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Amy Morris: Building Creativity And Innovation In The Entertainment Industry.

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 1 • Episode 8

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EventNewsDXB - Ep. 8 - Amy Morris: Building Creativity And Innovation In The Entertainment Industry.

In this episode of EventNewsDXB, host Ian Carless sits down with Amy Morris, CEO of PopUp Global, to discuss her journey from cruise ship performer to entertainment entrepreneur. 

Amy shares how a Disney cease-and-desist notice led her to pivot her UK-based business, eventually winning a major cruise line contract. She reflects on navigating the challenges of expanding to Dubai, from cultural differences in business operations to sourcing top-tier talent. 

Amy also dives into the importance of mental health support for performers, the power of saying no to the wrong opportunities and her excitement for upcoming projects. 

Tune in for insights on innovation, resilience, and the evolving entertainment landscape in Dubai and beyond.


Podcast Rundown

• Starting out in entertainment.  
• Receiving a cease and desist letter from The Walt Disney Company.
• Transitioning from freelance to limited company.
• Navigating COVID and winning new contracts.
• Setting up in Dubai. 
• Establishing the business focus.
• Being a woman in the event industry.
• Mental health initiatives.
• Looking ahead.

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 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 now. Thanks a bunch.

Ian Carless:

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 from the people shaping one of the world's most dynamic event markets. This week, we're talking to PopUp Global's founder and CEO, amy Morris. After cutting her teeth as a performer in the entertainment industry, both on land and at sea, amy began to focus her talents on creating entertainment shows and programs. However, a cease and desist letter from none other than the Walt Disney Company forced her to rethink her business strategy. Despite this temporary setback, her business in the UK has flourished, but it was the opportunity of a big contract in Dubai that saw Amy move to the Emirates 80 months ago and, safe to say from this point, she's never looked back, amy. Welcome to the podcast. Hello, now, I usually start by saying how did you end up in Dubai, but I'm going to take you a little bit further back than that. How did you end up in entertainment?

Amy Morris:

Wow, that's a big, big question. It's all I've ever known, since I was two years old. No-transcript to where I am today yeah, it's interesting, that isn't it?

Ian Carless:

because I you know, I'm sure you're the same, but you've come across a lot of sort of younger people, particularly at the beginning of their careers, and I always feel really sorry, in the nicest possible way, for the people who don't know what they want to do. I mean, I think I was very similar to you. I knew from the age of 12 that I wanted to get into television, which is what I used to do before this and before getting into events, and that guided me every step of the way. But I know, for example, you know, my friends' kids. They have no idea what they want to do.

Amy Morris:

And I think that is most people, to be honest.

Amy Morris:

And you know my friends' kids. They've no idea what they want to do, and I think that is most people. To be honest, I think most people don't really know, because they might be good at a few different things, but it's about turning your passion into the career. But you've got to know that early on. And don't get me wrong when I was six, I wanted to be a pop star. So it got more realistic as the years went on and I wanted to be Britney Spears, obviously, but it was always that that I wanted to do so and you mentioned cruise ships, so that was your, that was.

Ian Carless:

Was that your first role in terms of professional being professionally within the entertainment?

Amy Morris:

industry. Yeah, we'd always cruised as a family, right. So when I saw the shows on board, I thought that's a great job. And we're in the Caribbean and I thought, well, they're traveling around the Caribbean and performing. So I knew from and I remember we'd be on holiday and my mum would like get the cruise director over. She's only 14, but she'd love to work on ships and at the time I was mortified that she'd done that, but it was always, yeah, something that I thought that looks like a great job the travelling and the performing at the same time.

Ian Carless:

So how did that transition come about? So you were on board the cruise ships working for yourself and then you go to setting up your own business. Can you talk me through that transitional period?

Amy Morris:

So, without getting too deep, I was actually going to go do a third contract and then my dad got really poorly and ended up in hospital, and so I had to be his primary carer for a while, which kept me at home. So I had to start figuring out. Okay, well, what am? I had to be his primary carer for a while, which kept me at home, so I had to start figuring out. Okay, well, what am I going to do instead? And a girl asked me if I would play Elsa at some event in Preston town centre, and I'd never watched Frozen because I'd been away for so long. I didn't even know what Frozen was. I know I did. I had to google it and I was like, oh yeah, I could look like her because I had really blonde hair at the time. And I went and did this event and I got mobbed. I swear to God, it was like Harry Styles being in Preston Town Centre and I thought there's something in this.

Amy Morris:

So I went home to my parents and I was like, listen, these kids, for Elsa I'm gonna go get a dress. And I had a dress made and I started doing that. Um, at birthday parties, then events, and then somebody wanted Anna, then someone wanted Belle, and then someone wanted Cinderella and before you knew it, I had this business and it was called pop-up princesses. Back then right 10 years ago, nearly 11 years ago, and it kind of started from there very organically okay, and it wasn't all plain sailing, though was it Because I have read?

Ian Carless:

I think I've read you talking about this somewhere, probably on LinkedIn.

Amy Morris:

You had a bit of a run-in with Disney, didn't you? Yeah, I did, and it's fair enough. It wasn't. Do you want?

Ian Carless:

to tell us a little bit about that.

Amy Morris:

I got a cease and desist letter, oh nice yeah. And they came of every character that I was doing. And do you know what? I wasn't sat doing that business with that in mind. I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm just going to see. I just didn't, I was 25. I didn't think Disney would find out about me in Blackburn Town Centre doing these birthday parties and events.

Ian Carless:

Miami, Blackburn yeah.

Amy Morris:

But we'd got into like Hello Magazine, OK Magazine.

Amy Morris:

We'd been booked by like taoi stars so so we'd start being shared on bigger pages and the press got would be in the newspaper all the time. So I think that's where they got a hold on us and it was frightening. I'd built up the business for maybe two and a half to three years by this point and they were like if you don't immediately cease doing all of this, we will take you for millions which I didn't have. If you don't immediately cease doing all of this, we will take you for millions which I didn't have. So I don't know how they were going to do that, but it was definitely me being like right, let's pivot on this. And so we did.

Ian Carless:

Right Now, many young businesses have a bit of an aha moment, don't they? Sometimes it's a revelation about what their business actually is, and sometimes you land a big deal. What was your aha moment? Where did you actually sort of think, okay, now this is a bona fide business.

Amy Morris:

On the back of that, us having to pivot, we then started creating our own concepts that were ours, that we were creating. And then I'd heard on the grapevine because we'd got a lot of you know, contacts in the industry that the last cruise ship I had worked on, which was fred olsen cruise lines, was going out to tender, and this was 2019. Really, we were nowhere near that, but I thought, what if we got to lose? It'll be the first pitch that we've done. Let's put it together. And we won it out Out of 25 companies. We won that contract and we still deliver that contract today. And that was when, even just in that tender process, I was learning so much and I realised how good we were. That that's when I thought this could be huge. That was definitely the moment winning that.

Ian Carless:

And what about the business side of that period of time? I mean, how daunting was that for you. I mean, there's always that transitional period with a small business, isn't it, when you kind of go from it just being actually a business owner?

Amy Morris:

freelance Me my else address Correct?

Ian Carless:

Yeah To actually then being an employer and having a business that you actively manage. What was your thought process with that at the time and how daunting was it perhaps?

Amy Morris:

So I took on my first employee in 2017 and she still works for me today, in fact, out here in Dubai, and I think that was fine. But then, by the time the cruise ship opportunity came around, there was three employees in the business.

Amy Morris:

And you are then starting to think, right, well, we need that contract to be able to sustain where we are as the business. And you are then starting to think, right, well, we need that contract to be able to sustain where we are as a business. And that's when, I would say, it became serious and I felt like I had responsibility and it transitioned from, yes, maybe a lifestyle business to a serious business where I had responsibilities, but I always enjoyed that.

Ian Carless:

Where did you turn to for your business advice?

Amy Morris:

then I mean family, friends, parents so my parents have had their own businesses before I was born right and they're in manufacturing okay, so they could help me up to a certain point.

Amy Morris:

But I've had many different business mentors over over the years that have helped me in different chapters and I'll never forget the business mentor I had at the time when I won the first cruise ship contract. She's called Katie and she's amazing. She was like bottle this, feeling up because you'll never feel that again. And she was right. That was our first big win and we've won bigger opportunities since, but I've never felt like that in that moment.

Ian Carless:

Elation.

Amy Morris:

It was just that feeling of this is it? People are seeing us for who we are and what we're doing in this industry, whereas the wins after that are on the back of that, whereas that first one, it was just a game changer. And I will never, ever forget that feeling and we still talk about it. Now we have a video of us telling the rest of the team that we'd won it and we're like crying and it was just amazing.

Ian Carless:

So that was 2019, right? So this is your first big contract that you've won. You're all excited, you're raring to go. And then COVID hits.

Amy Morris:

And then COVID hits.

Ian Carless:

How did you manage that period then?

Amy Morris:

So the first few weeks depression, then I can't sit still for too long, and because we can get on this, get onto this in a while. But culture is incredibly important to me and because we built up this amazing culture at PopUp. By the time COVID hit, we had so many people supporting us performers, creatives, my staff so we actually took all of our expertise and our talent online and we had 25,000 Facebook followers by this point. So we were doing shows individually in our living rooms for our audiences and we grew in a big way. In COVID we won a second cruise ship contract during.

Ian Carless:

COVID.

Amy Morris:

Because we were one of the only entertainment companies that didn't sit. Still, we were every single day going live on Facebook doing shows, and so we were actually really busy. It was once things had lifted a little bit and we grew and we were using LinkedIn and we were using social media. So by the time we came out, we were actually more on the map than before.

Ian Carless:

Right. How much did your business model play into navigating that period? Because I think we were just chatting before we started this podcast about that. You're not an entertainment company, for example, that um event organizers would come through for for individual acts. You, you design shows specifically for events or for malls or for entertainment venues. Um, so how much of that helped you during that covid period? Because am I right with thinking that obviously you rely a lot on freelance staff and so you know, obviously these aren't people that are salaried full-time members, and whilst I'm sure you wanted to support everybody as much as you could, there's perhaps not the obligation in the same way that there would be if they were full-time salaried employees salaried employees.

Amy Morris:

Yeah, I tried to look after as many people as I could during that time, because I remember we were halfway through a rehearsal period when COVID hit and we all got told we had to go home and lock ourselves in and the client said we're not paying you, but my performers had worked all week, so I paid them anyway yeah.

Amy Morris:

I could not turn my back on the people they'd just been rehearsing. I couldn't do that. But what I will say is I had a small team during COVID and the reason why I still have a small team now is because of that period. I was so grateful that I didn't have 10, 15, 20, 25 people on our payroll to support, and I think if you'd have asked me 2019, even 2020, what the vision of PopUp would have been, I would have said a massive office, 20, 30 of us? Absolutely not.

Amy Morris:

I will keep this business as small and as agile as possible for as long as possible. I don't have a vision to have even more than 10 members of staff. There's five of us now of staff. There's five of us now. Yeah, and because we don't we're not a volume business we take on long-term projects that, up until now, go live at different periods throughout the year. We are in a position to be able to keep ourselves small and then, obviously, per project, we might bring in five, six, seven freelancers that we contract to six months or whatever. Yeah, and then they move on. I always want to keep it as small as possible.

Ian Carless:

Would you say that's a typical business model for your type of company?

Amy Morris:

No, I think we are probably one of the smallest teams of all of the other entertainment companies that I know of here at the UK, but we make it work and the good thing about it is as well. It's very cliche, but we're genuinely best friends about.

Ian Carless:

It is as well. It's very cliche, but we're genuinely best friends. I was going to come to that because I did read, because you're very active on linkedin and we'll talk about that also a little bit later. But people will often give you advice about you know who not to work with. I mean, certainly in the television industry, it was. You know, don't work with kids and animals, yeah, and the other one is your mates, yeah. So how do you manage that? How do you manage to keep that, um, that those relationships, non-problematic?

Amy Morris:

um, so, first and foremost, they're not employed because they're my friends, right? I have a lot of friends that I don't employ because they wouldn't be right for you know, certain roles they are at pop-up because of the skill set that they have, so I think that's really important. Um, but there's just a level of respect there. But we they're not working for me, they're working with me on this business, and they've worked with PopUp for so long now that it's ours together, and so we're so invested in it that there's not really any issues.

Ian Carless:

So, moving on, you flourished during COVID. How did you make the transition to Dubai?

Amy Morris:

So LinkedIn the beauty of LinkedIn it was always on my radar. I felt like the opportunities in the Middle East were greater than those in the UK. Things in the UK didn't bounce back after COVID the way perhaps other places in the world had, and I'd been coming to Dubai since 2014, anyway, I like. So we did a bit of LinkedIn research and we ended up chatting to the director of entertainment at Majid Al-Fatim, who was like OK, we actually do have a really big project that we want to speak to you about, nda contracts, all of that. They sent over all the information and we created this 365 day of the year program for them and we won it. And it took a few trips coming out, pitching etc. And we won that contract in classic Dubai fashion. It's not gone live yet, but it is this year and um, that was kind of the catalyst then for exploring more opportunity out here, and the more I came, the more I was like the life out here feels much better than Lancashire so I can attest to that.

Ian Carless:

I spent a lot of time in Manchester. It does rain a lot, a lot.

Amy Morris:

And me and my husband just said let's do it. And that was 2023, where we made the move. We won the contract in 2022. We made the move in 23.

Ian Carless:

So talk to me about that transition from a business perspective. How difficult was it, what were your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Amy Morris:

what I always say and I said this to you before is I still have my business in the uk, um, so I'm still speaking to the uk team, uk clients, uk finance hr. Every day at the same time I'm doing that here. So I have a direct comparison every day of that life and this life. The opportunities out here are fantastic and you're in the mix for opportunities that you might not have been in the uk because there's bigger players or, you know, there's long-standing relationships, whatever the reason.

Amy Morris:

But there has been a lot of challenges in just just operating out here in the day-to-day. The obstacles that you have to get over to get anything done, the, the levels of sign-off, all of those things I came out here extremely naive about because I thought, well, I've made it work over there for eight years. At the time, what's, what's, you know, going to be the difference? A lot is the answer to that. Yes, it's things like the company stamp, the checkbooks, the, the, the levels of management that have to sign off on something so small. That slows down processes that could be much quicker. And because I see it done so much quicker on the other side, I'm like why? I don't understand, but it's obviously. You know, it's a system I'm never going to change, so I've had to practice patience, which I'm not good at I want it all and I want it now.

Amy Morris:

Here you can have it all, but you've got to wait three years, so it's it's been a challenge in that. In that aspect I would say it's interesting, isn't it?

Ian Carless:

I mean, I've been out here over 20 years now and I find that, unfortunately, a lot of the workforce isn't empowered here, so there's a bottleneck at the top, and I find that quite frustrating and quite limiting, especially in our line of work as well, because obviously what happens is, I think, where that translates is that failure isn't welcomed. In fact, you're chastised for and punished for, and I think the end result, unfortunately, is that a lot of middle management are afraid of making decisions and not empowered, and then when they do finally make a decision A it's at the very last minute. B it's the smallest decision that they can make, which will have the least impact if it comes back to bite them in the butt, and what that means for people like you and I, who are at the end of that is, that we sort of get this tiny little brief to work with.

Ian Carless:

you know, at the very last minute, for the smallest amount of money, everybody still wants the sun, the moon, the earth and the stars. How do you navigate that?

Amy Morris:

Well, you know, we haven't been here that long for me to even tell you this is how I navigate it, because I obviously I'm just taking every situation as it comes. But down to smaller projects, open to the big projects, it's the exact same. We had to deliver a substantial project last year with three weeks notice.

Amy Morris:

In the UK I'd have six or seven months yeah so it's a stress that I am putting on my staff that I've never had to do before, and so I can't tell you exactly this is what I do, because I'm still figuring that out myself. We are trying our best this year to really get ahead, but, like you said, the top person, sometimes the ceo of these massive companies, has to sign it off and I'm like but how many decisions are they having to make a day on things that, in the grand scheme of it, are so small? So I think our, our strategy is very much long-term contracts, and so we are very much now positioning ourselves where we will have time to execute on these, because we're not picking up the smaller quick win jobs.

Amy Morris:

So, we've stepped away from that market. It was never the market we were in anyway. So, in terms of how am I navigating? It is if you want us to deliver in November we need to start now and making them try and understand that.

Ian Carless:

So how important is the power of saying no? Do you get tender sometimes that you look at and, for whatever reason, whether it's too short notice or otherwise, do you say no.

Amy Morris:

Yeah, and we've gotten much better at that. In our growth stages, especially back in the UK, we did say yes to everything because we wanted to. You know we needed cash, yeah, to grow, but we also wanted our performers repeatedly coming back for rehearsals and opportunities to grow our reputation as well. Now and we are fortunate, but we've worked hard for that we're in a position where we say no a lot because we have a tick box of do you fit into this criteria that is aligned with our vision as a company. We want to be the company that clients are desperate to work with and performers are desperate to work for, and you know we're getting there. We are, we are absolutely getting there. There'll be a lot less jobs with us in the year because we're being more strategic on who we work with, but you will definitely want one of those jobs and it will be the place to work.

Ian Carless:

Now you've obviously grown as a business tremendously. How have you managed scaling the business? I mean, it's a perennial problem for some businesses, isn't it, I mean, and not one that everybody always manages well. So how have you managed the whole scaling of your business?

Amy Morris:

I've done it all organically. I've never had any investment, I've never had any help in that department. We've done it well, slowly and quickly. I guess I don't bite off more than I can chew, and that means I listened to a podcast the other day that said focus will always leave money and deals on the table, and we've left money and deals on the table a lot In the past two years. We've turned down three million multi-million contracts One because it's not the right opportunity for our vision, but two, it would kill us in actually doing it, and so we've scaled in a way that's allowed all of us to lead the lives that we want and just keep our ego out of it.

Ian Carless:

To be honest, let's just dig a little bit into the nitty-gritty of your business. Obviously, in the UK you have a huge freelance pool with which to choose from. You don't employ performers here, and the people that work for you on full-time contracts. So how do you navigate finding talent in this market?

Amy Morris:

If I'm being really honest, we've flown most people over. We have found, so far, a real difference in the talent, and it's not just in the talent, it's in the attitude towards the projects. And maybe it's because in the UK there's so many jobs and everybody wants to be on the west end, everybody wants to cruise ships there's. There's a lot of uh sorry, there's a lot of performers, yeah, and not that many jobs, yeah. So you have to hustle and you have to be kind, hard working, you have to turn up on time, all of those things. Here there's less performers and more work, so there's a disconnect in that. And in the times that we've worked with local talent, they've not turned up on time. They've texted that day and said, oh, I can't actually do today. Can I just do rehearsals tomorrow? They've come not knowing the lyrics, they've come not knowing the harmonies, and it's been really, really hard work.

Amy Morris:

On top of that, the clients that we're working with have specifically requested we bring in UK talent or international talent, which has helped. But that's not what we want this to be. We want to build up a pool of talent here, and I think there's a much bigger game at play here, because if you have spent your entire life training in the UK, dubai is not necessarily on your radar to move out here for work. It's going to London, it's going to New York, it's working on the cruise ships where the big shows are. The reputation isn't here yet for a performer to train at Lane for three years and go. My dream is to work in Dubai. It's just not there yet and until it is, we're going to be in this cycle all of the time. How?

Ian Carless:

much do demographics play a part in that, because obviously there's just more people in the uk. For example, is the environment that you have in the uk actually attainable here in, here in the uae, or are we just as a, as a country and as a populace, just too small?

Amy Morris:

I don't think the culture within the entertainment world is there yet, and so there isn't the discipline and the hunger, and it's because the pool is so small but there's so many opportunities. For example, the dancers in Dubai a few years ago were dancing with Beyonce. Imagine that that wouldn't happen in the UK to just get that opportunity. And so because the opportunities are like that here, the discipline I have seen from my experience isn't the same, because it's easier to get those kind of jobs here, and so for a company like us that really holds high standards with regards to talent, it's made it quite difficult.

Ian Carless:

Moving on a little bit. You're very active on LinkedIn and you talk a lot about being noticed and self-promotion and being your own brand. Would I be right in reading into some of your posts that I've read that you've perhaps received some kickback from that, and how much of that would you say is just perhaps because you're not afraid to put yourself out there, and how much of it is down to gender as well?

Amy Morris:

Very, very interesting question. So I'd say I've faced criticism for maybe the past five years. Now, five years ago it used to floor me. Now I honestly could not care less.

Amy Morris:

I could not care less and I think, which is a lovely place to be yeah, it is, and I think I've just learned so much as well from seeing other people in other industries who are the voice of their industry, talking about things that really matter, and a topic that I discuss a lot. Well, there's two topics One is being a female in business being a female in this industry, in business and two is company culture. When I worked on ships, men got paid more than women. Singers got paid more than dancers. Men did way less than women but got paid because us females had to do the singing and the dancing whilst the males were playing Candy Crush on the phones. When I started openly speaking about that on social media, I got a lot of backlash from other entertainment companies saying you shouldn't be speaking about that.

Amy Morris:

You know we should stand together and I think a lot of people thought I was speaking about them. But I got to the point where I thought, if you think I'm talking about you, that's a you problem, not a me problem, because if someone was speaking about I don't know bullying in the workplace on LinkedIn, I wouldn't think is that about me? Unless I was bullying people in the workplace.

Ian Carless:

Which clearly you're not Exactly.

Amy Morris:

So that's when I really stopped caring in the workplace, which clearly you're not Exactly so that's when I really stopped caring and I have had a couple of incidents where people have really gone in on me. Who does she think she is on LinkedIn, posting like she's on social media, taking other entertainment companies down? Never mentioned any other entertainment companies. I also speak about my own experiences, which weren't pleasant. When I was, you know, like I was being paid less, I was fat shamed. I was, I was a lot of things.

Amy Morris:

I'm allowed to speak about my personal experiences and somebody needs to speak about it, because if we're going to make a change in this industry, we can't all just bury our heads in the sand, and performers are grateful that somebody's actually talking about this and what I have seen, and whether these entertainment companies want to admit it or not, there has been a shift in and, even if it's just for face value, companies are now starting to look after performers, and very publicly as well, which is fine. At least you're doing it and there has been a shift. I've seen it myself. So I'm glad that I've spoke out and I will continue to do that.

Ian Carless:

Talk to me a little bit more about, just on the same topic, about being, you know, a female in the entertainment industry, and specifically because I mean you've got a company functioning in the UK and you've been here now for the last 18 months, what are some of the differences that you've noticed, perhaps within the attitude towards women in the sector in the UK versus Dubai and the UAE?

Amy Morris:

Someone asked me this the other day because they had a friend that said I'll never go to the middle east because women aren't respected. I've faced more adversity in the uk for being a woman than I have here in the entertainment industry, and it might have been similar in tv. There's a boys club, yes, and if you're a woman and especially and I still cling on to the word young a young woman. I've been doing this 10 years. So even when I was 30, I was young and I was classed as too young and female Young girl doesn't know what she's doing and I ago that.

Amy Morris:

I've climbed the ranks across different industries together and now all the main contracts get circulated around the same people and it's a lot harder to get in Over here. So far and again, I've only been here 18 months. I face nothing but respect and I think it's because there's people from all around the world. A lot of the key decision makers that I've been working with are female, that I haven't actually faced any issues with being female and we spent a lot of time out in Saudi, and, other than one taxi man who wanted me to sit in the back because I get travel sick at the front, Didn't like me sitting in the front. Other than that, from a business perspective it's been the same. It's been incredibly positive.

Amy Morris:

How refreshing is that yeah, it has been, because even now, when I go back to the uk and it's the same big players back there, all male middle-aged men who don't, who want I want me to shut up on linkedin and don't want me to speak out. And you know I've taken a completely different route to any of my competitors in the personal branding. I'm doing the podcast, I'm doing the LinkedIn, I'm doing the social media. I enjoy that as well, probably the performer in me, and I know it's not well received amongst those certain people. But I had a. I had a client who middle-aged man, very condescending to me I don't work with him anymore told me to put my big girl knickers on in 2024 and I just thought that that is, that's where we're at. But no one would say that to me here or I haven't experienced anything ever close to that yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Ian Carless:

we were talking about entertainers and the work opportunities that exist for them here. You were saying also that perhaps you know at the moment you know it's not on entertainers minds in the UK. Oh, I want to end up in Dubai. However, obviously in the last 18 months so we've heard a lot of talk and there are a lot of plans for some of the big casino operators to open in Dubai Ras Al Khaimah. Obviously, with those entities come huge opportunities for the entertainment industry, because they put on more shows than perhaps any other sector. How do you think that will affect the industry moving forward here, and what opportunities does that present for you?

Amy Morris:

I think if the shows that are delivered are of the standards that you would find in Vegas, in London, in New York, it could be a game changer. But if you know, entertainment companies are given three minutes to put it together and 50 quid. We're in the same situation. So it's got to be about rivaling these other parts of the world and doing it to that standard. It's got to be for that shift to happen and I think there is huge opportunity for that. I want performers to graduate and go. I hope I get a job in Dubai, but as it stands we have performers that will do two months and that's it, because it's just a very, very different dynamic.

Ian Carless:

And what about Saudi Arabia? I know I saw again on LinkedIn that you'd had. Was it your first trip up there?

Amy Morris:

just recently no a third trip.

Ian Carless:

How important do you see that as a market for you?

Amy Morris:

So Saudi actually really excites me because obviously, in their strategy of growth, entertainment plays a huge part in that. Entertainment and sport is like the key driver for their growth, and so it's refreshing to be part of a strategy that is well thought out, as opposed to let's just throw enough shit at the wall and see what sticks. That's not what they're doing, and every time we have these meetings out there we had a really good meeting a couple of weeks ago you feel like you're a part of a real plan yeah, now, before we wrap up, there's perhaps one other topic that I want to bring up with you, and that's mental health and well-being.

Ian Carless:

Obviously, it's a big topic in just about every industry and every walk of life at the moment. What's been your experience with this and what have you done differently with PopUp Global that perhaps you haven't seen with other companies?

Amy Morris:

you haven't seen with other companies. I've always suffered with anxiety, since I was a child. I actually think now.

Amy Morris:

I see it as a bit of a superpower because it drives me to be the person that I am today and I've got a really good handle on it and I know how to keep any severe anxiety at bay. But when I worked on cruise ships so I was 22 when I first went away I don't even think I knew what anxiety was. I obviously know now, I recognize now what I was going through. I couldn't put a label on it because people didn't really talk about it. I used to just say I was struggling. I used to call my mom every day and I was struggling, but you couldn't tell your boss or anyone on the ship oh, I've got anxiety and I will always remember that.

Amy Morris:

And that's a huge reason to why I wanted the culture at pop-up to be different. If you came to the dance studio and you sprained your ankle, you could say to the choreographer I've sprained my ankle, but why can't we say, feeling super anxious today? So if I'm not myself? That's why, yeah, we also have um, an anonymous and completely free to the user therapist. So everybody that comes to work for pop-up gets their number. I never know who's used it. I just get an invoice if I have, and it's completely anonymous and free for them if they're working with us at the time I don't know enough out here yet about what uh culture is like.

Amy Morris:

Because it's been so early days and, like I said, because we bring so many people over, we've just kind of carried that with us. What I do know is in a lot of our contracts we always have a line for our happiness program. 99% of our clients are really on board with that here. They ask us to take it out.

Ian Carless:

Interesting.

Amy Morris:

Yeah, which has been interesting. So a lot of our clients know that that happiness budget goes towards the welfare of the people. Here they're like what's that? And we explain that, no, don't do that. So then we just take it out of our bottom line because it's I think that's what people miss is you look after the people?

Ian Carless:

Yeah.

Amy Morris:

From a commercial standpoint it's saving you so much money. We have done five years now with the cruise line. Never had a person leave. You see people three, three, four show team members leave. That's costing you thousands. You invest in them from day dot, they'll stay.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, now, before we wrap up, there's one question I've been asking everybody I'm a huge music lover, my vinyl collection is uh expanding once again right um, what do you listen to? What's on your playlist? I was gonna say turntable, but you probably don't have a turntable. It's showing my age there, isn't it? What's on your playlist?

Amy Morris:

Music is massive in our household. Me and my husband both love music. You could stick on a 50s playlist. We'd know every word 80s, 90s, house music. My husband loves rap, R&B it's really eclectic and anyone that listens to my playlist say you've got no thread. We're going from Luther Vandross to Shakira, just all over the place.

Ian Carless:

What's the one that you think you keep coming back to Mariah Carey?

Amy Morris:

MTV Unplugged Wow, I think it's a 1991 album. Nothing hits like Mariah Carey when you're getting ready in the morning.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, that's interesting. I to work for mtv and one of my go-tos is actually also an mtv unplugged, but it's nirvana, oh really, yeah, I just I don't know why.

Amy Morris:

I think it was so iconic, I think it reminds me of being in the car on the way to school with my mum who was blasting out mariah carey, and now me and my sister know every word and the minute that intro comes in of emotions. That's it.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, and then finally, amy, we're Q1 now of 2025. What are you looking forward to?

Amy Morris:

We have some pretty big projects coming in this year. We've got one that we're just signing off on. We also have a massive Cirque show that we're delivering at Ferrari Worlds this summer, which is going to be huge, and then we're already planning for Q4. And we are hoping that it doesn't nearly kill me like last year. But, like I said earlier, we're being far more selective. We're probably doing four or five big projects and then that's it.

Ian Carless:

Fantastic. Well, amy, I wished you all the best for the future. Thank you, and thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thank you, and thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thank you for having me. 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.