Meet Your Makers: Gordon Reid on the Shifting Fan Experience at Events

From Pride in London to Glasgow Winterfest, and countless client events, Gordon Reid has managed numerous award-winning multi-million pound projects in the UK and beyond. Involved in every aspect of international projects from conception to planning to live delivery and beyond, for clients and organisations including Porsche, SKY, Lindt, Puma and LOCOG, Reid is a powerhouse that thrives under pressure.

LBB> What first attracted you to production?

Gordon> From studying leisure management at Glasgow Caledonian University, I was made aware of, and thoroughly enjoyed, the benefits of a city using major events as an economic and social tool to draw tourism and business. However, I simply had the good fortune to be starting my career when the city council needed to increase their event management team, to show the Commonwealth how experienced they were in delivering major events ahead of the bid for Glasgow 2014. Because of this, it was literally straight in at the deep end, learning on the job, delivering every element imaginable of global events.

LBB> What was your first role and how did this experience influence how you think about production and how you grew your career?

Gordon> I was a project coordinator for the city council - soon to be rebranded Glasgow Life. It was all hands on deck - little did I know at the time but it gave me insight and a great grounding into production, health & safety, programming, crowd management, athlete services, project management, budgeting, ceremonies, talent management, relationship management, PR, stakeholder management, licensing, creative services, broadcasting and everything in between. Probably too much responsibility at times for a naive 26 year old to be honest!

LBB> Looking back, can you tell us about an event you were involved in where you really had to dig deep and that really helped you to grow as a producer?

Gordon> I had to use every skill listed above when leading on Parallel London – the world's first all-inclusive mass participation event. The premise behind this event is to ensure every person, regardless of ability or disability, can participate equally. To make this event a success, we had to consider every person as an unique individual meaning we had to strip back the event to its bare bones and build it on the basis of everybody experiencing the festival equally. Everything from the website design, how participants use transport, the length of the runs, what facilities were on offer, to how acts were presented at the festival had to be considered for each individual person. It highlighted to me the lack of thought given to people with disabilities when it comes to major events. I am very proud to have been a part of this event, which was elevated by winning mass participation sports event of the year, beating the London Marathon. This experience now means that every event I have produced since, I have considered the importance of including every individual in attendance. 

LBB> What’s your favourite thing about production and why?

Gordon> I love the variety of the work, every single day is different, every event produced has its own unique challenges. Plus I seem to thrive on pressure; the bigger the event, the more the pressure, the more I enjoy as it’s so rewarding when it all comes together on the day.  

LBB> How has event delivery changed since you started your career?

Gordon> The focus of events has shifted towards a model which promotes fan experience over everything else, whether that be concerts, food festivals, brand launches or sporting events. All events want to immerse you into their world and the most effective way to do that is in real life through the medium of an event and the touch points it brings. It’s a big change, when I started out you bought a ticket, turned up to the show and left straight after. 

LBB> In terms of recent work, which projects have you found to be particularly exciting or have presented particularly interesting production challenges?

Gordon> When the Moncler team first approached me to talk about their Genius project, I genuinely didn’t think it could be done in the timescale - we only started planning three months out! But the vision they shared with us, the boundaries they wanted to push with the crowds, with the collaborations, with the venue was inspiring and really meant me and the team went above and beyond to create the event that we saw come to fruition. It wasn’t without challenges – Italian and UK laws are different so we had to communicate what we couldn’t do over here. 

Because of the demand the event caused, we went into the final few days unsure of how many people would turn up and how we could manage those who did. With endless rounds of crowd modelling, scenario planning and robust security walk-throughs, we were confident we could cope with the anticipated numbers. Thankfully our plans were tested to the max as the number of attendees far exceeded anything we had predicted! The crowd were excellent though and appreciated our efforts by immersing themselves in the Moncler Genius world we had created. We created such an impact and made so much noise - literally and figuratively.

LBB> Producers always have the best stories. What’s the hairiest situation you’ve found yourself in and how did you work your way out of it?

Being mistaken for Erling Haaland’s partner is one, having to enter a Soho pub during Pride to ask them to shut the music down was another but in my first ever event, I was asked to arrange a minute silence during the closing ceremony. I’d neglected, however, to arrange a signal that ended the silence ... cue a very long, very awkward silence. 

LBB> You worked on the 2012 Games – what was your highlight?

Gordon> Working at the All England Club was wonderful and having successfully staged the Wimbledon Open there for a century I can understand why the authorities were reluctant to make the changes we wanted to ensure the fan experience was elevated to Olympic standard. I’m glad we pushed the local councils and emergency services, as the event was a massive success, and I still see the legacy of those changes implemented today. That’s my professional answer - being in Centre Court to see Andy Murray win gold or welcoming Kobe Bryant to the AELTC are the real answers. 

LBB> What lessons can we take from these and subsequent Games as we build towards Paris 2024?

Gordon> One of the hardest parts of events is getting the right balance between ensuring the event is secure and safe versus spectators having the time of their life. We have seen from recent major events - like the Champions League Final ‘22 and Rugby World Cup ‘23 and more generally in a post-covid world - the different behaviours of individuals when in a mass crowd setting and how event organisers have dealt with this, sometimes by adding extra, somewhat unnecessary layers of security. Event producers can occasionally get bogged down in risk assessments and health and safety planning, sometimes ignoring the attendees. A balance has to be found and I’m sure the Paris 2024 organisers will get that right. 

LBB> How have you harnessed lessons learned from large-scale events for organisations to create impactful brand experiences?

Gordon> The principles for event delivery remain the same, regardless of the scale, although the smaller the event the more focussed you can be on each individual experience. Take the Nike Air Max Day ‘23 experience that we delivered in Peckham. The team considered the consumer journey from start to finish, how they would arrive, how they would experience the entertainment, how the sound behaved in each space, how the food was served, how the guests would be given their gifts, what the guests would see when leaving; all things that we had the ability to tweak to ensure each guest has the same incredible experience. It all adds up to make this wonderful immersive world.

LBB> Final word... name the large-scale event you’d love to work on.

Gordon> NCAAs March Madness would be the ultimate event for me. With XYZ now being a 160 over 90 company I'm campaigning to have a role when the event takes place in Phoenix in 2024. If JMU (James Madison University) get to the Women’s Basketball version in Cleveland, I’ll have to be there too.