Starting in 2013 as a humble basement operation, Event Lab has grown into one of the region’s best known staffing agencies, providing its services to some of the largest and most prestigious events all over the Middle East, from the Special Olympics in 2017 to Expo 2020 Dubai, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and countless major Saudi Arabian projects including MDLBEAST Soundstorm, Formula 1 and Riyadh and Jeddah Season to name a few.
With a team of 40-plus full-time employees operating from a plush office in Dubai’s Barsha Heights, the company is unrecognisable from the fledgeling outfit that started out a decade ago. “When we started, there was nobody in the market properly representing event freelancers looking for work and helping clients find freelancers,” Jamal commented.
Here, the Co-Founder discusses shares his take on the industry and where Event Lab sits within in it 10 years on from the company’s formation.
How has the market changed since the early days of Event Lab?
We started this business because there was a huge gap in the market – in fact, there were very few freelancers back then compared to today, and clients still weren’t as accustomed to using large numbers of freelancers as they do today. We found that there was often even a distrust in freelancers, but as clients gained confidence that somebody was vouching for the individuals being placed and providing a system to recruit and onboard freelancers, they gained more trust in using freelancers. It really changed over time.
There was also a lack of consistency in the rates that freelancers would charge, which could range massively. This is still an issue, but over our 10 years of operation we’ve helped both freelancers and clients to find a happy medium, creating a fair middle ground and getting closer to standardisation of rates.
In the early years of Event Lab, the UAE was the main territory where freelancers operated, but now it’s going well beyond that. There are countless opportunities in Saudi Arabia, the FIFA World Cup brought a lot of work to Doha, and we expect Qatar to get very busy again once summer is over.
GCC countries have embraced the importance of the events industry to the economy and to the development of their countries, introducing proper legal frameworks and freelance visas. So, with more opportunities than ever, there are significantly more agencies in town.
Thus, the past decade has been characterised by a shift from a scarcity of opportunities to a flourishing landscape, where trust, consistency, and expansion across borders have defined our trajectory alongside the evolving events industry.
Tell me about the brand refresh…
When we started the company, there weren’t any ‘Event Labs’ around the world. Now if you google the name, you’ll find hundreds of entities of the same name – some even adopting similar colour schemes. We decided it was time to break away from that and reclaim an original look and feel we had when we started.
What makes us different is our unique approach to people and recruitment. We put people first, which means finding the right fit for both clients and jobseekers. We have a sixth sense for fitting the right person to the right job – the job where they’re best suited and most demanded.
Our new brand identity reflects what makes us different. It serves as a visual representation of our most powerful attribute. The new logo is a combination of simple geometric shapes that combine in an unconventional way to create the series of letters that make up ‘eventlab’. We’re proud of where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going, and we think it’s time our brand reflects that.
Can your clients expect any changes in the way you operate this year?
Of course, we are in continuous strive for improvement, we’re always learning from things we could’ve done better, constantly investing in new systems, training modules, internal procedures, software innovations. Our fresh identity doesn’t redefine our operations, rather, it amplifies their essence.
We are building our capabilities to manage larger volumes, with a goal of over 20,000 placements in 2024 to the same quality and care that we currently handle our annual volume of 7,000-plus placements. Furthermore, our horizons are expanding beyond events into other related industries. Watch this space!
Our commitment remains the same: To ensure the right job is connected with the most suited professional, every single time.
How have the summer months been for you?
What used to be a quiet period for us has now transformed. Traditionally, summer marks a low season, largely due to the heat in the Gulf, but in the past couple of years, we’ve experienced a surge in activity with clients actively assembling teams to work on the planning of the big projects – hiring full-time in anticipation of a busy season and with more activities, and significantly more events happening indoors. We’ve encountered this bustling period of activity in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
How is the full-time recruitment side of the business going?
The full-time division has experienced remarkable growth over the years. We were historically known as just the freelance agency and it took a few years to gain traction, but one successful placement led to the next and we rapidly became the go-to for many clients’ full-time needs, catering to a wide range of role types at any seniority levels, from junior to VP positions. In 2022, we successfully placed nearly 100 candidates in various roles across both private and governmental sectors.
This segment of our services requires a different approach compared to freelance placements – it’s a more strategic and delicate process, demanding more time to find and vet the right candidates. For this reason, from day one, we dedicated a specialised team seperate from the team that handles freelance placements.
How is the guest service staffing side of the business doing?
It’s flying, and we couldn’t be prouder. Our team has grown significantly with various skill sets and experience, from ushers and hosting staff to guides and brand ambassadors, allowing us to expand our project capacities with the same quality. We’ve increased our capacity to be able to manage up to 4,000 staff at any given moment, on multiple projects across the GCC. This requires consistency in quality of staff and management. We were very cautious to never overextend ourselves to preserve this benchmark of quality that we expect of ourselves.
Clients have returned for repeat business consistently, and this is truly rewarding. One of our recent successes is the Islamic Arts Biennale where we booked and managed all the tour guides, which was fantastic; everyone did a great job and it was very well received by visitors and clients alike.
Last year, we placed over 7,000 guest service staff across multiple projects including but not limited to: Coca-Cola Arena, Etihad Arena, NBA Abu Dhabi, Gov Games, PubG, UFC, Formula 1, Formula E and MDLBEAST projects.
Furthermore, in collaboration with MDLBEAST, we conducted ‘Supervisor Essentials’ workshops in Riyadh and Jeddah during June and July. These workshops aimed to equip 60 of our supervisors with essential skills for success in the events industry and develop their knowledge base to help them grow faster in the industry. Our friends at Safe Events were kind enough to support us with the Health & Safety segment of our workshop.
What’s the outlook for Saudi Arabia?
It is an immensely exciting territory to be involved in. The landscape is brimming with opportunities, and the scale of these opportunities are very exciting. This aligns perfectly with our goals, as we are always seeking large-scale challenges to sink our teeth into and to really show our teams’ qualities and capabilities. Thankfully, our hard work and the quality the team has put out over the years has paid off and the clients are coming back with a very healthy stream of large-scale projects. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what we can accomplish in the Kingdom yet.
What do you anticipate your biggest challenges will be over the next year?
As we’ve seen in the past, when projects like Expo 2020 come in and need large numbers of professionals at the same time, there’s a gravitational pull on staff, creating a scarcity in qualified professionals in the region. When compounded with big projects like the Horticultural Expo in Doha, multiple Saudi mega projects, and COP28, we anticipate a shortage of qualified locally available staff.
To solve this, we have year-round campaigns to build our databases locally, regionally, and internationally. The talent exists – it just needs to be found. Our database now is over 50,000 event professionals across the GCC – many of which we’ve placed in the past.
Another challenge is maintaining quality over larger quantities – we spent so much time, effort, and investment in combating this. Thankfully, we’ve been successful so far and we aim to continue this success. In 2022, we placed over 10,000 candidates and we’re anticipating that by the end of 2024, we’ll place between 15,000 to 20,000 due to the sheer scale of the projects we’re involved in. To achieve this, we grew our team, improved our system, trained our staff… It’s an ongoing process of development and we never allow ourselves to be overextended and let quality falter.
What areas of the business have the biggest potential for growth?
Longer-term projects, permanent projects, and related industries. Over the years we’ve been gearing up capabilities towards catering to the other related industries, to multiple-month, large-scale projects and permanent projects and venues.
We’ve already seen the value that we can add to these projects as we were lucky enough to be involved in both of the UAE’s live entertainment arenas – Coca-Cola and Etihad – where we’ve been an exclusive supplier since their pre-opening, taking charge of their staffing requirements.
We’ve also had incredible success on Expo 2020, FIFA World Cup, both Riyadh and Jeddah Season, as well as the Islamic Arts Biennale. These all operated as semi-permanent venues, with many staff needed, and those are the types of projects that we feel have significant growth potential for all our departments, whether it’s freelance, full-time or guest service.
What are your goals for the future?
In the short term, our primary objective is to further enhance our already robust operations in Saudi Arabia. Given the substantial size of the Kingdom, there’s a growing demand for comprehensive services. While we already boast a very strong team permanently based in KSA, we understand that meeting the huge demand requires a larger team. Our goal is a full-time team of 15 to 20 based between Riyadh and Jeddah by the end of 2024.
We’re also excited about the organic expansion of our services into industries beyond events. This strategic move has been initiated by the market’s recognition of the quality we provide. It’s a testament to our adaptability and capabilities that clients from various sectors are seeking our expertise. Moving into other industries is promising as the skill set and agility that freelancers gain from working in the events industry are transferable to a multitude of sectors.
In the long term, our vision extends beyond the Middle East. We would like to extend our footprint into new territories. This expansion isn’t just about offering our services elsewhere but will also serve to strengthen the Middle East operation in multiple ways by giving certain clients that operate across geographies consistency in service wherever in the world their project may be, and by continuing to offer a fresh stream of candidates from around the world into our GCC operations, contributing to our ongoing success.
Photos: Event Lab
