EventNewsDXB

Jasper Donat: Connections Beyond The Stage & Why Live Still Matters

• W4 Podcast Studio • Season 2 • Episode 7

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What happens when you set out to “just see who comes through the door” and end up building one of Asia’s most influential event companies?

In this episode of EventNewsDXB, I talk with Jasper Donat, co-founder and CEO of Branded, about his 30-year journey from Star TV in Hong Kong to creating the All That Matters conference and festival in Singapore. Jasper reflects on the wild early days of Asian events, the evolution of his company’s flagship platforms across music, sport, gaming, and marketing, and why live, face-to-face connections still matter more than ever in an AI-driven world.

We dive into the lessons of COVID, how Branded found creative ways to keep audiences engaged when everything went virtual (yes, even Cookie Monster got a keynote slot), and why Singapore and the Middle East are fast becoming global hubs for live experiences.

EventNewsDXb is proudly 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. I hope 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 2, I'm super pleased to let you know that Event News DXB is brought to you by Warehouse 4, probably Dubai's best independent event venue, and Minus 45DB, the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound, reduced environments. From full-size conference theaters to compact meeting pods, minus 45db builds modular spaces that are quiet, customizable and completely turnkey, and they're sustainable too smart design with zero waste. Check them out at minus45dbcom.

Ian Carless:

Before we dive into today's episode, I want to introduce a guest who spent the last 30 years shaping how live experiences connect audiences across Asia and now increasingly, across the Middle East. Jasper Donat, co-founder and CEO of Branded, is the man behind some of the region's most influential event platforms, from Music Matters to Gaming Matters to the All that Matters Festival in Singapore. One of the things that really stood out for me in our conversation today was Jasper's perspective on the power of being there. For him, the real value of events lies not just in what happens on stage, but in the conversations and connections that happen in between, the introductions, the collaborations and the serendipity that you can't manufacture online.

Ian Carless:

We also explored how this mindset is playing out in the Middle East, where markets like Dubai and Saudi Arabia are fast becoming central to the global event landscape. From the growth of esports and gaming in Dubai to Saudi's rapid embrace of music and live entertainment, investment in the event industry in this region is happening at a pace few could have imagined a decade ago, and it's also why this part of the world offers such exciting opportunities for event professionals and brands alike. It's a candid and inspiring conversation with someone who's built a career on making bold moves, taking risks and reminding us why live experiences still matter. So let's get into it.

Jasper Donat:

You're listening to the Event News DXB podcast. Jasper, welcome to the podcast Ian, it's great to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me.

Ian Carless:

Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, listen, I want to just jump straight in and start right at the beginning. Two easy questions to kick off with your starter questions for 10 points how did you end up in Asia and how did you end up in events?

Jasper Donat:

That's a reverse order then. So I got into events in the UK. I was working for Eurosport, the sports television channel, and we made all of our money around events and stuff and just got into having a lot of fun doing that. I was very young, I mean, I'd left school when I was 16. And so, anyway, that's another podcast All on its own. Yeah, but my boss at the time was an amazing guy called Robert Bland and he got brought over. Rupert Murdoch bought Star TV and he got brought over to Hong Kong to run sales for Star TV. I get a call saying, hey, come to Hong Kong and help run our events division for Star Sports and I was like, no, no, I'm earning, you know yeah, lots of money thousand pounds a year.

Jasper Donat:

I've made it. And he said get on a fucking plane. So I jumped on a plane, got off an amazing job working for a guy called patrick murphy, who you know as well, absolutely. And this was 1995, july 1995, where I promised my mother that I would be gone for two years and here at 30 years later. So so I moved to to star tv in hong kong, originally working for star sports and then working for their event division, which was called sports corporation, having a lot of fun doing tennis in china and Singapore and golf and events, just events all over Asia Pacific, the X Games in Phuket and what have you.

Jasper Donat:

And then they had launched this music channel called Channel V, which is essentially the Asian MTV and remember it well across to run all their sales and marketing. And that was entirely event, that all of the money came from events. And we just had a lot of fun organizing some amazing, amazing events which we can talk about. And I just remember at the end of every month getting paid for having the best time of my life. It was like, ok, I can do this. So yeah, so that was 30 years ago.

Ian Carless:

That's fantastic. And this month is your 30th anniversary, that's right, isn't it? Yeah, as you mentioned our paths ago. That's fantastic, and it is this month is your 30th anniversary, that's right, isn't it? Yeah, as you mentioned, our paths crossed at star tv in hong kong. Those were wild days, weren't they? It really was the wild west, but but I love your analogy there just thinking getting to the end of every month going. I can't believe I'm getting paid for just having what a wonderful time. Look, we worked really hard.

Jasper Donat:

True, we played extremely hard, very true, but it we had a rule you had to be in the, you had to be at work at nine 30 the next morning, and we were usually. But but it was working hard and playing hard with with some of the most incredible people on the planet. We're all in the same boat, we're all expats, we're all living away from home, all given way too much responsibility, but everyone all given way too much responsibility, but everyone pulled their socks up and delivered right and so, yeah, I mean it was crazy times, but just so much fun, yeah it was, wasn't it?

Ian Carless:

Let's fast forward, then. So obviously, 25 years ago, you set up Branded, which you're the CEO of. How did that come about, and what was your goal when you set up Branded?

Jasper Donat:

That's a really good question and my answer is terrible because there isn't really an answer that I had found myself, as a lot of people had. You know, the road came to an end at Star TV. They were localizing and my job came to an end and I found myself footloose and fancy free, not a clue what I wanted to do and I had a Nokia. At that time there was no such thing. As you know, the internet was a thing, but do, and I had a Nokia. At that time, there was no such thing. As you know, the internet was a thing, but not really.

Jasper Donat:

And I had taken a couple of months to just go traveling and play golf and play my guitar, and the phone kept ringing, with people that I'd not met. Or some friends saying oh, can you help me connect with so-and-so, can you, I want to do something in China? Or, and just these amazing conversations that started happening where I just started doing stuff that I wasn't planning on doing. I mean, for example, I get a phone call from a guy who I didn't know at the time. So I can be completely honest about this. A guy called Simon Fuller phones me and says I'm looking at doing Pop Idol, pop idol in, and I remember googling him going. Oh okay he. So he found he managed the spice girls and he's pop idol and american idol. And then 19 management he said we're looking at doing in china. Um, I've been told you're the person to to introduce me to people. So I just kind of walked around with him, him and his business partner opening doors in china, having a great time, just kind of just.

Jasper Donat:

But you know, I was, I had no idea how to run a business. I was just making up as I went along and doing all these little projects as a consultant really, and I. Then there was another chap in Hong Kong called Michael Denmark who had found himself in a similar situation where he his role, he was a print sales guy, and we got together one breakfast and said, hey, we should be doing this together what I don't know. Let's just do something together. And and we literally launched a company that day. I think we paid for it on miamex because in hong kong at the time, say, I have a company cost tuppence, hapenny it was donut and denmark. So we we originally called it double d media, thankfully for about five minutes, because we'd be cancelled now, and then we ended up calling it branded and yeah, and and the idea was kind of just to help people coming to asia, pacifics, who wanted to meet people and open doors and stuff. We never really had a plan and that's. That's the the long answer to your question.

Jasper Donat:

What was the plan is like, well, there, wasn't one, it was kind of just wait and see who comes to the door and we, and through that we just met some incredible people who wanted to meet our friends out here and and then kind of every now and then we we'd help people sell sponsorship for their events or we you know all that stuff. And then someone was like well, why don't you do your own events? I'm like yeah, okay we can.

Ian Carless:

We we can do that, because that's easy yeah so yeah so we, so we.

Jasper Donat:

I can you know, I don't mind saying that we never had a plan well, you've quickly developed one, haven't you?

Ian Carless:

so I mean, obviously you're based in Singapore. You do a lot of work around Asia. You've recently ventured into the Middle East with gaming matters, and we'll come on to talk about that in a little while.

Jasper Donat:

But just very briefly, for those people that perhaps aren't familiar with branded, tell us what your sort of key business aspects are at the moment obviously we're grounded around the doing our events, and most of the events we do are our own ip right, mostly b2b, and when we can get into b2b2C, we're best known around the Matters brand. So music matters, sports matters, gaming, marketing, what have you and we do those mostly all over Asia Pacific, but we have been extending into other markets as well. And then they all roll up into one big conference and festival that happens in Singapore in September around the Singapore Grand Prix called All that Matters. And that's where you have the music industry, the sports industry, the game, all these wonderful entertainment businesses coming together during the day, and then we have a music festival at night. And we're celebrating our 20th year this year, wow, so we're going to be having a lot of fun. The theme for this year is Back to the Future, so we're going to get nostalgic, but we're also going to look very much into the future and where this is all going to end up, if anyone knows. And yeah, so we do that. And then we do some B2C events as well.

Jasper Donat:

We have a wonderful, wonderful platform called it's a Girl Thing, which is kind of like TED for Teens meets, a music festival where we're targeting the very young end of Gen Z girls maybe, who are just leaving school or college or just getting their first job or moving out of house for the first time, to influence and inspire and help them on their journey.

Jasper Donat:

So we get a lot of the world's top female influencers and stars on stage to talk about their lives, to talk about where they've got it right, where they got it wrong, what would they do differently, what advice would they give, and it's very, very inspirational, wonderful content and fun. We have music and all that kind of stuff. And what's wonderful now about it's a Girl thing it's almost 10 years old itself is that the last time we did it in India, about 30% of the audience were guys. Wow, and I remember thinking I wish, when I was 18 or 19 year old in London, that I could go to an event like this, because you learn so much about what your best mate, your best female mates, are going through in their lives when they're growing up and getting older and stuff, and so, yes, we do that. And when we can bring all the events together in this B2B2 to c environment, that's when we have the most fun. So all the matters when we have the music festival at night.

Ian Carless:

It's, it's a lot of fun well, let's talk a little bit more about that, about the matters platforms, the music, the sports, the gaming. What do you think? I mean? It's a. It could be a long answer, this, but if you had to sort of narrow it down into three or four, say, bullet points, what do you think it is that's made them so successful?

Jasper Donat:

oh, good question. I think I think, at the end of the day, the live events business that we operate is all about connections. Yeah, it's all about being there. It's all about meeting people. Meeting people you know already. Meeting people you've never met before. It's like a music festival. Yes, you buy a meeting people you've never met before. It's like a music festival. Yes, you buy a ticket because you want to see the, the bands and stuff, but it's it's about what happens backstage, or or in the bar, or with your friends and that kind of stuff.

Jasper Donat:

It's not just about the, the performance, and you know this is something that really came through post code. You know, during during covid we we did a lot of live virtual events because you had to, but post-COVID we don't live stream anything because no one wants to watch a conference live streamed. On average, I'll get about five requests a year since COVID. Are you live streaming your, your event? Yeah, because it's about a no one's got eight hours to sit there and watch their laptop screen anymore and B it is. It's. It's about being in the lobby, it's about the, those, those corridor meetings, those you know, and it's about the connections. It's about people meeting people you know, and it's about the connections, it's about people meeting people they wouldn't normally meet. I, I call it a big school disco. You know, you get the music industry knows the music industry, the sports industry knows, they all know each other but they don't know. And so when they turn up the first time, it's all like who's that?

Ian Carless:

oh, it's like they all get a little bit bashful, but then then they all get together and wow yes, now, I know we were just chatting a little bit before we started the podcast, just sticking on the subject of, obviously, that horrible period that we all went through with COVID and where everything became online events. You did manage to inject some fun into that, though, didn't you? I think you had some rather interesting keynote speakers and guest interviewees.

Jasper Donat:

Yeah, I mean, it was when we first went into lockdown and people were talking about these virtual events. I was quoted as saying hell will freeze over before we do a virtual event. And just before and all that matters was the first live streamed event for us. It was a five-day festival and I remember my marketing director that morning turned around to me, said would you like me to buy you a hat and gloves because it's going to get cold? But we thought at the time it's, this is so, you know, to be stuck at home to be all this kind of stuff. So we had all our wonderful advisors telling us what we should and shouldn't be doing and what would they pay to to tune into on a, on a laptop screen and stuff. Yeah, I remember a couple of them saying look, we're stuck at home with our kids. Is there anything you can do for them? Just as a throwaway comment.

Jasper Donat:

So for that All that Matters, that year our opening keynote was the Cookie Monster. We did a deal with Sesame Street and I interviewed Cookie Monster live as our first keynote and it was about kind of so, cookie, how are you connecting with your fans during lockdown? Yeah, and so it was a genuine B2B conversation, really interesting stuff. And then we had Elmo, and Elmo interviewed, I think, three or four of our keynotes Brilliant. One of them was Mike Shinoda, the lead singer of Linkin Park, and just watching them all kind of just chatting it was. It was amazing and and so much fun and powerful stuff.

Jasper Donat:

So so we we kind of went to, we really thought outside the box, what can we do to to really have fun? But and I know we said this before but that bit was fun and it was when, as soon as the event was over and you close your laptop lid and your two cats are staring, you're going can I, can we have food now, please, daddy? It just completely wrecked the buzz of that usual once you finish the event, whether it's been great or bad, you know things go right, things go wrong. You then go out for a, for a drink with your team and you're kind of it's all about being there and not with the cats. They didn't understand it.

Ian Carless:

Yeah it's interesting, that isn't it? I mean that sort of dovetails into something else. I was going to bring up the reaction from people after covid and, as you say, that in some cases, that nervousness of being in larger events, I think the smaller events seem to come back a little bit quicker, didn't they, than the certain. I mean, obviously there's the logistical and financial concerns in that as well, but I think, just purely from an audience perspective, in terms of what they felt comfortable with, it took a while for those big, big events to come back.

Ian Carless:

The other thing I was going to say I'm sure you'll have seen the news recently and there was a great quote from mark cuban, wasn't there? I mean, he was talking really about, uh, ai, and I'll read the quotes. I just be curious to know your reaction to this and where you stand on it. And he said, quote unquote within the next three years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, people won't know if what they see or hear is real, which will result in an explosion of face-to-face engagement events and jobs. Unquote. How would you react to that? Yes, emphatically. Yeah, nice to talk to you.

Jasper Donat:

I think you know I do come from a very biased perspective on that and I think I hope that he's right. It's true, there is nothing that beats being there. And, yes, you want to be there. Like I said earlier, you want to be there when the big artists are on stage, but you also want to be in the bar with your mates having fun and kind of having experiences that you'll talk about for the next 50 years of your life.

Jasper Donat:

And you know, the metaverse promised that. It hasn't delivered, it hasn't gone anywhere close to it. Now technology needs to just catch up, and whether you can then have a real experience in the metaverse space or something, let's see, let's see. I won't say no, but it's about being there. But then again you say to someone okay, to get to to a music festival, you're going to get on a bus for eight hours, you're going to camp in a in a freezing cold, muddy field and yeah, all this kind of stuff. And and you know they're going to be gaming on the sofa, going, oh, yeah, so we'll see. But I, I, but I hope Mark Cuban is right that it is about the being there and it's not about the Zoom calls and the metaverse.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, I agree. Just moving forward. Look, obviously events aren't possible without somebody to pay for them. With that in mind, how do you design your events and your experiences in a way that delivers ROI for brands and your partners?

Jasper Donat:

I think the way that we that's a very good question the way that we work with our partners is everyone is different. You know, I don't think anyone has ever looked at one of our sponsorship proposals and said, oh, can I have package B please? It's literally here's what I would like to achieve. Yeah, here are my objectives, here's my budget, here's, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then we set out to deliver it and really kind of go, whether it's, you know, tiny budget or a massive budget, we really want to deliver.

Jasper Donat:

We measure success on the sponsors coming back. Right, if they come back, it means that they've hit their objectives and stuff. There are certain things we can do for them and we will always go beyond, you know, to deliver. There's a lot of things we're not allowed to do that you know we're not allowed to. If we could share databases, our lives would be so easy. But you know there's obviously we absolutely stick to the rules and we never share data and all that stuff.

Jasper Donat:

But you know it's connecting people and making sure that they do meet people that they want to meet and that the brand is there and stuff. And you know, I would love it to be back in the 80s where it's all about having your brand on the backdrop and everyone goes oh look, coca-cola, I must have a Coca-Cola. But it's not that now. It is about you know, drilling down much further into you know, helping them drive in commerce and helping them build in their communities, and, and, and, and, and, and, and. So, yeah, we tend to have a lot of partners on our events for that reason. Yeah, it's not easy at all, but it's good to work with these people. Yeah.

Ian Carless:

Now, experiential is probably one of the big buzzwords and probably has been for a couple of years now. How do you find brands engaging with the whole experiential area?

Jasper Donat:

We're not so involved in that potential area. We're not so involved in that. I mean, I think, looking at what some of the experiences that are happening in you know those massive 360 degree domes and all that kind of stuff that's, that's amazing. I think brands becoming their own media is something that's very interesting, where you know that they're saying you know, do I need to be advertising on these platforms? I can work with influencers and sell my own stuff that way, or, you know, going straight to TikTok shop and stuff like that. But that's, that's less event driven. We would have them talking about that at our events.

Jasper Donat:

I think creating experiences with brands and for brands that are memorable, that's that's always going to be a big business, because they need to be live and in people's faces and not just online and stuff. It's not so much that we get involved in, though, but we do have people talking about it at our events. I mean, we do an event called Live Matters, which is about the live event industry, and we did it in a circus tent. We have a lot of fun, by the way. We did Live Matters in a circus tent. We have a lot of fun, by the way, we did Live Matters in a circus tent on the harbour in Hong Kong, brilliant, earlier this year with Michael Denmark. So the guy that I set branded up. He has a company called GEG in Hong Kong now he owns the big wheel there and he had the circus in town Brilliant.

Jasper Donat:

So, we did it in a circus tent. So, with all of the trapeze and everything hanging over everyone's heads, the chairs on stage, one was a pink dinosaur, one was a spaceman, one was a cat, it was circus stuff and it was just let's have fun, let's do something differently, and you know. So, yeah, we do have fun with stuff like that. We did cricket matters in New York Brilliant. That was only because the T20 was going on and in india were playing pakistan that week. But you know it was. It was amazing it wouldn't happen this week.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, you know, we, we we do try and think outside the box a little bit yeah, now, obviously, a lot of your events are based in asia, but you've recently ventured into the middle east with gaming matters. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Jasper Donat:

yeah, I mean, we've actually done. We've done a few events in the mina region over time. The first one we did was the YouTube Fan Fest, actually in Jeddah back in 2017, where we were, at the time, the second ever international event that was allowed, where there was no segregation between the in the audience, partnered with uh, with live nation and google, and it was a time when saudi was going through the first kind of change. You know, there was a wonderful coca-cola ad at the time where the father handed his car key to his daughter right and it won loads of awards and stuff, and so it was. It was just a time when, when saudi was going through amazing change and we and we did this incredible event in jeddah.

Jasper Donat:

And then, yeah, we we've done gaming matters in dubai for the last two years, celebrating everything to do with the gaming industry, working with the dubai uh economy and tourism government department around their esports festival, and that's a b2b event that takes place for a whole day, and we have an academy as well, teaching young gamers about the gaming business. And then in november last year, at the emirates sevens the dubai sevens we did rugby matters and and that was where, again, it was a half day event. We did it at the coca-cola arena in dubai, where we celebrated all things rugby, and I was very proud that the event I mean rugby was my sports. I'm as biased as hell, but I was. I was very proud that half the speakers were were women and half the audience was women. And also then discovering the Emirates Sevens and for the first time and what a multi-sport event it was it blew my mind away just seeing. It wasn't just about the rugby, it was the football and the netball and the cricket and the paddle and the what have you, and the fact that everyone there is doing something, is is playing, so everyone's in a shirt, of a sports shirt of some sort, whether you're 8 or 80. Yeah, absolutely loved it. So hopefully we'll be bringing that back again later this year as well.

Jasper Donat:

So so, watch this space. Yeah, we're very excited about what's happening in that part of the world. You know Saudi is doing a lot with music. The Middle Beast Festival is the biggest music festival in the world. The Riyadh Music Week I've been to it for a couple of years. The Esports World Cup is happening there now. Yeah, it's a very, very exciting, exciting time for that part of the world. So, yeah, it's a very, very exciting, exciting time for that part of the world. So, yeah, hopefully we'll be back quite a lot.

Ian Carless:

Now you obviously think that gaming's not going anywhere. I think you'd have to have been living under a rock to think it's not or to think it is sorry. So what made you venture into the gaming element, and where do you hope to go with that?

Jasper Donat:

That's a very good question. So we were approached originally by the Singapore government to ask if we could do an event for them. They were opening a, a gaming studio here and they said could we do an event for the gaming industry, the featured gamers and publishers and what have you? And, and they could bring some fans in as well. So so we, we got blown, blown away by the whole thing and then turned it into its own event and then merged it into the All that Matters event as well.

Jasper Donat:

And look, you know, gaming is a huge, huge industry. I mean, if you look at the numbers, you know there's some amazing facts where it's bigger than music and movie industry combined, but just by the number of eyeballs and stuff. Yeah, you know, it's. It's. Also there's no requirement on language. It'll just, you know, it doesn't have to be in English or in Chinese or in, in whatever it's, it's global, it's truly global. It's a flat, flat, digitally flat world. So so, doing gaming Madison, because they are promoting Mina as a global gaming hub, yeah, and so it's great to have so many people there, and I think somewhere like 70% of our audience were from overseas, because they wanted to come and learn about the region, yeah, and so yeah, hopefully more to come.

Ian Carless:

How important is localization then in these kind of events and in particular for the Mina region?

Jasper Donat:

I think it's becoming more and more important. You know, know, the pendulum swings from regional to local, global to regional to local and stuff, and at the moment, I think that you've got some mega markets opening up. We do a lot of stuff in india. At the moment, our biggest shareholder is an indian gaming company and so you know, I've been doing events in india for 30 years. I love it as a as a an event market, india is absolutely fantastic, and you look at what's happening at the moment the music site live music in India right now it's the gold at the end of the rainbow, coldplay doing their biggest show ever. Yeah, pretty cool, yeah. So, yeah, understanding those local markets is very important. A lot of it is being there. But at the same time, if you're going to learn about India, you need to learn about China and what's happening in Australia and what's happening in Japan and two thirds of the world's population, and then you add in MENA. It's pretty exciting.

Ian Carless:

Now we live in a part of the world that is fairly risk averse. How do you find this region in terms of clients being less or more risk tolerant than, say, for example, Asia, where you are?

Jasper Donat:

rules we have to, you know, in in many different ways and so, being very, very respectful to what we can and can't do, can't, can and can't say on stage, there are restrictions in singapore, that you know. If you're a music artist, you know you have to submit your lyrics and if the government say no, then you have to change your lyrics. Yeah, um, sometimes an artist will say no and say fine, we, we respect you, but that's the rules you know. And and yeah, indonesia is the same. Malaysia, china, you know, china, they actually will have someone. I don't know if it's still the case used to be that there would literally be someone on stage with you making sure that you sang the lyrics. So, for any rules and regulations that we face doing events in, whether it's jubai or saudi or whatever, we're absolutely, absolutely respectful to it.

Jasper Donat:

When we did the youtube fan fest in jeddah in 2017, this is when live music was not allowed in any format. Like you couldn't play music, and so we didn't necessarily agree with it, but we weren't going to argue with it. And also, we were told about a month out, because our audience was a mixed audience. This was very new to them. They said, oh, you can't have any women on stage, which you know that that is something that you know. I stand very much against that idea. However, again, we had to respect the rules, so we actually created it. In the afternoon, we did a YouTube fan fest for women only, right, so we could have the female creators and influencers on stage and their fans and the audience and that kind of stuff, and we're very proud of what we did, you know, again, not necessarily agreeing with the rules as as they were then.

Jasper Donat:

It's changed. Now there's a wonderful quote that the ceo of the music commission said that live music was banned. The only place you could sing in saudi was on a football terrace, right, and. But now there's women on stage in bands and men, everyone you know on. Live music is really kicking off and it's a really exciting market. So I think people do need to come to places like Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Riyadh or Jeddah and you don't go over the boundaries, don't put your foot anywhere near the boundaries, just stick to the rules and be respectful. You know, and so far, so great.

Ian Carless:

Okay, so before we wrap it up, let's let me just ask you a couple of quick fire questions.

Jasper Donat:

Shall we most underrated event role anyone, anyone, anyone who is on reception for any attendees turning up. Yeah, the people who, the people who welcome and the first people you meet, they have to have a big smile on their face and no problem is too big okay, one thing you'd ban at events.

Ian Carless:

Well, this is usually a good one.

Jasper Donat:

This what I ban at events, I don't know I there's nothing really. I mean, as long as someone's there and they're happy, then I'm happy, oh fair enough, fair enough that's that for a terrible answer yeah dreadful, but never mind, we'll roll with it, okay?

Ian Carless:

next big thing that you're looking at closely in terms of branded um, I do think we touched on ai earlier.

Jasper Donat:

I think that really understanding where we can win with ai going forward, where we can provide services that we wouldn't normally be able to provide, experiences that we wouldn't normally be able to provide for a bigger audience and a larger group, bigger communities and connections and stuff absolutely, like I said, translation software is a simple thing and really kind of exploring new markets, getting more content out there, yeah, and and hopefully still having more fun. You know I might be mid-50s but I still behave like an 18 year old and I don't.

Ian Carless:

I hope that never changes oh, you and me both, I think we were just chatting before the podcast, didn't we saying both our kids keep, keep complaining that we're bigger kids than they are.

Jasper Donat:

Long may that continue exactly the quote my daughter said to me when she was about 10 years old daddy, when you grow up will you be more serious, and I will take that absolutely as a success yeah, and we mentioned it at the top of the podcast, it is your 30th anniversary in asia this month, so here's one for you.

Ian Carless:

What advice would you ask a young jasper just arriving in asia and just getting started in the industry there 30 years ago?

Jasper Donat:

the, the main things, that one of the beautiful things about being an expat is that we're all in the same boat. So your friends are your family. Everyone really looks after each other. You know where are you going to live, what school are your kids going to go to and how can I open doors for you Stuff that would never happen, with all due respect, would never happen in New York or London. Would never happen in new york or london or sydney or major cities. Yeah, people put their arms around you and say, right, welcome to you. Know, I've lived in hong kong and singapore, welcome to hong kong, welcome to see your friends, your family, and they stay. They're friends for life. Yeah, and you may not see them for 10 years, but then when you're back with them again, it's's like, it's like it was like 10 weeks. So so I think I think you know your friends, your family.

Jasper Donat:

I think don't give up. You know, never, ever stop selling. Just keep, keep going. Don't be afraid of failure. You know things, things go wrong, they're going to go wrong, but just keep, keep on going. I think I need to learn how to hear the word no a bit better. I think that's something that Jasper needs to learn is you know, if someone says no, then don't do it. But yeah, I think, just don't give up, keep going and enjoy what you do, just do what you love. There you go, do what you love.

Ian Carless:

Speaking of things that you love. We ask everybody on the podcast this I know you're a music fan, obviously. Uh, so am I. What's on your playlist at the moment? Anything?

Jasper Donat:

before 1989 really showing your age now, mate oh, totally, no, no, no, the, the, the music world, died at 1989. No, I listened the. The 80s um are are something that that you know.

Ian Carless:

Yeah, and finally, what's next for yourself and Brandon?

Jasper Donat:

We've got a number of events coming up.

Jasper Donat:

There's a couple we haven't announced yet, so I can't talk about them. We're going to be in China and Australia in the next few weeks, but the big one coming up, of course, is All that Matters in Singapore September the 26th to October the 1st Music, sport, gaming, marketing, everything to do with entertainment all wrapped up under one roof, and then the Singapore Grand Prix takes place just after that. So it's a great, great time to be in Singapore, and Singapore is an amazing global business hub where you've got TikTok's global headquarters, you can walk from there to Facebook's headquarters and they're in the same building as Snap, and then you get a cab to YouTube in about 15 minutes. So it's a pretty amazing place. And then, yeah, I'll be back in Dubai towards the end of the year, as we were saying earlier, and really looking forward to that. Had such a great time at the Emirates 7. So, yeah, lots and lots coming up lots we can't talk about as well, but um, but yeah, and looking forward to being the same room as you brilliant.

Ian Carless:

Thanks very much for joining me on the podcast. It's been fun. Event news dxb is brought to you by warehouse four probably dubai's best independent event venue and and Minus 45 dB the team transforming noisy event spaces into slick, sound-reduced environments. The podcast 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. We'll see you next time.