EventNewsDXB

EventNewsDXB - Stefan Wieland: Navigating the Middle East Event Industry

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 1 • Episode 1

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EventNewsDXB Ep 1 - Stefan Wieland: Navigating the Middle East Event Industry

Supported by Warehouse Four - Dubai's best independent event venue.

Host Ian Carless talks to one of Dubai's most prominent event figures, Stefan Wieland, about a career spanning over two decades, including the creation of 'EINO' - the Events Industry Night Out - a thriving event industry community, which has grown to over 12,000 members.

The conversation covers the resilience of the Middle Eastern events sector and how despite  lockdowns and economic setbacks, proactive government support and initiatives like "Crew for Crew" helped the industry recover. 

The episode also talks about the shifting priorities in the events sector, such as focusing on experience quality and discusses the challenges faced by young professionals in the industry and the increasing importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Podcast Rundown
• Stefan's journey from Germany to becoming a key player in Dubai's events 
• EINO's inception and its evolution into a vibrant professional network 
• Challenges faced in moderating discussions within the community 
• The pandemic's impact and the industry's collaborative response 
• Importance of well-being and work-life balance post-pandemic 
• Current issues of oversaturation and declining quality in events 
• Need for structured training and qualified talent in the industry 
• Optimism for the future of events in the Middle East with new opportunities 

Production Credits:

Presented by: Ian Carless
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producers: Ian Carless & Joe Morrison
Produced by: EventNewsDXB & W4 Podcast Studio

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Ian Carless:

Welcome to Event News DXB. Before we begin, I've got a quick favour to ask. There's one simple way that you can support our show, and that's by hitting that follow or subscribe button on the app you're listening to the show on right now. It really does make a huge difference in helping us get the show out there to as many people as possible. So please give us a hand and click that button right now. Thanks a bunch. Thanks a bunch.

Ian Carless:

Event News DXB. You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast. Your behind-the-scenes look into the world of events in Dubai, the UAE and the MENA region. I'm Ian Carlos and each week I'll bring you the latest news, industry trends and insider stories shaping one of the world's most dynamic event markets. From professional insights to Dubai's most inspiring success stories, we've got everything you need to stay ahead in the ever-evolving event industry. So, whether you're an event planner, a brand manager or just someone who's totally passionate about the power of events, you're in the right place To kick off the Event News DXB podcast series.

Ian Carless:

Who better to talk to than one of the most well-known figures in the Dubai event scene, stefan Weiland? Originally from Germany, stefan moved to Dubai 25 years ago and has since worked on a long and enviable list of events both in the UAE and around the Middle East. However, he's perhaps best known as the founder of Eno, the events industry night out, a Facebook community that now has over 12,000 members and is a must join for anyone working in the events industry in Dubai. Stefan, welcome to the show. Thank you, ian. Thank you for inviting me. You're most welcome. Now, I have to confess I did have a sneaky look at your LinkedIn profile, obviously last night and a couple of days ago, and you are a man of many talents, including, of course, eno, which we'll get on to. But first of all, how did you end up in this region?

Stefan Weiland:

That's very interesting. So I came for some royal weddings to Saudi in like the end 90s and I didn't really like it because I stayed all time in the hotel with the elevator up from my room to the ballroom and that's it. Not seen much from the region. And after the millennium in Berlin I got a call from someone said can you accompany me to Abu? Dhabi? I need a production guy. And I said yes, why not? And so I went to Abu Dhabi, signed a contract for four weeks, stayed for a month and after four months I went back to Germany and basically decided it's better to go to the Middle East. So since then it's now on the 17th of January it will be 25 years 25.

Ian Carless:

And it goes too quickly, doesn't it? Oh yeah, I think I've. Just in February I'll have done 22 years. Yeah, and a similar story. I mean, you signed up for what? Four weeks? Yeah, yeah, I signed up for what I thought was going to be two or three years 22 years ago. Yeah, no kidding. So let's get onto the meat of things. Eno how on earth did Eno come about?

Stefan Weiland:

Well, that's the story. That goes back to 2010. I just came from a stint with a very, very nice agency where I was the production director of new technologies or something like that, and I decided to leave that company and go freelance again. At the same time, my wife changed the company and she was starting with a company called Al lathe scaffolding that was still around, or is still around, and she became the first business development marketing person in that company and she said I have not many contacts in the industry and I have to rebuild my contacts in the industry. So we need to make an event where we all come together and have a drink at the bar to make that easy, because you know at the bar it's easier to speak when you are in a room for like, oh, this is my company and I present this and that.

Stefan Weiland:

So we called a couple of people and everyone told us you know you will fail. It's what people said. That's encouraging. Yeah, at this time you need to understand there were a lot of people still not really friends in the industry. So you had your acquaintances, but not friends. Friends and a lot of companies worked against each other. So there was a lot of I don't want to call this hate, but there is like jealousy and this and that, and I think we need to overcome this. This is ridiculous. We all need to work together and at that time, 2010, there was a lot of freelance talent for the first time coming up and we said, okay, we need to connect all of these, we need to connect agencies, we need to connect companies, we need to connect freelancers.

Stefan Weiland:

How do we do that with an event? So our first event was in click. That was a champagne lounge in emirates towers, yeah, where we invited 40 people and 80 came. So basically, everyone took another person with them and it was great. It was like so whoa, we never expected this. And everyone said, okay, this is this, we have to do this more regularly, et cetera, et cetera. And then we said how can we reach out to people? And then we founded a so-called Facebook page at that time where we yeah, it was a page, yeah, where we reached out to people and announced our event.

Ian Carless:

How long ago was this?

Stefan Weiland:

Also 2010. Oh, 2010. Yes, from that someone said, can you not change this to a group Because I have a question? And then we said, yeah, we can do that. And from there it started off to what it is now, with like 12,000 people in a group where, of course, I have to moderate about 20 post requests a day, 30 to 40 joining requests a day, and it's basically everything is monitored, everything is rejected, approved, et cetera, et cetera, based on certain criterias, because we want to keep the group focused on events and I think so far we did quite well. We made it into a point where we're talking actively to companies to become supporters. So they support us with podcast studio time, they support us with other stuff, so we can make it really, really a nice community and I think so far we kept the momentum on. I can see our events that we do bi-yearly. It has declined from the heydays on. On the, on the heydays, we had 350, 400 people on on a you know night. That actually also became a challenge because it was too many people trying to find a venue that can host that many people and still being the bar yeah

Stefan Weiland:

that we always wanted. Yeah, uh was a challenge. So when the pandemic hit, that was for us a wake-up call. So we tried the online thing didn't work at all. So, uh, we had to say, okay, we, we need to skip this. This is, uh, we need to bring this back once we are all healthy again. We done that and we are now back to 170 200 people for a night, which is great, and the last youno was so successful. So I left at one because I had to work next day. But I know from the venue they said your guest kept us busy until like 3.30 in the morning and it was for me like. So, okay, this industry is still a lot of things to tell, to talk and to discuss.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, Now we'll talk about the pandemic very shortly, but in the meantime it can be a thankless task, can't it running a community group like that?

Stefan Weiland:

but it became much, much more than this and it is now for us. It's not a corporate social responsibility, it's just like a community social responsibility to run this and we, we're still loving it, we're still doing it. Yes, sometimes it's really frustrating when you get messages that some people say you didn't accept me, why, and starting discussions and all of that. Or in this post, someone wrote something that I was not allowed and this and that and I, I really asked a little bit more for for lenience to us as well, because we, again, we do this in our spare time. Yeah, this is our, our social baby. Yeah, we do this, we love it, but if it takes a day or two, or even if we are on holidays, please forgive us that your post has not been immediately approved. Again, we do this everything by hand and by eye, one by one, and we cannot just, you know, dedicate our whole life to this page. That's not really what it is.

Ian Carless:

Yeah. Now, just moving on to the pandemic there, I can imagine that the number of people commenting and wanting to get involved in discussions increased tenfold. I know there were some quite interesting, shall we say, discussions around the time, particularly with obviously so many of us in the event industry out of work, and you know, there was a little bit of finger pointing towards perhaps what people felt other entities should be doing to help, etc. First of all, what were your thoughts about that whole pandemic process in relation to the industry? And then, how did you manage the discussion on Eno around it, because some of them, as I said, got a little bit heated, didn't they?

Stefan Weiland:

Yeah, so of course it affected every one of us, including me at this time, and I was a little bit lucky because I got asked to work for a Canadian company on a retainer basis, which was really really good and helped to survive that I know others were really really hit by it financially. Of course some people put their life savings in to survive. Others had to leave the country to seek other opportunities. I know from people who went back to the UK and were driving UPS vans during that time. So there is people who survived and I think thanks to the government here, who was first a little bit looked at for imposing the lockdown. But that lockdown lasted two months and after the two months we basically were the first countries bringing back to life we were I mean the other countries had it much worse.

Stefan Weiland:

Yeah, absolutely.

Stefan Weiland:

So the whole idea of we doing this, we have to do this, we have to run a company, so I'm really thankful for the government how they handled it.

Stefan Weiland:

I was again lucky that I scored another project with the Expo and during that time, expo helped us tremendously A lot of people from Dubai and a lot of people from all over the world actually, and we have seen a lot of people who never left after Expo who are still here.

Stefan Weiland:

We have seen a lot of professionalism coming in with Expo because Expo said, okay, we have to do it like this, we have to do it like this, and this continues in a way where I think it's a huge improvement for us and I I think personally but that's my own personal opinion that we are now in the middle east are actually the leaders of the events industry. See how much we are handling on events per year. That's much more than in europe, in the us or in Asia. How much or the size of the events we are delivering is nowhere seen in the US, anywhere else in America, in Europe or in Asia. So our events are always big because our surrounding governments they spend a lot of money into these events and I think we can be very, very lucky to work in this thieving industry and economy.

Ian Carless:

How did you manage the discussions around this? Because I know at the time, as I say, people were looking a little out. I mean, there was a lot of community. What I thought was encouraging about that time as well, it fostered a stronger sense of community. I think there were a lot of people that did actually try and come together and pull together to help those of other people who were really really, really struggling. But at the same time, there was a little bit of like questions, shall we say, in terms of particularly towards the Event Industry Association. So how did you manage those discussions and also how do you think that that role played out during that time?

Stefan Weiland:

Well, so we started very, very fast with setting up another community outreach platform. That was Crew for Crew crew, where we basically ask okay, just take the skills that you have and redeploy them differently. So we know that some of the labor supply companies, starting with removals and helped with cheaper offices removals and cheaper warehouse removals, etc, etc. During that time we know that some of the set building companies they went into interior fit outs, etc. Etc. But this was all again a little bit of community engagement. So I need to have my apartment painted? Yeah, okay, I will do that for half the price and the painters doing it because you are from the industry. We helped with jobs, etc, etc. So that was that good thing and we tried to cap that into the crew for crew platform, keeping this out of the platform. Again.

Stefan Weiland:

In the eno platform, we had the other challenge where people suddenly questioned of the state should pay me, where's our association, um, etc, etc. Well, the question with the association was at that point yeah, where's the association? People asked me to to put on an association, but with the laws that we're having here in the UAE, that's not really possible because there's only one association per industry. So, and if this is set and I'm not the person to run an association. That's just not me. I run communities. I can do that, I know how to do that and I'm very social, but as an association head, nah, that's not for me. So, on the you know platform, we we try to moderate this in a in a way where we don't offend anyone. Obviously it's a public page where people can join. It's not a private page. It's a company run page because out of the laws that we have in the middle east, we have to do that. So we maintain an extra trade license for that. So this is the amount of you know I put into this whole setup of Eno.

Stefan Weiland:

However, with this comes responsibility, and the responsibility was that you not censor but you moderate what's going on there, because some of the people who got very frustrated went out with anger and I think some people didn't hit the right tone, understandably, because they were forced to do things that they wouldn't like to do, but I think as well it was a learning curve for a lot of people. So the discussions toned down very much and it was then again more about like how can we work together? How can you help me? Course, lots of people put lots of effort into that and said okay, I need a job, help me, please help me, I need to pay my bills, et cetera, et cetera. But it's not about just like I give you a job because you need to pay your bills, I need to also give the job to someone who can do the job. Otherwise I'm doing two jobs.

Ian Carless:

So it doesn't make sense. I mean two questions really. We'll come on to this one in a second. I wanted to ask you about where you see or your thoughts about new talent coming into the industry, but before that I just wanted to pick it up on just the end of the pandemic. Do you think we've recovered? Do you think the industry is now at a stage where it was pre-pandemic? That's a good question.

Stefan Weiland:

I think, post-pandemic, we had a massive spike with everything, with event technology, sales, with companies springing up left, right and center. Currently, I think we're a little bit hit by a saturation in the market, not only in terms of services, companies, et cetera, et cetera, also in terms of events. So you can actually see that we have a lot of events going on. Are the quality of the events getting better? Currently, in my own opinion, it's not. You're not alone in that fact. Yeah, so why is that? So, is that because of the talent? Is it because of budgets? Is it because of there's just too many events? I personally think it's just too many events. There's a lot of event agencies who work on public events who cannot sell enough tickets because it's just oversaturation. On the the other hand, people from other industries jumped into okay, this event stuff is great because there's so many events, they need stuff. I'm going to become an event professional, but then again, with no means of getting trained, it's becoming very, very difficult.

Stefan Weiland:

So everyone, especially post-pandemic, there was a lot of people saying so I am a stage manager, I, I am a site manager, etc. Etc. What's their qualification? So we don't have any protection in our job names, job descriptions. There is not even common job descriptions. If you take TV and if you take events, a producer is two different things. A production manager in film and a production manager in events is two different things. The thing here is that lots of people said, okay, I can just cross work things. The thing here is that lots of people said, okay, I can just cross work. And this is where I think quality can go down, because people just don't bring the necessary skills with them that you expect as a client.

Ian Carless:

Well, that's certainly, I mean, that's certainly a problem when it comes to event organizers. I mean, there's the old adage, isn't it really that all you need to be an event manager is a uh, you know a phone and a filofax?

Stefan Weiland:

well, I'm dating myself there.

Ian Carless:

Maybe not a filofax anymore, maybe an ipad but but you know, there are, there are, that's it. That's all you need and a good, you know, sense of organizational ability. So, going back to young people and new talent come into the industry. Where do you think we're at? Specifically here in the middle east? Because, because I think, across many industries, training is a forgotten word. It's the thing that you do if you've got a little bit of budget at the end of the year, I suspect or if you absolutely have to. So how do young people come into the industry and are they coming into the industry?

Stefan Weiland:

That's one of the big problems that I can see. Currently there is a lot of young people who are trying to do work experience etc. Thanks, scott. We have a couple of technical providers who have trainee programs and they do this quite well. The other thing is that agencies don't really like to employ trainees because it's just for them. It's an extra burden. People ask questions etc.

Stefan Weiland:

And in this fast-paced event industry it's like bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. You don't have time. It's also a lot of people still are under the impression that if I tell this young guy how it works tomorrow, he will take my job. I think this is completely wrong Because at one point we will all become old, gray-haired and very slow and there is no one there anymore to actually do our jobs and then we have worked twice and that's not how it should be.

Stefan Weiland:

Young people are still coming in. A lot of people in between the 18 and 21 year old. They want to do the influencer events. They don't want to do the company conference, the open days, etc, etc. Finding some people working on exhibitions seems to be a big problem. I think a lot of people when they study economics and then go into project management, and this is how they should come into the events industry. Of course you have your young people who go into training programs, but it's rarely Younger people then. See, you know, I can work 20 hours a day in an events management company for this event and I earn this little bit of money or I go into I don't want to say real estate.

Stefan Weiland:

But I see young people going into trade again with, like, drop shipping and this kind of Amazon dealings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, which is for some successful, for others not so much, but definitely they don't need to work the 20 hours to make the same money. But I think this shift is in all of the industries that we are seeing. So trade is a big problem. So finding the carpenter, finding the mason and all of that is exactly the same thing. So trying to find younger people, it's problematic.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, just circling back to what we were talking about in terms of do we think the industry is where it's at and, in particular, in reference to the standards, what are your thoughts for where the industry is at right now? You mentioned that you don't think the quality of events is perhaps as good as it used to be. What are the factors at play there? I mean, dubai is no longer a cheap place to live, isn't it Is cost one of those live? Isn't it is cost one of those things? Is the talent drain one of those things? Or a combination of everything?

Stefan Weiland:

it's a good question. So I attending a lot of events and I can see different things. There is the spend on production is going down to spend more on fnb experience, because I think it's about experiences. So I don't want to tap on anyone's shoes, yeah, but I don't think it's the talent per per se, it's the. It's the focus of these events. So the focus of of the events, of having this nice big screen with some entertainment, etc. Etc. We have incredible entertainment in Dubai, incredible entertainment producers as well.

Stefan Weiland:

I wish they could do what they want to do, because that would achieve a little much, much, much more interesting stuff. So everything is just about like. So we need to have this five minutes launch moment, and then it's about fancy cocktails, it's about this, that and whatsoever and, I think, a lot of other things that where we're looking into like the good stuff, into like content, nice content, production on screen, content production it's a little bit left out. The whole theatrical build of such a show has been left out. A lot of people basically say oh yeah, I'm just doing an event and the event is the client told me they want this, this, this, this, and then I look into it and it's like so yeah, but it doesn't make sense.

Ian Carless:

There's no story, yeah, so we need to build a story.

Stefan Weiland:

Yeah, but it's not about the story. It's about, uh, the guests. No, no, it's all about the story. Yes, and I'm trying to explain this to people, and that's why I said you need to trust me. I'm doing this for a couple of years and I built a story in this whole thing, and if I say this person needs to go from left to the right to the stage, there's a reason behind it and just trust me, it just makes sense because you don't want to have like people crisscrossing stages, you don't want to have long blackouts in between a show, in show segments.

Ian Carless:

Do you think creativity is also lacking? I mean, you know we've both been here, you know 20 something years. I'll be honest in my experience of Dubai, I think in general it's a bit risk averse across many industries, events being no exception. And if you combine that now with perhaps smaller budgets available for events, people just don't want to take risks.

Stefan Weiland:

Yes, that's one thing. Many, many years ago, we could see this like I don't want to say six to eight or 10 companies, the large companies who doing all the big shows, and they were basically employing a lot of very experienced talent. Now we see these big shows shifted. We don't have this 50 big shows per year. Yeah, we now have a thousand smaller shows. Yeah, and with the thousand smaller shows comes smaller budget, comes more people that you need, so you cannot get all this hyper-knowledged professionals, so you need to get other people in there.

Stefan Weiland:

And then a lot of people go to oh, yeah, we use this guy and we replicate our basically shows. I have seen this with agencies who, basically a launch event is a launch event. We use the perfume bar, we use the cocktail guy, we use the same dancers that we had at the last launch. We only change the content and it's basically the company name in the content. Yeah, you can do that and, honestly, it reduces the cost of the event, which is nice. However, as a guest and you go, especially in in the real estate sector, you go to a lot of events because that's where you basically buy your apartments these people. They now have a little bit of fatigue, so they only go there or they come late when they know it's now being. I can talk to this guy and he sells me 10 or 20 apartments, but no one is really looking at as the stage anymore.

Stefan Weiland:

Yesterday I was in an event and they had a very nice stage presenter. The mc was great, was brilliant, kept it really tight, kept it really online bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. It was great. It was a networking event at the same time and then there was this break in between where they had on stage entertainment which was a singer and a saxophonist. Well, the music was very nice, but it's something where, for me personally, everything fell down and then they had suddenly appearing some really really cool dance performance, but without announcing it. So a lot of people were either outside the room or looked at it and didn't really understand why is now this Pearl Dancers on stage, looked at it and didn't really understand why is now this Pearl Dancers on stage? Well, I think this could have actually put a little bit better into perspective so that people have a better experience, because now just people go to an event, have their dinner, some awards have been given out and that's it. So the experience part was a little bit missing.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, just going back to the pandemic and what it's meant to people, I think our industry wasn't alone. Everybody had a lot of time on their hands and I think there was a lot of time for introspection, wasn't there? We had a little chat before we started the podcast about how, what a fast paced industry. This is the stress that it puts on you. I don't want to get into necessarily the whole mental health aspect, but I think you know wellbeing became very much at the top of people's lists, didn't it? Looking after yourself, looking, you know, particularly looking after yourself. How have you changed post-pandemic? I know you alluded to a few personal health issues that you'd had. Can you talk to us a little bit about those and how that's affected your relationship with work and the industry?

Stefan Weiland:

Well, yeah, that's definitely a common thing, and you can see that the whole idea of mental health didn't really exist, to be very honest, and people just worked, worked, worked and we had to deliver. We had to deliver. I come from a generation I call it Generation 8PM. 8pm is the showtime, regardless what If you're ready or not, there are out hundreds or thousands of people who paid for a ticket and they want to see a show at eight. If you come in at 4 pm to set up the show or 4 am, it doesn't matter, it needs to be starting at eight, and this puts everyone under immense pressure and you never had really time to you. You know, get this off and you just have to cope with it. Yeah, and they always said yeah, you know, it spreads the weak from the strength, and I think that this was wrong, and it's always an educational thing as well. So you have to progress and in my own personal case, I took on too many jobs in eight years or ten years ago, yeah, and I could actually feel how I degraded, to be honest. So, and it was not only mentally, that was physically as well. Yeah, so, and I said I need to put a stop on this because I have done all of this, so I don't need to prove that I can do all of this and I just need to work in a way where it's healthy for me, and I think I found that line and, yes, with some things I was quite lucky and now I'm not jumping from one opportunity to the other one. So opportunity needs to come, opportunity needs to be right, and then I say, yes, I'm going to do it, or I'm not going to do it, because otherwise you are becoming again the hamster in that wheel.

Stefan Weiland:

I see now a lot of people that I grew up with or worked with in the last 15, 20 years. They basically step out and I'm with the same people on jobs or on shows, et cetera, et cetera, and I can see these people, people, and instead of going to the bar in the evening, they do another yoga session, or in the morning I can see them in the gym, or people traveling with their bikes to cycle around, etc. Etc. And I see and I think that's really, really important that also younger people understand don't get into the treadmill, just do what you think it's good for you. Yeah, to balance this out, and, yes, we all do stupid hours in in these jobs. If you have only a 14 hour, you to balance this out and yes, we all do stupid hours in these jobs If you have only a 14-hour window to set up a show and then do the show and then dismantle, you need to plan with two sets of crew.

Stefan Weiland:

You cannot continue with the same people who set up your show, to rehearse the show, to do the show, to dismantle everything. So some of the event technology companies have actually made us now right. So where they have a setup crew who is also the dismantling crew, and they have a rehearsal, yeah, and show crew, and I think these companies, uh, they do it right.

Ian Carless:

I think there's an interesting dynamic that's come about post pandemic, I think. You know, many years ago everybody talked a lot about work-life balance, but it was rarely something we ever got right. It might be something that we talk about with our mates in the pub or over a coffee, but did we really put any steps into place to really try and maintain that work-life balance? I suspect not many of us did. Interestingly, now it's really come to the forefront, hasn't it? I think that time off, that time of stillness and introspection during COVID, made people really evaluate what they wanted out of life and how hard they wanted to work. But since then, I think, that whole attitude towards how much I'm prepared to do there, I think people have realized that there's a limit. And actually, you know, looking after yourself, spending quality time with loved ones, et cetera, et cetera, that's all really, really important.

Stefan Weiland:

We always joked about the old people in the events industry when they went out for a round of golf, but, honestly, it was the right thing. So I joined many years ago that club of the club, swingers, and it was great. It was exactly the thing. The only thing that I did wrong was playing golf with event people, because you only talk about events. So when I, when I swapped and I'm playing now a lot of golf with hospitality people, yeah, it's a different story. So you completely talk about families, etc, etc. And not necessarily about work, which is very, very nice.

Stefan Weiland:

Yeah, I also have seen that a lot of companies changed in terms of employee well-being, even smaller companies.

Stefan Weiland:

I see now they have their pedal groups, they have their morning running groups, or there's one well-known event technology provider who has their own cycling team and they all cycle together. And there's the owner of the company is really at the forefront. I don't know how many bikes he has in his house, so he's encouraging a lot of people in his company to actually have the cycling going on, which is great, and I can see these people on group rides, et cetera, with their own kit. So, and I think that's the right thing we have the in a lot of the larger event technology companies. You have your Filipino basketball teams, which is great. So they have the summer basketball tournaments with each other Absolutely great. And if employers are encouraging their people to actually take that time to do that sport not only the sport or this time together it's also creating a bit more camaraderie. It resolves a lot of stress in the company interpersonality stress and I think it's the right way to do so.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, I think, yeah, absolutely. I agree 100% with what you said there. I think you know you do benefit from the payback If you look after your staff. You will reap the rewards. Stefan, before we go, are you a music fan? Absolutely Okay, we've been asking everybody this. My vinyl collection is growing once again. What's on your playlist at the moment?

Stefan Weiland:

Oh, to be very honest, currently it's less music and more podcasts. Interesting Industry podcasts a few. Yeah, politic podcasts I know that that sounds weird, but that's very interesting for me. Financial podcasts, because I'm going into an age where I don't, where I need to know what I'm doing with my money. I don't know if it's the right thing to listen to these people, but it's cool. Music wise, I'm switching in between early 90s rock, mid 90s techno. We're dating ourselves absolutely hardcore techno. I just attended on the 28th of December. I really really like it. Very dark. There was only one stroboscope in that bunker. It was literally a bunker.

Ian Carless:

I hate to typecast, but the Germans really do love that that was amazing and you can really let yourself go.

Stefan Weiland:

It was great. Big stadium shows I don't like that anymore. I know everyone was raving about the Coldplay shows. It's not for me. I'm now more into like big artists in intimate club shows. It's a game changer. If you have the opportunity to do so, do it. It's great.

Ian Carless:

And finally, two last questions. Professionally, where do you see the industry in 2025? And personally, where do you see yourself Well, in 2025, in our Middle Eastern industry.

Stefan Weiland:

So we are lined up for huge conferences. We are lined up for huge sports events. Again, saudi Arabia is a beast of its own. It's growing and it's exploding with all the esports events we are lined up. We're coming back to more arty events, which is nice. We we see more and more independent and I don't know, underground would be the wrong word but independent organized events.

Stefan Weiland:

Yeah, alzacal avenue, they're doing a lot of uh events in in warehouse four, there is a lot of events so going on that who are not in on the mainstream calendar, which is nice. And this whole subculture that we have in dubai is amazing. I can see that how it's been growing in in in riyadh. Now there's also this kind of subcultural thing going on. Is it coming to other middle eastern cities? Not really sure, but I think we have a very, very good year 2025, ahead. When I speak to friends in the industry, everyone says, yeah, calendars are filling up, which is a good sign. Seeing myself in 2025 is I will be traveling a lot. There will be industry technology shows where I will be in attendance. I have to see clients around the Middle East. So my calendar up to end of April is quite full, so I'm quite happy that I'm traveling, I'm seeing people, I'm doing the business, yeah, so I'm also looking forward to this year.

Ian Carless:

Yeah Well, stefan, thanks for joining me today, and I wish you a prosperous and happy 2025. Thank you, ian.

Stefan Weiland:

It was great being here and I can really really recommend the studio as well. It's a good setup, Seriously, I like that.

Ian Carless:

Thank you very much. Event News DXB was presented by myself, ian Carlos, the studio engineer and editor was Roy DeMonte, the executive producer was myself and Joe Morrison, and this podcast is a co-production between Warehouse 4 and W4 Podcast Studio Dubai, and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.