EventNewsDXB

Vicki Galloway-Place: From Classroom to Center Stage

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 2 • Episode 5

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When Vicki Galloway-Place swapped her UK classroom for the high-stakes world of events, she stepped into a career that would push her creativity, leadership and resilience to the limit. In this episode of EventNewsDXB, Vicki shares her journey from drama teacher to theatre director to events producer and the hard-earned lessons learned along the way.

Vicki talks candidly about the industry’s “say-yes-and-make-it-happen” culture, the balancing act between creative vision, production realities, and client demands, and the burnout it can cause. She also opens up about navigating gender bias in events, mentoring the next generation of women leaders and why setting boundaries matters for both career and family, especially as a single mum.

It’s an honest, inspiring conversation about finding your voice, standing your ground and changing the conversation in an industry that doesn’t always make space for you.

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:

Thank you, the UAE and the wider MENA region. I'm Ian Carlos, and each week I sit down with the people shaping one of the world's most dynamic event markets. Whether you're an event planner, supplier, agency lead or part of an in-house team, I hope that this podcast gives you some practical takeaways, fresh perspectives and a deeper understanding of how things really get done in one of the world's most fast-moving event markets. And for season two, I'm super pleased to let you know that Event News DXB is brought to you by Minus 45DB, the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments. From full-size conference theatres to compact meeting pods, minus 45db builds modular spaces that are quiet, customisable and completely turnkey. And they're sustainable too smart design with zero waste. Check them out at minus45dbcom.

Ian Carless:

In this week's episode, I sit down with project director Vicky Galloway-Place who, after beginning her professional career as a teacher in the UK, swapped the classroom first for the theatre and then for the event industry. She talks openly about the constant juggle between wild, creative ideas, production realities and client demands, and why our industry's say-yes-and-make-it-happen mentality is both our superpower and our downfall. But what really stood out for me is her take on being a woman in the event industry the time she's had to fight to be heard and the importance of mentoring the next generation. Vicky pulls no punches on where the industry still needs to change and the role we can all play in making that happen. It's a conversation about resilience, adaptability and holding your ground even when the room isn't built for you. So let's get into it. You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast. Vicky. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Thank you for having me. Thank you for letting me break my podcast virginity with you.

Ian Carless:

Oh, we've not had one of those before. Can we even say that I?

Vicki Galloway-place:

don't know. That's the signal of how this is going to go.

Ian Carless:

Oh, it's nice to know I'm your first. What a great way to start. I don't even know where to go from that. No, it's fine, it's all good. I'll start where I start, with everybody to be honest, and that is how did you end up in Dubai? And also, how did you end up in events?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Okay, I really like this story actually, and it's a story that kind of encompasses everything that I believe in, which is that everything happens for a reason.

Vicki Galloway-place:

So just to backtrack a little bit, my original career was as a drama teacher in Leeds in Yorkshire in the UK, and I loved being in education and I loved the teaching and I got a lot of my leadership skill sets from that career that I still use now in events. But you'll know, in the UK arts and education was not being supported by the government. There was loads of issues around that and I just became really unhappy in my career, disillusioned, and I wasn't being fulfilled and to have a successful career is really important for me, so I quit. I just quit and kind of once I'd got rid of that barrier of a monthly salary and that security, this whole other world opened up and became a freelancer like theatre director and practitioner, which is what I'd always wanted to do, but I'd always been too nervous to do. It Ended up doing a Shakespeare festival in Rotherham, which you will know very well, I'm sure.

Ian Carless:

Well, I know Shakespeare, I don't know Rotherham.

Vicki Galloway-place:

And we went on a course there with Complicity, a really great theatre company in the UK, and got talking to another facilitator and she had been with a charity in South Africa Dramatic Need. They were called and they worked in the town trips in South Africa for students to come and do artwork and theatre and performance. So I make a lot of my like crazy decisions. I don't have to have had a drink, it just seems to be late at night. So one night I just fired off an email and just said oh, have you got anything I could work on? Anyway, fast forward six months and I'm flying out to South Africa to direct the children's monologues, which was a fascinating piece. All real life stories of young people from a township in South Africa. It was a 10 year anniversary piece. It was just a life changing experience.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Landed back at Manchester Airport and there was just a moment of I don't think I want to be in the UK anymore. So I applied for two jobs. One was in America, one was in the UAE. I knew nothing about the UAE, I didn't go there to go to Dubai and you know kind of how it's seen now.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I just knew I needed to change something in my life and coming to this part of the world and it was an arts education position and it was just really exciting that the government of the UAE was funding the arts and funding these academies, where in the UK that money was being pulled away and that's the job that I got. So I flew out um, worked in this role for a couple of years, then once again was looking for my next challenge and because I'd done a lot of theater directing and a little bit of producing, I was like, oh okay, then I could maybe do events producing, because theater is certainly seven years ago wasn't very, very big on the radar of the UAE, but I knew that I had that similar skill set. So I sidestepped to events and then quickly realised it was a completely different skill set.

Ian Carless:

So safe to say that was a baptism of fire, wasn't it it?

Vicki Galloway-place:

was Very much learning on the job and very much imposter syndrome and very much oh syndrome and very much oh yeah. Yeah, I can do that. How do I do that? I freelance. I freelanced in events, producing in the UAE, a little bit in Saudi, and learned from some excellent people, learned from mistakes, learned from clients, learned from good experiences, bad experiences and, yeah, that's how I came to Dubai and into events. It was a sidestep.

Ian Carless:

And fast forward seven years. So now your current job title for having to put a description or a label on something is project director. What does a day in the life look is a project director.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah.

Ian Carless:

What does a day in the life look like for a project director?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Oh my God, that's a great. I get asked that a lot and I never know how to answer it because no two days are ever the same. That's very true.

Ian Carless:

And that's why I love it yeah.

Vicki Galloway-place:

So I don't like to be stagnant and I don't like to be doing the same. I like routine to an extent. Same, I like routine to an extent, but once I do it for too long, I need to shift it and break up the routine. An event certainly does that for you. Yeah, you'll know that you. Yeah, it really depends on what you're working on. If I'm working on a pitch with a tight deadline, then it's all hands to the deck and it's really long days and it's late hours and it's a lot of fast responses. If I'm working on a project, you've kind of got that leading period which I mean now on my current project of pulling together the team, building the team, looking at the processes and really understanding what the needs of the project is and then working on that timeline to bring it to life oh and it's fits and starts, it's highs and lows and some days are crazy manic and you just think what, where did that day go?

Ian Carless:

and other days are, you know, a little bit more easy and you get to come and record a podcast and that's really nice which kind of leads on to next to my next question was how do you balance, for example, client expectations, the whole creative process, with, obviously, what are the logistical realities, and also budget realities as well, because they don't always align, do they?

Vicki Galloway-place:

they never align understatement it's.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Do you know what balance is the right word? It's a balancing act for every stakeholder. Because if you're agency based, you have this creative team that have these wild ideas and I love that aspect of it and I love the creativity and and just devising what that project will look like. Then you'll have the production team that will come in and go. That's actually physically not possible, like you can't actually hang that or build that or curve that or do that, so I then have to do internal kind of negotiation and balancing and then you have the client that will come in. Often there's multiple stakeholders from the client side and they all have their own lanes that they're they're looking at.

Vicki Galloway-place:

So and being a northern girl, I'm very direct. I'm very to the point. I've had to really tame that over the years and I will add that I could give the same response as a male and I would be seen as difficult, and that has happened on more than one occasion. But I still stand by it because I don't have the energy or the, the headspace, as we've just said. Being in events is so crazy busy that I just have to be transparent and honest and clear and I'm still caring. But that really gets misconstrued.

Vicki Galloway-place:

But I think there's a difference between that and accountability. So, ultimately, I think it's holding everyone to account, seeing where the support is needed, trying to understand everyone's perspective and then always, always going back to the original purpose, like what's the what's the original vision and aim and how do we achieve that? Budget is slightly more difficult, or sometimes it's easier, because if you don't have the budget for it, we don't have the budget for it. So that's the end of that conversation. Sometimes extra money is found, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we have to be really creative internally to make something happen, and we do do that. I think events people are some of the most creative people for getting the achievements within events.

Ian Carless:

When you think something's not going to happen and never, say never you touched on an important topic there, which is obviously the role of gender in the events industry, and we are hugely skewed towards males being in the event industry, and we'll we'll talk about a little bit about that later, about what it's like being a female in the event industry and why, perhaps you know know, females are so underrepresented in our industry, but we'll get onto that in a little while. As the project director, where do you find that you normally enter the process? Is it at the pitch level, the concept, or is it post sign-off, or is it a combination of all three, depending on the client?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, a combination, depending on the client.

Ian Carless:

And where would you prefer to come in?

Vicki Galloway-place:

So I prefer to come in from the beginning because you get to see the idea realized.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, it's very rare that that happens, because you need to have a lot of time and a strategy and and and work towards it, and that quite often doesn't happen in events, not just here. I know from working in the uk as well there's a lot of last minute requests that come in, and because you, you know, companies want the work and and, and we say yes, and we say yes all the time and we make the impossible possible. Yeah, so then it's another little bugbear of mine, but I don't know how we ever are going to break the mold because we meet those tight deadlines and those impossible asks. Nothing's going to change right, and so we, we changed that education around it. So, yeah, there's a lot of last minute and that's really tough because, you know, I did a 10-day turnaround of a live tv show 10 days from getting the brief to to bringing it live in the studio, and you just have to retain so much information from every angle and still make it work.

Ian Carless:

But 10 days, I mean that would be unheard of, wouldn't it, in the UK or the US. I mean, we've worked with a number of event managers through Warehouse 4, which is our event venue, and I do remember one young lady who came over. She'd only been in the country for, I think, about six or seven months and she was still, even at that stage, trying to wrap her head around having worked in the UK, still trying to wrap her head around these short kind of deadlines that she got. You know, she was saying you know, I just can't believe it. I don't know how people work over here we get six to eight weeks, whereas in the UK I'd be getting six to eight months. Where do you think that comes from? Where does this? I've had this conversation with other guests on the podcast. It is an issue. Where do you think this issue comes from?

Vicki Galloway-place:

I don't mean it disrespectfully, but I think it's a lack of education around what goes into making something real and live and of a high standard. And if you are not in that events industry and you don't know that and you have a really good project director or events company that are doing these amazing things and hide because you don't want to hide the arguments and the issues and the blocks that you get internally, you hide all that from your client, right? So then they just think that anything is possible. So that's a lack of education maybe from our part of actually, these are the steps that it took and it was this many meetings for us to get to that point and you hide all that so people don't know it, so they just expect it to happen. So for me, in any of those kind of situations, I think it's education and communication.

Ian Carless:

I think they're the areas I would focus on to be able to improve we were talking to a guest in the in the last season of the podcast and I think one of the interesting topics that came up was well, we do live in a region where it's very easy to fast track your career. On the positive side, that's fantastic. People get opportunities, they're able to move up the corporate ladder very quickly. On the other side of that is that sometimes people are able to advance perhaps quicker than they should be advancing, and so you get people in roles where they don't necessarily. It comes back to what you were saying, I guess, about education. I mean experience. It's the same, similar thing. They don't necessarily have the experience to back up the position that they're in and therefore they leave you know, and also to back up on that.

Ian Carless:

We live in a region also which isn't brilliant at delegating responsibility. There tends to be a bottleneck, usually at the top of the funnel in this region certainly in my 22 years of being here and it hasn't changed very much and I think there's also a culture of not accepting failure. So, whereas in some markets, you know, failure can be rewarded, here I don't think it is, and the bottom line is that what often that results in is people waiting to the very last minute to make a decision.

Vicki Galloway-place:

And then when they do make a decision.

Ian Carless:

It's usually the smallest decision that, if it all goes wrong, will have the least amount of impact on them and, unfortunately, for people like yourself who are at the end of that, it often means that you then get to work with the shortest timeline available, with the smallest amount of money, and still the same demands being placed on you. It's a tough one. That was a nice little monologue there, but I don't have an answer to it. I don't think, as I said, I've been here 22 years. I don't think it's changed very much. In some organizations, yes, they have tackled that a little bit, other than others, but I think we're still in a place where we get way, way too short of deadlines. And you're right For as long as we keep fulfilling those deadlines, clients will keep giving us short and shorter timelines.

Vicki Galloway-place:

It's a double edged sword, right, because you want the work and you want to be successful. But you want that and you touched on. Yeah, I think you're right about identifying the experience alongside the education, because that's equal. I don't mean a traditional education, going getting a degree in exams. I mean that education of knowledge around what's needed to action something in an event.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, it's a tough one. So when you're putting the projects together, how do you go about choosing your clients, team and suppliers?

Vicki Galloway-place:

I always like to try and have a fair process, because that's all I knew from the uk. You know it's like in terms of you've got to ask the same question and you've got to, just to make it fair for everyone. So I try and do that, but again, that's. That's quite a lengthy process, but I have to sometimes have no choice than to rely on recommendation or people that I've worked with before. You know, I've had some amazing freelancers, amazing project managers and producers and because you have these tight deadlines and you're under a lot of pressure, you're going to go back to what you know, because you mentioned earlier about risk and you have to limit the risk of it's. It's a balancing act, because I'm also very much about identifying and supporting and nurturing new talent, new and mentoring females in the industry, and you also have to give that person a chance and I very much go on my gut feeling. With things like this, you're always under pressure, so you have to rely on the people that you know.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I always do an interview process.

Vicki Galloway-place:

If it's a new person, try and keep it fairly informal, but just to gauge their actual experience, because you touched on earlier, people progress really quickly, so might not necessarily have the skills.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I think it's a bit of a catfish situation sometimes in events out here where people say they can do everything but they can't and that's a day and it's all right if you can't I've learned from my experiences over the years.

Vicki Galloway-place:

But but when you have 10 days to put an event on, if I have somebody that can't do that project, that then put that role. That's putting pressure on everyone else. So I always have an interview or check in with someone new just to see what the vibes like and see if we are going to get on under like pressurized situation, which it always is if they've got some experience. But if they haven't and I still think there's something about them if I've got the support network and the strength in the wider team, I'd still want to give that new person a chance to be able to develop their experience, because that's happened to me. Suppliers is very much been word of mouth and trial and tested and we've had mostly amazing ones, a couple that haven't been so amazing. But there are some phenomenal suppliers in this region who work their magic and I'm forever thankful to them.

Ian Carless:

I'm just curious about your, your theatre experience, because I think I've worked in theatre just dabbled a little bit in my earlier career, and I imagine I'm just thinking about your transition from theatre to events. And and here's my little analysis of it right, in theatre we have a lot of moving parts, but similar to television production, I think. In theatre, the same as television production, people tend to know what they're doing and where they're supposed to be at any given time and what their role is, which seems to be the complete antithesis to events where it feels like you're herding cats. I guess my question is did you have the same kind of experience? And then, how do you manage that kind of experience where you kind of go right? Then where do we start?

Vicki Galloway-place:

such a good question. Where do I start? Yeah, I think your analogy is. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself because I thought it would be an easy stepage and branding walkthroughs and flows of audience. I'm like, well, the storytelling happens on the stage. No, it happens from the minute they come in the door, and so all that was a huge learning curve for me and, especially, as you touched upon out here, the experiences of people vary vastly.

Vicki Galloway-place:

So it is kind of everyone's jumping in and everyone's getting involved. Everyone's jumping in and everyone's getting involved, and I do, as I said, try to rely on my gut to employ people who either have the skill set or are willing to to develop and learn. And for me, again, it's about communication and clarity. So I am a bit old school and I'll I'll go back to the basics and okay, what's my staffing plan like? And then, when I've filled that, what are the channels of communication, just so that, and what are individuals, roles and responsibilities? Now, when you get a ridiculous deadline and it's really tight and you have to fulfill that, they go out of the window. And as long as you have that teamwork and that collaborative approach, then the work will get done, but I like to have that scaffolding in place when I start a project so that I can fall back on it if it's needed is that answering your question.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah it's not as creative as theatre. In some respects I love it when a client is prepared to like dip their toes in outside their comfort zone and and put some contemporary dance to open a conference or look at some spoken word. And that's just my creative roots, wanting to go through and into events. And I'll never lose that, and I don't think we should, because you know, the Middle East is now a hub for all these conferences. There's hundreds and hundreds that happen every week. What's the one thing that's going to make your conference stand out? And for me, my background is using that theatre expertise in in the events that I'm working on well and telling a story.

Ian Carless:

I mean, I think people, yeah, absolutely, there's a narrative that you for your event. Yeah, and you know, and ignore that at your peril. What do you think is one of the biggest misconceptions or what do you think people underestimate the most about the role of a project director or an event producer?

Vicki Galloway-place:

that is glamorous because it's the complete opposite that you, that you get to make all the decisions, because there's a quite a few that you don't, and beyond you, certainly if you're not client side, then the client has 100 approvals a day.

Vicki Galloway-place:

They have to go through that. You get to work short days because you don't. There's a lot of preparation and this might be me, but I put a lot of preparation if I'm presenting or if I'm leading Even an internal meeting, because I want to make sure that I'm clear and that my team feel supported and understand the point of view that I'm coming from. So I probably give myself more work by putting that preparation time in 100% if I'm presenting to an outside stakeholder, but also internally as well. And that's probably my insecurities of wanting to make sure that I'm clear on what I'm saying. But yeah, there is no glamour to it. You're often stuck in a hot, sweaty backstage box with no air con, dealing with a million things sat on a um a box, trying to answer a million emails and then you walk out and you're this face of calm and quite often internally you're not calm.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I've had people say to me oh, you've. And if you spoke to my teaching colleagues from way back when, they'd laugh at this, because I was never calm in teaching. I was very young and I was very angry and it was very like I don't understand why this is happening. But now I have to be calm and the voice of calm. So people then think that you're quite chilled out, but it's like the, the iceberg right. There's a million things going on, but I want to be calm to my team and the client because I want them to get that calmness from me.

Ian Carless:

It's like the swan on the pond isn't it Exactly?

Ian Carless:

yeah, yeah, yeah, On the surface you look calm and elegant and underneath you're paddling away furiously yeah yeah, which leads me on to is a very good way of segue into the next question, which is you've recently become a new mum. Yeah, it's my biggest project today, absolutely, and I'm a parent, um, you know to. I'm sure all the other parents out there will know what that means and the time it entails, and also the stress that it brings. How do you then manage that with what is all already a stressful role? How do you find that adjustment?

Vicki Galloway-place:

because I think you're only what a couple of years in one one year on july, the third right and my situation is quite unique in that my little boy's adopted, so he was two and a half when he came to me, so I didn't have kind of that the same lead up and the preparation that you might have traditionally right. All of a sudden I had this little boy who needed things from me 24 hours a day and he's phenomenal, by the way. He's funny, he's stubborn, he's um creative, he's amazing. But I'm also an older mum, so I'm 46 next week, so I was used to my own ways, right. And I'm very an older mum, so I'm 46 next week, so I was used to my own ways, right, and I'd become very selfish and I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, I could work long hours and it didn't affect anyone.

Vicki Galloway-place:

And then this amazing little human is here going actually no, you need to now bend to my rules and you need to do what I want you to do and I need feeding, and I need feeding and I need you and I love all of those things not the cooking but, but I love being a mum. But it's a massive culture shock. So the first, I was fortunate enough to get like a version of maternity leave, um, and that in itself I needed as a it still don't think it's enough for mums, by the way, in this area world, but it was. I needed that time for that adjustment to being a mum. Then there was another period of adjustment to being a mum with a career which has been a massive learning curve and I've had to approach it like a project. So I have to project management is a massive part of what I do. So I have to manage my responsibilities as a mother and make sure that, luckily, as like a project director. So I have to manage my responsibilities as a mother and make sure that, luckily, as like a project director, you have to be two or three steps ahead. I have to do that and all parents will know this. This is not new, but it was new to me.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Um, planning everything it's. You know you leave the house with 10 bags and lunches and dinners and swimming kits and who's going to a party and change of clothes, and it's never ending. So I have to really really plan that. And then I have to kind of take my mum hat off and put my project director hat on and then plan what my work looks like and then see what they look like together. I have to approach it differently, so I normally will set myself like my priorities for the day and won't stop until I get them done. If that means I'm at the office till eight, nine o'clock at night, then that's what I formally was like Can't do that. Now I'm like it's important for me to do the school run and pick Raph up at the end of the day as much as I can. So I have to have that break and maybe I come back to the work a little bit later on. I've had to change the way I approach work, but I'm all right with that.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I just I'm passionate about finding companies that also support that and it's become crucial to me, that that my son sees that you can be a I'm a single mom as well, so I'm doing it on my own I was going to say that it was just for context.

Ian Carless:

You are a single mom, so you don't have the benefit of having a partner to share the all the responsibility with and the tasks and the pickups and the drop-offs.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, and people say how do you do it? It's amazing that you do it on your own, but I don't know any different, so I don't know what it would be like to have that, the outside support. But it is that management and that planning that time. And of course it doesn't go to plan because there'll be something where Rafferty cut his lip at school so he needed to go and get seen by the doctor and they'll. But that happens in events, right, you have your moments where you've got to drop everything and solve that problem. So I approach it like that.

Vicki Galloway-place:

I make sure that when I'm with my son, I'm very present and that he understands that he's got a mum, that that has a career and goes out to work, and that's important to me. It doesn't mean that I'm less of a mum. It doesn't mean that I love him any less. I love him so much. It's unbelievable how this person can kind of ingrain into your life. But my career is really important as well and I want him to have a really spend most of your life in your career, right, traditionally. So you have to enjoy it and I want him to enjoy whatever career he chooses to go into Doctor, please, something that's going to look after mummy when she's older, or something creative, I'm sure. But whatever he chooses to go in, I want him to love it. Whether it's whatever it is, I want him to enjoy it and I want him to see that I enjoy mine. It's that perennial conundrum.

Ian Carless:

Isn't it between work-life balance that we all try and strive for?

Vicki Galloway-place:

and it doesn't take away the guilt, because if I'm at work, I feel guilty. If Raph's at home that I'm not with him. I'm at home, I feel like I should be doing some work. And I have to really come to terms with that in my mind and set myself really clear boundaries and be a bit strict actually when it comes to work and say actually I'm not available from this time and I'm really sorry. The work will get done, the deadlines will be met, but these are my boundaries. I turn everything off on my phone. I've got all my work stuff in a file at the back of my phone. When I'm not online, I turn my notifications off so that I can be with Ra.

Ian Carless:

Which is really important, isn't it? Because we had a guest on just recently, Ian Morrison, who talked a lot about burnout in our industry and how to safeguard against that.

Ian Carless:

And I think we're all guilty, aren't we, of just spending because we are so passionate about the job that we do? And we and you know we would, let's face it, we, if you weren't passionate about working in events, you wouldn't do events, would you so? And I think it's it's. It's super important to be able to set yourself boundaries. As you said, you turn your phones off at a certain time because a lot of the time, you know, we used to wear those long hours like a badge of honor, right, and then it's so it's no surprise that you know you get to the end of a certain period and you just go, I'm done I'm finished, yeah, and actually it's not a badge of honor.

Ian Carless:

You're doing yourself a disservice. I mean, we're thankful, I guess, that we live in a time where mental health and well-being is much more appreciated now and spoken about, whereas, you know, perhaps 10 years ago we wouldn't have been having this conversation. We'd just be saying what are you talking about?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Get on with it. Yeah, get on with it. Old school Exactly. Yeah, the badge of honour thing I've had so many people? Yeah, I worked till midnight last night and I was up again at seven this morning. We've all had days like that, but I don't feel like it's anything to be celebrated. I feel a bit sad that that's people's responses. You and even before I became a mum, actually I'd started putting these boundaries in place because it was becoming dangerously unhealthy to work the hours that we do, so I decided having that switch off time before then, and you know what? That gives you time to regenerate and revitalize yourself, and then you're better at your work and you're better as a mum. So it's it's really advisable, and I think any leader should be advising that their team does this.

Ian Carless:

Now we mentioned earlier, you know, being a woman in the event industry. You are most definitely a minority. You've worked in both the UK and here. What have you noticed? That's perhaps different, has there been anything different? I mean, obviously you know values and cultures aside, you know, I think the role, people's appreciation of gender has changed a lot over the last five or 10 years. What's your experience been, certainly in relation to the event industry?

Vicki Galloway-place:

It's something that I'm really, really passionate about. I think the UAE as a whole and its focus and the pillars that it's focusing on towards its 2050 vision are phenomenal. And you know, I've had the fortunate experiences of working with a lot of Emiratis and a lot of government entities and they are wholly supportive of developing and strengthening women in all industries, and I think that's amazing, and when I compare that to the UK, it's a similar journey. Right, the UAE is what 52 years old now, 52, 53?

Ian Carless:

Yeah, something like that.

Vicki Galloway-place:

So it's the natural journey that countries go on.

Ian Carless:

I should know I've been here for half of it.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, almost, I should know as well, and the UK did the same. The UAE is just a little bit behind in its journey and I don't think that's a bad thing. My issues that I've come across have not been with locals, have not been with emirates. I've always felt really, really respected by, by this country that I now call home. Unfortunately, where I have felt discriminated against and it has happened on more than one occasion, it's been with with westerners, with english, uh, male leaders, and that makes me really, really sad and I feel like, because the structure isn't there yet in terms of legalities and what you can do to challenge it, people know that they can get away with with how they treat you and being a minority.

Vicki Galloway-place:

And just to track back when I was at school, I'd say into university I was really had no confidence, no voice, wouldn't speak up, wouldn't put my hand up in a meeting. I was really even in the early years of teaching and I've worked really hard on that for myself to really develop my voice and I don't ever want to lose it and people probably get sick of hearing it now, but it's so important because I think once I start, I stop speaking, then it'll be hard to re-find my voice. So I am quite vocal now in meetings and and I am often a minority as a female and that's why I think it's even more important to be vocal. I've asked questions directly to males before and had a male colleague sat next to me and they've answered my question, but looked at the male like that's quite common and I'm like hello.

Ian Carless:

Does that still happen? 2025 and that still happens it happened this year.

Vicki Galloway-place:

It happened this year. I'm like guys, girls, anyone. I'm asking you that question just because it's an event question about. It might be about production, you can look me in the eye and answer that question. And that's just a really like minor example of some of the experiences that I've had, which is why it's so important, one to support younger females that are coming into the industry and to mentor them and to give them a voice and make sure they're heard. But two, to keep my voice loud as well, so that I may be described as difficult or as a problem where a male wouldn't if he was. I've had that as well, where a male has behaved in exactly the same way as me, which is completely acceptable, but I'm described as difficult or I'm described as emotional, whereas I'm just actually sharing a problem that we need to resolve. So there's still some work to be done, I think, in agencies internally, and I would love to get to a point where there's some guidelines that everyone is held accountable for.

Ian Carless:

It's interesting, isn't it? We had another guest on last season who also female, and talked about what a good experience that she had had out here in the Middle East and how it was perhaps contrary to some of the perception back in the UK and the West, and in fact, most of the problems that she had had out here in the Middle East and how it was perhaps contrary to some of the perception back in the UK and the West and in fact most of the problems that she'd had with regards to being a female in the industry were in the UK and it tended to come from, you know, obviously from males of a certain age, of a certain demographic. So it's interesting that what you say dovetails with that also.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, I'm really glad that she has had those, and I've had some amazing experiences as well, by the way, and there's been a lot of the time I'm now listened to because I make sure that I am, and it might be that I'm not agreed with, which is absolutely fine, but at least have the like, the decency and the respect to hear me out. I think some of the experiences that I've had here, if I'd have had in the UK, they would have absolutely been run through the milling cart. But because they know that that's not an option out here and that's really sad, because why aren't we raising people up and supporting them? It's okay to disagree. It's okay to be a woman and a mum in events.

Ian Carless:

And I think you're right. You know what you said earlier about the UAE is at a certain point in its journey and I think you know the framework for this society is developing at such a rate. Yeah, I mean again, I've been here 22 years and the pace of change has just been phenomenal. So I think you know we will get there. We're just we're still on that journey. Listen, we could go on, for hours and hours.

Ian Carless:

I know we could, but we do try and keep the podcast to a limited time, so I'm going to move on to some quick fire questions for you I love quick fire.

Vicki Galloway-place:

yeah, biggest on-site challenge you've faced and how did you overcome it? Designing and building a fully sustainable 450 square meter pavilion that had one, two, five, six live digital installations, 12 days of live programming, a coffee shop, all at Coff, which was very high on its security, and it was absolutely amazing. I had a dream team. We pulled it off. We were exhausted. Fantastic, so I was really proud of that, but it was a challenge, one thing you'd ban at events.

Vicki Galloway-place:

If you could mobile phones, but I would. It's a double edge because I would like it for exposure. I hate it when someone's like just texting on their phone and they're not engaged in what's going on in the event, especially if if it's performance.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, fair enough. Most underrated event role person who gets the least appreciation, but perhaps is one of the most important cogs.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Oh gosh project coordinators.

Ian Carless:

There are lots, aren't there?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Yeah, I was just thinking that Project coordinators, production managers, project coordinators and project managers, who really are the ones that are keeping it, going Right and one thing clients should do before they think about doing an event. Increase their budget.

Ian Carless:

That's an easy one.

Vicki Galloway-place:

One thing that clients should do before.

Ian Carless:

Before they think about putting on a Before they think about commissioning an event.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Be very clear on what they want to achieve and the parameters within which they want to achieve, and the parameters within which they want to achieve it good one, good advice, I like that.

Ian Carless:

And penultimately, we've asked all. I guess this, and I'm guessing you're, you're going to be no exception. You're, you're a music fan oh yeah, absolutely love it so what's on your playlist at the moment?

Vicki Galloway-place:

cocomelon. Okay, wheels on the bus, that's cool. Head, shoulders, knees or toes no, do you know what?

Ian Carless:

Okay, when your playlist hasn't been hijacked by your son.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Well, I'm trying to educate my son. My son can tell me if Coldplay come on, he's three. If Coldplay come on, miles Smith, benson, boone, post Malone. So these are the ones that we're loving at the minute. Trying to show you his makes, he loves. I'm quite eclectic. I'm still a 90s girl at heart, so anything that is linked to the 90s genre I love. But I'm a bit of a rocker as well.

Ian Carless:

And Bon Jovi I love them, and then finally, Vicky what are you looking forward to for the rest of this year?

Vicki Galloway-place:

Security, stability and spending time with my son.

Ian Carless:

Marvellous. I think that's a perfect way to end it. Vicky, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast.

Vicki Galloway-place:

Thank you for having me.

Ian Carless:

Event News DXB is brought to you by Minus 45 dB, the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments. Check them out at minus45dbcom. This episode 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 was produced by W4 Podcast Studio Dubai, and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.