless in its architecture. So our clients, their experience starts the minute they come in that front door, right? They're in a Richard Rogers building. It's an interesting space. You feel like you're somewhere where you're going to enjoy rather than going into an office where you're potentially going underground with no natural light.

8:04Yeah, now you touch on natural light. I think that's so important, especially if people are in a conference for like a long period of time or they've got the thing for the whole day. Any other ways that you keep people like alert and like... Yeah, I mean, we made a big investment on what's called an air handling unit. So the minute you put 300 or 400 people into a big room, the carbon dioxide doubles very quickly. People then get drowsy. So we have CO2 sensors that are on the wall. The minute the carbon dioxide gets past a certain level, the air handling unit kicks in, doubles the oxygen in our large room, keeps people awake, keeps people aware.

8:36And it's the same that casinos put in to their spaces. So it's purely pumping oxygen in. I love the consideration for people's well-being, thought about all of that in a healthy way, quite literally. I mean, what a beautiful room. Yeah, very kind. I've never seen such a good place. But we partnered with Quarterback. We put these beautiful peepholes into the room. So nobody would enter from outside of the room if something is happening. So you can have a look before you come in. So we think about the whole flow of trying to deliver the best experience for our clients when they're in here. So Quarterback designed us and delivered it?

9:12Very much so, yeah. So Quarterback are one of our big investors. They designed it, they built it, they delivered it for us. So they act like owners, founders of the business. They're not just a contractor that's coming in. They actually really have a care. Yeah, I think you can tell the level of detail feels like someone's, it's like someone's baby, not just. Very much so. Very much so. It's very nice. This flooring is nice as well. It's got like a nice floor to it. Yeah, no, the floor's incredible. So the floor in here is really tough for us to get it right. Yeah. We have, as I said, about 2 ,000 people that have come through the door this week.

9:44We serve breakfast and lunch in this area. We have drinks, receptions. There's red wine on the floor. There's food. So tiles are really hard for your feet. If you're standing on tiles all day, you typically get aching feet at the end of the day, particularly for women if they're wearing high heels. This is acoustically treated bolon, so it's soft, but it cleans really easily. But the acoustic element also allows us to absorb the noise. And we got 500 people in here. It's a nice environment to be. With quarterback, we really try to think about the experience, the flow. When you have 400 people in a room, you've really got to think about how it operates.

10:18And just for the audience following, if you're watching on Spotify or Apple, do head over to YouTube and you'll be able to actually pick up these details in video form. Behind here is our air handling unit. It's about£300 ,000 investment for us to put in. That's net letterable air, you're paying rent-rate service charge on that, but it's fundamentally important to improve the experience of our delegates within the space. So, designed a big cloakroom. Our clients check in at the reception desk here. they then flow around onto the cloakroom. It opens right up. We can get five cloakroom attendants in there.

10:52We can move 500 people through there in 15 minutes. Then at the end of the day, we have five cloakroom attendants. We can move people out really, really quickly. We'll try to think about just the speed of service of clients coming in and then beautiful Stanston curtains as well. Exactly. Yeah, enjoying that. Yeah, no, that's great. It's amazing. So people can be used in that space. They might then be stopping for a lunch in this gallery area, doing their thing, and then how would this space... Exactly, yeah. So then this is a super flexible room. So it's called the Collective Beautiful Square Natural Light on three sides.

11:26You can see there's two drop-down projectors that are there at the moment, but actually a client can use this as part of the gallery area for breakfast and lunch. These projectors disappear, so flexibility is everything. All of our clients want to use the space in a very different way. So last week we had 300 people in here. We close that acoustically treated wall. We set up a stage and a lectern for our client. They have a private auditorium space, but this week it's been used open plan as part of the gallery space because they had so many people in the main room. Flexibility is really key. I saw there was a booth, AV booth in the other big halls.

11:59So yeah, another AV booth. We fully integrate everything into our space. We have two AV engineers in here that will drive the presentation on behalf of our client. The AV engineers are together staff, everything is integrated. Our clients don't transact with different vendors, they transact only with together, only with our team. It's very important for us to give that sense of confidence to our clients that we're controlling the food, the AV, all of the technology, the service. It's sort of a true integrated offer that we offer. And do you handle the branding as well? Very much so, yeah. So yesterday we had an AI business that had Amazon and Accenture as their main sponsors.

12:39Click were running the event. They had 400 people in here and they've branded everything like you see. So we handle the branding in-house, absolutely. And think of us as a blank canvas. This space is our client space when they come in. They can brand as much as they want. They can organize and relay out the space however they want. It's very much their space on the days that they're in there. Green room in here. So the green room is for the client. The organizer are. It could also be a mother's room or a prayer room, so it has that flexibility. It's just a private space for the organizer to work out of.

13:11No, it's got that very clean, like I can see how anyone's brand fits in here. Yeah. Very clean, very neutral. And that's the, I mean, you make an interesting point. There's a real fine line between interior design and going too far and colliding with our client's brand, right? Our clients come in, we're a blank canvas for them. So the Quarterback process was we want it to feel very neutral, but have an element of design in it where it's not branded, it still feels like it's a beautiful space to be. Yeah, I was going to say, because the fine line is you don't want it to feel bland or insipid or lacking character or soul, but it's definitely got that.

13:48Walking around here, hopefully this is picked up on the camera, but it does really have that kind of energy. Completely. That's all that, yeah, Cherie Falconer from Quarterback brought our vision to life. So this is all back of house. So our clients don't come down here. This is where all of our culinary happens. So we've got an integrated kitchen. This is our head of operations. This is our head chef. Well, we respect you for everything that you do. Fully integrated kitchen designed in a way where the chefs have a ton of natural light overlooking the gardens. As I said, we've done 2000 covers this week alone out of this kitchen, designed with a big walk-in fridge that gives us the flexibility.

14:27Monday's a big prep day for clients, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And it allows us to have really organized prep days on Monday. Everything lives in here for the week. And then we're hyper-organized Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Four full-time chefs in here. So this is an important element for us to be super organized. Yes, I can see that. Just the sheer getting the food in and out. I'm loving their dishes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, we spent a big investment on all these, and all of these big things. So it's, yeah, kind of look and feel. Presentation is everything with food, right? It's got to look, eat with your eyes, very much so.

15:03I mean, it's amazing that there's no flaws at all. But what's different between your vision and what has actually come to pass? Is there any differences? Yeah, I think we've been amazed at the sense of natural light. We were a little concerned, and particularly this big air handling unit, because behind here is all natural light that we've built and locked up. So we were a little nervous initially. Are we removing too much of the natural light? And it's going to feel too dark, but actually we'd been blown away by the sense of natural light and how it feels. We love the flow of the gallery into the big room.

15:40Our clients don't have to go down corridors, upstairs, downstairs. The flow of breakfast into the big room and back out is really clean and really important for our clients. and the arrival experience we've been blown away by. The walk bridge adds a layer of theatre. When you're arriving into an event, you walk over the walking bridge. As you've seen today, these guys have branded all of our glass double doors. So the experience of the delegates start when they come over that bridge, you feel like you're arriving into something interesting. So the building is doing a lot of hard work for us. It's Richard Rogers building, as we said, and it's just architecturally interesting to look at from lots of different angles.

16:15Yeah, even the arrival and the reception area is lovely. Everything's considered. When you're doing your next space, what would you do differently? Good question. What would we do differently? I think we would probably build more flexibility into the big room in terms of being able to subdivide it into multiple breakout rooms. We've got a lot of clients that want big room in the morning, but then want six, seven, eight, ten breakout rooms in the afternoon. So we've got the ability of having four breakout rooms here, but we're seeing a lot demand for big room morning as i said and then yeah multiple breakout rooms in the afternoon so more flexibility i think in the next site is key yeah amazing and what's the most common feedback you get when people come here food everybody takes pictures of the food sends us feedback on the food so we work really hard with our head chef to deliver something that visually looks amazing but makes you feel good after you consumed it as well right it's really important for us to feed our delegates with food that's going to make them feel good in the afternoon.

17:12You don't want to eat lunch, go into an auditorium for a conference, and then collapse in terms of become drowsy because you've eaten the wrong food. So we've been inspired by Yotan Motolenghi. His approach is brain food, so food that makes you feel good after you've consumed it. So we've worked very hard on food tasting good, looking good, but also making you feel good in the afternoon. So the food is overwhelmingly the biggest feedback that we get from our clients. What I'm loving about this space, which I think more people can be considering, is natural light has been done oxygen has been done food's been done the navigation how you move through it like whether you're in a wheelchair whether you're on feet everything's very seamless it's very easy and that's what i just think is giving us like very wholesome like almost like at peace you feel very safe here very calm very prepared to sort of digest information the business approach is to deliver and you've almost summarized what we want we're a human first business right and what does human first mean it can mean whatever you want it to mean but ultimately it's to provide a space where people feel comfortable people feel relaxed yeah conferences are a difficult environment right people feel anxious so if we can help a delegate to be relaxed in a conference environment then they'll get more out of the day and the experience that they have so we are a human first business we've thought about that really hard in everything think we do and you've just really eloquently summarized hopefully what that human first element means.

18:40Yeah, no, I can totally, you can totally see it and feel it. Thank you, Elliot. I really appreciate you showing us around, seeing the space, it is phenomenal. Love your vision, love to see where you're going next, the next space as you open up and the next guests you have in. Absolutely, but you'll have to follow our journey, venue two, three, four. We've got something exciting bubbling up on the top floor that we're open in September. So, come back and you've got other ones in there. And we've got a few other things in the pipeline. Exciting. Indeed. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Take care.

19:09Thank you. I find it simply fascinating how physical space can totally change how we think, feel and behave. Meaning it can pause distractions, it can connect us, it can mean we do our very best work. And that's where Stansons steps in. This show is created by Stansons who design, make and install curtains and acoustics to create the perfect environment for people to flourish and do their very best work. You've got a project on? We know how it feels. Reach out and we'll start to talk.