EventNewsDXB

James Mistry: Pulling Back The Curtain On Event Safety

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 2 • Episode 6

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James Mistry: Pulling Back The Curtain On Event Safety. 

This week on EventNewsDXB, we sit down with James Mistry, founder of JAM Event Services, for an unfiltered conversation about the realities of event safety and staffing in the Middle East. 

From the chaotic beginnings of Dubai’s early event scene to Expo 2020’s game-changing legacy, James shares candid insights into why event safety is now seen as essential. Plus he offers his take on how the culture around mental health is finally evolving in a field long defined by burnout and unsustainable hours.

James doesn’t hold back when it comes to the industry’s challenges, explaining why he believes too many companies still think quantity trumps quality. He also shines a light on Saudi Arabia’s explosive growth, where a young, ambitious population and a rapidly expanding events calendar are creating opportunities unlike anywhere else in the world.

🎧 Listen now to hear James’s take on what the industry gets right, what it gets wrong, and why the future of events in the Middle East has never looked more promising.

EventNewsDXB is supported by Warehouse Four and -45dB

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. 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 Warehouse 4, dubai's best independent event venue, and Minus45DB, the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments, from full-size conference theatres to compact meeting pods. Minus 45 dB 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'm joined by James Mystery, founder of JAM Event Services, who's played a big part in shaping how we think about safety, staffing and training across the event industry here in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Across the event industry here in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We talk about how JAM has evolved from a one-man production and safety gig into a trusted name across the region, and how that growth was driven not by a master plan but by listening to what clients actually needed, whether it's crowd management, mental health awareness or placing the right people in the right roles. James brings a brutally honest and no BS perspective to how things work in the Middle East. So if you've ever worked a 14-hour shift, juggled on-site chaos, or been thrown in the deep end and expected to swim, you'll probably relate to this episode. Let's get into it into it. You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast, james.

James Mistry:

Welcome to the podcast Ian, thank you for the invite.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, we finally get there. It took a while, but here we are. A few weeks in the making, but here we are. Let's just jump straight into it, shall we? How did you end up in Dubai? And, more importantly, how did you end up?

James Mistry:

in events. Let me go with the second question. First, how did I end up in events? I always wanted to work in events. I always thought it was cool and one day I basically did a course while I was sat in my parents' house and then moved to London and started doing events. So I started from the ground up up, which people would have heard me say before, but I think it's the only way you should do it. Yeah, so I was local crew. I was building stages, lighting rigs, troughs, sound systems, and it could be argued that was one of the happiest happiest times of my event career. To be honest, because you do it.

James Mistry:

You'd smash it out for 12 hours and then you'd walk away from it and go home and not think about it absolutely um so, yeah, that's how I got into events and then, I guess probably like most people, it grew from there, so started off as local crew. Then I started doing artist liaison, did the whole festival scene in the uk, then production management project, production safety, and here I am now. Yeah, so what brought you out here? So me and what's now my wife, were in London for 10 years. Every weekend, most nights, we'd go to the pub every weekend, we just party and we just thought, listen, we might turn around and we'll be 60 and we'll still be doing this. Yeah, so we were like, let's do. When I say we, I mean my wife, of course no, so we were like listen, let's do something different.

James Mistry:

So we looked with the skills that we had and what we could doing, where could we go? Dubai was on the map. My what's now? My wife got a job here. That fell through. I got a job here. We moved out here the job I had. I was only there for two weeks because it didn't match what I was looking for. They're now my client I won't say who it is, but bigger. So, yeah, that's kind of what brought us out here. And then the last eight years has been pretty exciting, yeah.

Ian Carless:

Which probably leads us right up to where you are now, doesn't it, jam? Yeah, how did that come into fruition?

James Mistry:

So, as I said, I moved out here. I was head of production for one of the agencies. It was they're a small agency and a couple of weeks in it just didn't really sit with what I wanted and where I thought they could go. They're an amazing company now, by the way. They were back then. So then I kind of started doing a bit of freelancing. I was a production manager that's what was my trade, if you will, but I had my health and safety qualifications. I took those to be a better production manager. Yeah, I started doing a bit of safety stuff and then, I think, naturally, once I was out here, there was a bit of a gap in the market and started running at that.

James Mistry:

So the company was first incorporated as Jam Productions. We moved that across to Jam Event Services and then, naturally, that's kind of we became the safety guys of Dubai. That's what we were kind of known as. And then from there we kept getting asked for more by our clients, which is how jam people happened. Because people, because we were still going out as production managers, a small team of us, so that's kind of how jam people the freelancers, perm, hires, events, staffing that's how that grew. And then, yeah, a couple of years ago, jam training, which again was born from the want and needs of our clients. If we look at, a huge amount of what we do is in Saudi. It's 70% of the population there are under 35. They didn't have events five years ago. They want to get into it. That's where jam training fits in. So natural progression from all of it. Yeah.

Ian Carless:

And we'll come on shortly to talk about jam people and jam training. I just want to stick with the safety thing to begin with. Look for the layman out there. I think of event safety and I think of crowd control barriers, and maybe there's an ambulance parked at the entrance somewhere. There's obviously a lot more to it than that there's a little bit more, yeah, so give us a rundown.

Ian Carless:

And secondly, actually the first part of the question is so when you moved out here, yeah, what was your perception of the safety industry around events? I mean, I've been here for 22 years now and I think I wouldn't be going too far out of the deep end if I said that when I moved out here, yeah, crowd safety or any kind of safety events or you know, and within production and many industries was it a nice to have if you wanted it, but not necessarily a must have. That's obviously changed. So what was your perception?

James Mistry:

What was my perception is absolute insanity, I think was the. Why am I not surprised? Yeah, absolute insanity. But listen, everyone goes into events because they like events. Yeah, if people want it and wanted a nine to five, they'll go and get a nine to five. People want to earn as much money as possible. You never meet someone you go. Why were you into events? I wanted to. I didn't want to be an investment banker. I thought I'd make more money doing events. You do events. It comes from passion everyone. So that's my opinion anyway. Yeah, so I think it's uh, back to kind of where you were going.

James Mistry:

One of the first big events I worked on was um, mother of the nation, and I was literally brought in as a safety advisor under a guy called bruno marx, who is very well known, and it was just to look after one stand and it was just. It was insanity because you're just. It was like herding cats and I think in the uae it's not as much like that anymore. There's still a hell of a lot of companies that are, but generally speaking, the levels standards have gone up a lot. But now I understand a lot more the levels of safety here across the gcc saudi.

James Mistry:

It's all to do with training, it's all to do with education. It's not because people are trying to fight against it, if you will, but now we understand that it's like a lot of the people who are working on these event sites never had that education, so they don't know a better way to do it. So you can hit them with a stick and shout with them as much as you want that's not literally with a stick, because you're not allowed to as you want. That's not literally with a stick, because you're not allowed to do that, by the way, but nothing's going to change there. So it kind of comes down to education, yeah, so when you were thinking about starting jam.

Ian Carless:

What was it that you identified? What was the area where you thought you god, I gotta do something about this.

James Mistry:

We, you know do you know what? Being honest, I don't think there wasn't. You know, this was me eight years ago, so I was in my early 30s. I wasn't, like you know, calling greta thunberg on the weekend and working out what the problems were and how we can solve the solutions. It wasn't as deep as that. Yeah, it's like, let's be honest, I just moved across to dubai.

James Mistry:

I was trying to find my find my way within the events world, so I think it was about utilizing the skills I had and then, as things move forward, as I started to meet more companies, as I started to see more of the opportunity I would say jam was born then, so jam was probably around before the the deep vision and goals and objectives that we have now, you know, and that comes years after years. And it's like, you know, as a founder as well. It's like I was a freelancer back in the day. You know, you're not like 21 years old and you're like, oh, I'm actually a, I'm a thought leadership specialist. It's like that's all bullshit, man. It's like I was a freelancer. You're kind of working stuff out. As you go through, as you get older, you make a load of mistakes. You try and not do those again. So I think it's yeah, without going too deep of my vision for the. You know, when I was 21 years old, we're a lot wiser now. Let's just say that no-transcript.

James Mistry:

I think you know when we're talking about jam safety, it's event safety and it's crowd management. And like what are those elements? Event safety any stakeholder who's basically involved. It's about public safety and relating to the safety of that, yeah, yeah. So any stakeholder, anyone who's involved.

James Mistry:

Crowd management crowd management to us as a company is ingress, circulation and egress of large amounts of people. If you're talking about, in Saudi Arabia, crowd management is often considered hostesses and ushers that play a part in that. But for us we take a more kind of UK thought process on what crowd management is. So I think there's those two elements you know. So usually on the jam safety side, we're engaged for both or for one of those elements.

James Mistry:

I think what's important for us is when we get a call, we just try and find out from the client why are they calling us? Yeah, they're calling us because they and find out from the client why are they calling us? Yeah, they're calling us because they've been told they have to. They're calling us because they want to run a good event. They're calling us because they understand how important safety is for the overall operation, which means everyone there will have a great time and the output and the media will echo that. So I think for us it's first off, why are you calling us? How can we help you? The amount of calls we get from saudi going I need safety and we go fantastic stage one. What do you need? I need safety. Cool, we're still at stage one, you know so it's. But listen, that's part of our job.

James Mistry:

It's about well, you're back to the education and training yeah, but it's about like working out what do you need, and sometimes they don't know what they need and that's cool, we can help them with that. So a bit of navigating that goes with it, yeah.

Ian Carless:

How much has the industry changed with regard to that? With clients, I want to say that probably when you got off the boat then it was a bit of a nice to have, or yeah, let's just not bother with that and hope for the best. And how much of that has changed now? How many of your clients are actually coming to you knowing that this has to be an integral part of their operation?

James Mistry:

I would say, as I said before, eight years. We've been here now, yeah, and we've been operating in saudi for seven years as well. So I think it's basically expo was the? Was the turning point, if you will. So it's like, as I said, when we got here it was pretty rogue. Now that's a staple in 90% of the events.

James Mistry:

Safety is a critical element in 90% of the events that get delivered in Dubai and I think there's also forwarded on by the companies in our ecosystem. By companies, I mean event agencies and the production houses that they use. So, like an early adopter, back in the day, evolution, I remember Caroline and David very, very early on, one of our first long-term clients, if you will. They basically turned around and were like we will have an event safety representative on every single event. They were one of the first to do that and that was them basically putting their company. They were basically saying that's one of the ways we can differentiate ourselves.

James Mistry:

Yeah. Then you've got all of the global agencies Jack Morton, imagination, blah, blah. They're bound by what they need to do globally. So they were, you know, early adopters and have been doing it for a long time. So I think there was a slow shift and now it's in a really good place here. Saudi is going through the same thing. I don't need to harbor the point that event safety in saudi is less advanced than here. We all know that. Yeah, but they're getting it and more and more of the agencies out there understand it and the government entities which are passing their jobs down. You know it's built into more of the rfps, so exactly the same as it was here, but, yeah, a bit more wild west in the um in saudi, of course how much of a catalyst was covid in terms of event safety.

James Mistry:

I don't know how much. I think I mean there's no right answer.

Ian Carless:

It might it might not have been you know.

James Mistry:

No, I think it's event safety. Covid covid was was funny yeah. And it was probably not everyone will have that approach to it, but COVID was Funny.

James Mistry:

Peculiar as opposed to probably hard, yeah peculiar is probably the thanks for pulling me out of that one. You know, we were an event safety company and then COVID hit and our clients are turning around and being like what do we do? And it's like we haven't dealt with many global pandemics. And, of course, we can do the research. People go to school for 20, 20 years to learn about things like this. Yeah, we can't become an expert in a few days, you know. It just doesn't really work like that. So I think it brought in a lot of different control measures that we had to try and play with. But I think it's for me event safety and COVID. They were slightly different and COVID-19 became a section in event safety management plans. It's no longer in it for us. We took that out a while ago.

Ian Carless:

Now moving on. Obviously you've now got JAM people and JAM training. Tell us about the people element people and jam training.

James Mistry:

Yeah, tell us about the people element essentially. Yeah, we for a long time we've been known as as the safety. You know, jam safety is very well known across the gcc. You know, a few years ago we started jam people. As I said, born from the want of our clients, that's grown. Now they're essentially three companies under one jam roof, if you will. So jam people, we've got freelancers, permanent and then event staffing as well. It's good, it's hardcore, it's yeah three. Three businesses is a lot, you know, especially when they're all set in the same office but they all complement each other. You know, that's the whole thing is you need all of these services when you're delivering events. Clients want to come to a trusted provider who can give them more than one service rather than having to break it up. So Jam People is, for me, probably the most exciting part of the business at the moment. There's amazing stuff going on there. We've got an amazing team split across Riyadh and Dubai. So, yeah, it's very exciting. I'll just say that.

Ian Carless:

How do you get around the whole staffing issue for events? I mean, clearly you know there's only so many people you have on the books full time. You know the freelance industry here in Dubai whilst it's got much, much, much better, obviously, and there is a freelance industry now, you know I can go back not so many years and there just wasn't the opportunity for freelancing. How has that changed and how do you manage that element of your business?

James Mistry:

Listen, I think it's let's talk openly yeah, and it's. There's a number of companies do this Event Lab with a start big up to Nadeem. He's done an amazing job. Where that company is now, you know, there's a number of companies that do what we do. What makes us different for me is quality and customer service and is the level of service that people get. Do you get that from the other companies? I don't know, I don't work with them, but the whole idea of everything that comes out of Jam is quality.

James Mistry:

We stamped our name on the industry with Jam Safety and it's like what we do in that space is important and it's critical, especially for the size and scale of events that we're working on. Yeah, we wanted that same level of accuracy, of quality, to go into Jam People, to go into Jam Training. So I think with Jam People, there's a number of providers out there. Do they all deliver as well as we do? I don't know. Let the clients answer that. You know, I think with different companies in that space as well, they've got different ideas and objectives and targets and all of that.

James Mistry:

What's important for us? Do what we do, do what we do really well, I think with the freelance market. It's great, it's buoyant, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of people that get pulled across from Europe and globally and it's it's an exciting time for freelanc pulled across from Europe and globally, and it's an exciting time for freelancers as far as I'm concerned, because what's going on in Saudi Arabia at the moment? It's insane, it's crazy. No one's spending money like that. No one's putting on gigs like that. So it's an exciting time to learn and grow.

James Mistry:

We want to facilitate that. It's like if I put myself back to being a freelancer, what did I want 20 years ago? Wanted to work on cool gigs, man. This is why I'm doing it. I either want to earn good money on them or I want to be educated and I want to be around cool stuff and we have to facilitate that. Like what's Jam's job. What's Jam people's job is to make sure that we're working with the best clients. We're making sure that we're working with clients that care, and that's on us, that's not on the freelancer.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, Do you think you'd have been able to run this side of the business, say, 10 years ago? Hell, no.

James Mistry:

Hell, no, not at all. Why? Because I think it's natural progression and I think it's, you know, just with jam training. It's about a year and a half old, something like that. It's like we're growing and we're learning as we're moving forward and we're seeing opportunities. I've got two or three other businesses I want to do and you know the wife's like yeah, yeah, cool, just chill out a bit. It's, you know and it's, but it's about it's, it's about timing, it's about understanding. With Jam People, I've hired some amazing people who are very, who have got great experience in this space, have got great experience in the global event space, to help us position ourselves for the things we want to be working on. Yeah, could I have done it 10 years ago? No, I wouldn't want it to because my focus was elsewhere. Jam wasn't even. I was like 10 years ago, what was I doing? Trying to get paid, man, trying to get paid, trying to make it till the end of the month.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, let's just quickly talk about just doing business in the UAE overall, because obviously you've come over from the UK. How easy, shall we say, or how difficult has it been to initially set up the business and then also scale it to the level that you're obviously running at right now?

James Mistry:

I guess the honest answer is I've got nothing to compare it to. Yeah, so I don't. You know, I can have a little pity party and say how hard it's been and all this, but it's like the honest answer to that I absolutely love it, like I love the hustle, I love the insanity, I love the madness. I'm getting a bit older now so I don't love it as much as I used to, but five years ago, I thrive off that stuff. I live and breathe it. You know, that's why I love Saudi so much, because it's the. You get one phone call and it can lead to you know well, it can lead to a lot of trouble, but it can lead to a lot of good things. So I think it's easy to set up businesses here now. It's easy to set up businesses here now. It's a lot easier in Saudi. I think what you have to have is the passion You've got to. How has Jam got where it is today? Probably just through the sheer amount of time that I've put into it.

Ian Carless:

You talked about quality earlier in relation to staffing. Obviously, we were talking off camera, weren't we? Or, just before the podcast started, about the sheer volume of people that were descending on Dubai from all corners of the world. In my experience, you know a lot of people come here and it seems to be a two or three year gig. And does that affect you? A with hiring the people that you want to take on full time and then ensuring that you've got that freelance level of quality as well available for your clients?

James Mistry:

Let me be honest just because people are here doesn't mean they're the right people for the job.

James Mistry:

And I think that, again, that depends on the approach that the event agencies or government organizations are taking. Some of them want the best person available for the job globally and don't mind paying what that is. Other companies I'm not going to name you, but you know who you are, or all my team know who you are. Other companies they'll hire three site managers for a job who will work 14 hours a day and all get paid pittance, whereas another agency will hire one site manager who'll work for 12 hours, will get twice as much done. So I think there's, you know it's how the agencies approach staffing their projects is. Once we know who we're working with and dealing with, then we know what are the key aspects for them, basically delivery or cost. But I think, listen, globally, you've got amazing people everywhere. There's no shortage of people. Of course, when it's silly season here, a lot of people get pulled across. So I think there's not a shortage of people.

James Mistry:

How does it affect us when it gets busy? We need to make sure that we're keeping the clients we have, and have had for a long time, happy. It's not just about bouncing around and trying to put as many people on site. What have we learned? You just throw a load of people on site who aren't right for the job. It just means they'll get removed. They will leave themselves. It creates more problems. So I think it's about sustainable business, both for what we're doing and for our clients, and I think, again, that just comes with experience.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, I think that sort of leads on to the next question, which is what are the sort of common mistakes that you see clients sort of making over and over again, if you like? I mean not just on the safety side but, as you just alluded to there, on the hiring side as well? You know, like you said, it's all very well. I mean, in some areas labor can be inexpensive in this part of the world. But volume, as you said, doesn't necessarily equal quality.

James Mistry:

I'm not sure how well this is going to go if I start telling you why I think my clients are not good at what they do, so I'll choose my words wisely. Let me change that slightly. What do I find frustrating in the industry that we're working in and you know we're supplying skilled people within safety, within jam people what do I find frustrating is companies that hire the wrong people to then manage other people, companies that are hiring inexperienced people in what is very important roles. Some of the companies in the industry. They win these huge events. They're then getting project managers in, paying them 20,000 dirhams, where elsewhere you'd be looking at 3,000 dirhams per day minimum that these people should be getting, bearing in mind the budgets that you're talking about, responsibility, the vvi, the vip guests that are going to be there.

James Mistry:

Yeah, so I'm all about giving people opportunity. I'm all out, all about. You know you should always be pushing working slightly outside your comfort zone. Kind of take that job on, call your mate and work, you know, and that's a delicate balance, but it goes too far. And that's one thing is the amount of times. If I look on the jam safety side, we get dragged into ops one because we enjoy it, but just because we know what we're doing, because the people who are going to be managing us don't really know that yeah, where does that come from them?

Ian Carless:

because I mean, I, I worked out in hong kong for for many years, back in the early 90s god show my age now and I remember there was a. There was a phrase when I lived out there called filth failed in london, try hong kong 100. If you flip that onto a sort of positive, uh, yeah, note. Then what it meant was that and this is what I liked about living in Asia, and this exists in this part of the world as well you get the opportunity here and you got the opportunity in Hong Kong. You could come out and you could say hi, I'm Ian.

Ian Carless:

Listen, I don't have a huge amount of experience in whatever field it is that I want to do, and oftentimes employers would go do you All right, I'll give you a go, have a go, have three months and then we'll see how you get on. Now, the result of that was that if you were good, you fly and you fly very quickly. The bad side of that was also that and to coin a phrase, shit floats, and so there was quite a few people who get through who really in other markets wouldn't have done, and I think some of that is perhaps down to just people doing due diligence, and some of it is perhaps down to people in those middle management roles who are also perhaps a little bit beyond their pay grade.

James Mistry:

I think with that it's also about what's your availability of people. So is it easier just to put that guy in it or do I need to pay another 20 grand plus fly someone in, plus get their visa, plus get their account? Do you know what I mean? So I think it's that balance and essentially you're also looking at like you've got accountants who are running a lot of these jobs. Now you've got commercial teams that are running the jobs, so they don't really the troubles that you'll have on the site. They're not bothered about that. That's the project manager stuff.

James Mistry:

Yeah, I'm just here to make sure the bottom line works really well, you know, but I think it's. It's a lot easier to thrive and survive in the middle east than it would be in the heart of london. A hundred percent, yeah, but that can be very dangerous at the same time, you know, because you've got people coming out here giving it a go. As I said, there's a delicate balance there. I'm all about people stepping up, but then it can go too far. But again, for me it's on the event management companies, it's on companies like us.

James Mistry:

We have to place the right people in the right roles and it is difficult placing people. Even I'm a business owner. Yeah, we have people full-time, who you know. We take people on full-time all the time. I struggle, yeah, because I really believe and I understand the agencies, the government entities. Anybody can get through a job interview. Anyone can smile and do the. You know I mean and you can. You can get through a job interview. Anyone can smile and do the. You know what I mean and you can. You can get through that. After one month the cracks are appearing a little bit. Oh, I didn't realize it. I thought it was okay, you know, I mean.

James Mistry:

Yeah, after six weeks that like they're either out the door or I know yeah, they're out the door because they've been found out or I know they'll be with us for three, four years, you know, and that is difficult and our clients even struggle with this and like, didn't you do your due diligence? And I'm like, well, it just comes down to exactly that, doesn't it due diligence?

Ian Carless:

and that was that was what I could ask you.

James Mistry:

How do you do your. So we've done our due diligence in the same way. So I'll answer that in one second. Yeah, so we've done our due diligence as a company in the same way that you, as the people hiring have also done your due diligence, because you had three interviews with them. They spoke to your hr, they spoke to this, this, this. But if the guy's a blagger and he's got through and it's like you know where does that end, where this and I guess what's probably happening now, you can tell I'm getting heightened. Yeah, it's, it's, that's a struggle. Maybe this goes to your filth thing about. You know, like how, how far does blagging go? That it's like doesn't you know that it goes too far? Yeah, yeah, and I think it's as a company. If I talk about jam people, we can do our due diligence. We can get references.

James Mistry:

The events industry is quite small globally. It's a mad thing to say, but usually if you've got people who've got a good CV and they've worked on certain events, you can call people from those events. You can find out about them. So it's like you can do your due diligence. You've got another side to it there, which is culture, which is actually what's the person like there's certain clients or people you can't get on with everyone yeah. So you can have all the best qualifications in the world yeah. But if you're jarring with someone all the time, it's just not going to work. How do you do that? How deep as a staffing agency do we need to go in psychological profiling of our client? Do we need to go in psychological profiling of our client? To you know, it's like, yeah, hopefully one day we will reach the point where we have enough budget to implement that. You know, yeah.

Ian Carless:

I think you make a very good point. I mean, I think that that side of the personality side and the temperament is super important. I remember when I was in the television production industry, you know we'd have a lot of people coming out to Southeast Asia and you know, and back in the UK or the US, wherever they were from, I mean, they were experts in their field, they ran productions like Clockwork. But when they came out to the Far East they struggled and that was like you say, that was down to culture and also down to the fact that them not being able to adapt, adapt to that culture quite as as well as perhaps they they should have done, because things are done differently. You, you can't get in front of a southeast asian film crew and ball them out to their face, not at least if you want them to work again for the rest of that project anyway but you work that stuff out, you know.

James Mistry:

I mean, you understand that. And it's like every year we bring people across from from wherever, yeah, and it's like their first gig and you watch them go through that process, yeah, where they stand, there go. This is absolutely mental. Some of them they'll never come back, others they get the bug for it. They understand it. So, again, I think that comes down to personality type and all of that, but I think it's I might get in trouble for this, but it's like there's a certain amount of due diligence we can do as a company. Yes, there's a certain amount of due diligence you can do as the client. There's also you've got to suck it and see, and just you know, I mean roll the dice and see if it works, you know let's move on to sa, to Saudi, because I know Saudi is a big part of your business at the moment.

Ian Carless:

You've got an office there. Tell us about what you're doing there and what's your experience been about working in Saudi.

James Mistry:

You know, I moved here in 2017. We were working in Saudi very soon after that with you know, as events started to happen, etc. So I think for us, it's just part of our normal business. As I said, we've got a full-time team over there. We're highly active. I love Saudi. Yeah, and this is a debate argument that I have with my friends back home. I love Saudi, I love what's going on there. I think it's so exciting. It's you've got a young nation who are happy to be educated, who understand the opportunities they have in front of them, and there's some of the young Saudis that we've employed full time and have moved on to other stuff and I'm like, dude, you're going to be earning double what I'm earning within the next five, 10 years, because they're bright, they're on it, they understand it and it's like that stuff's exciting. Man, you don't see that anywhere else. Yeah, saudi is great. It's insane.

Ian Carless:

It was more insane five years ago, seven years ago, but for me personally, saudi is exciting yeah I think any conversation around safety just to go full circle would be remiss if we didn't mention sort of mental health and things like that. It's just become such an important facet of life. You know, full stop. Obviously the event industry, as you say. People don't get into it thinking, oh, you know, I'll do this instead of being a, you know, a merchant banker. With it comes a huge level of stress and work. How much of that conversation around mental health now is also part of the work that you do in the sort of health and safety area I would say it's, it's at the forefront a lot more and I think it's so.

James Mistry:

On the jam training side, we deliver mental health courses there. Yeah, so it's interesting to see when we're talking to our clients who, when we mention that, go. That's really interesting. Maybe it's something we should look at and others that it's not a consideration. Yeah, what's also interesting is is some of our clients we've spoken to about it and they're like all of our team have mental health qualifications. They have all the systems and processes in place already.

James Mistry:

Yeah, I think there's a shift, if you will. Yeah, so when I was younger and growing up, 12 hour days back to back 30 days absolute badge of pride, yeah, and I just absolutely love it and you were a hero and it was, and maybe that's just being 25 and like you know, I mean, when you're older, you're like that just sounds miserable. Yeah, but I think it's. There is a bit of a change now and I think it's also not even just for the people on site, but for people in offices, yeah, people who are part of that event ecosystem and it's like internally, our office teams have a tough time six to eight months a year and it's like it's up to me as a business owner how do we caveat that? And it's not as easy as that. I just go, we'll hire a load more people, what it takes three months to train them to understand what we do. So it's a delicate balance, but I think being aware of it is something we can do.

James Mistry:

I think it's it's a positive change that people are now aware of that. I think again, personally speaking, yeah, 10 years ago you said to me mental health I'd be like dude, you're in the wrong industry. Whereas now it's like for all of my team and I'm talking about the teams on the ground and in the office if we can maintain their mental health, they deliver more productive, quicker, they're happier. You know, I mean. So I think there's a lot of work to be done there, but I think it's positive that it's the conversations are happening and moving in the right direction. It'd be interesting to see where that is in five years, because it's like, just because the events industry has always been mental long hours and all that, is that all right, is that like? Is you know?

Ian Carless:

I mean OK, yeah, know, I mean okay yeah yeah, so like.

James Mistry:

However, I'd love to see the day where this has only happened on a couple of sites where, instead of you're looking at like two 12 hour shifts where they've gone three shifts of eight hours, so you've just increased your um what's it called cost by 33 on all of that labor transport, you know. So, yeah, let's do this again in five years and we'll uh, we'll see. We'll see where we're at then Before we wrap up.

Ian Carless:

I've got a couple of quick fire questions for you. Let's go. Here we go. Biggest on-site challenge you've ever faced.

James Mistry:

Biggest on-site challenge. One of our clients was trying to make napalm on site and didn't realize it was napalm. It took us two days to talk them down and threatening to put all of our team on a plane.

Ian Carless:

That was a fun one yeah, napalm, that's a good one. Yeah, one thing you'd ban at events if you could one thing I would ban at events.

James Mistry:

I'm gonna have to take time because there's. I'd probably get in trouble if I answered that straight away. Uh, listen, it'd be good to see more like no phone zones at the concerts and all of this, because that's kind of ruining it. It's a bit of an obvious answer. Most underrated event role.

Ian Carless:

Most underrated the purse lose gets the least thanks, but it's one of the biggest jobs the radio shack guy, man, the radio, or maybe that's just the.

James Mistry:

I like that role because you can just sit in the same place all day. It's quite low pressure, underrated. It's got to be the safety guy every time, man yeah.

Ian Carless:

Okay, one thing clients should do before they book your services.

James Mistry:

Just think about why they're calling us and what they want from it. Yeah, yeah, simple as that, and that will help us service them better. Yeah, before, as simple as that and that will help us service them better. Yeah, before we wrap up, what's next for you? What's next for me? There's lots of things. Listen. Jam's my passion. I've got two kids. This this was my first, though. Yeah, so I've got three kids, so it's like I'm excited about what the next two to five years of jam will bring. Yeah, with what's happening in the gcc and globally, it's really exciting. There's that. There's other things I want to look at. I think that's a pub chat, not a podcast chat, but it's exciting. The future for the team that we've built at JAM, it's exciting.

Ian Carless:

And finally, we've asked all our guests this, just to wrap up the podcast with you must be a music fan. I know I am Okay. What's on your playlist at the moment? Playlist Where's my phone, man?

James Mistry:

What's on the playlist, Listen. It's everything from drum and bass, grime, UK hip hop, house, reggae, et cetera, et cetera. So a little bit of everything, yeah.

Ian Carless:

Brilliant.

James Mistry:

James, thanks very much for joining us on the podcast.

Ian Carless:

Been a pleasure, man. Thanks very much. Event News DXP is brought to you by Warehouse 4, dubai's best independent event venue, and Minus Fortified DB, the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments. It 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.