Director and Co-Owner of the Big Purple Group, Sam Gordon, gives us a peek behind the purple curtain at the event production business.
Hi Sam! Tell us about Big Purple Group.
We’re a family-run business based in the North East with four companies under the Big Purple Group umbrella: Big Purple Productions, which specialises in live event production and audio visual; Big Purple Capture, experts in streaming, videography, photography, and editing; Big Purple Events, which offers bespoke room dressing and prop building; and the Big Mic Ball – a patented throwable microphone.
How did you get involved with the business?
I was a freelance technician for over ten years and had worked with Big Purple for a while before I was given the opportunity to come in and buy out the owner with my cousin. Since buying Big Purple Productions five or six years ago, we’ve rapidly grown the businesses and the group.
What does a typical day/week look like for you?
Every day looks different from the last, so it’s difficult to give a usual schedule! Generally, my week starts on a Monday morning where we have a team meeting at 9am to go through any jobs from the previous week, go over any kit issues we may have had, and discuss anything that needs to be tackled in the upcoming week. I then usually go to meetings with both new and existing clients and work on proposals for them.
My role mainly consists of getting the work, selling the events to clients, and creating the concepts. Our other director does a lot of designing and the fine-tuning – I often joke that I’m a glorified salesman! It’s a good fit though. Once the work has been secured, sometimes I’ll go on the rigs so I can make sure that our techs are happy – this is also a good way to see clients and liaise with them on-site – and I’ll help out where I’m needed as well.
How does the event creative process work?
When we first speak with a client, a lot of the time they already have their vision, theme, and initial ideas for their event – sometimes with a budget and sometimes without. I go away and create a concept based on their thought processes and give them a couple of different options. I tend to offer an all-singing, all-dancing option with bespoke builds, new tech, and go all out, or a budget concept that will still look fantastic and do the job but is a more cost-effective solution.
Once the client is happy with their choice, I sit down with my set designers and tech team and brief them on what needs to be built and included in the kit list for a smooth, stress-free event for our client.
What do you really love about the job?
For me, it has to be the freedom to create. A lot of clients tend to trust me to come up with the concepts, as they might have a general theme in mind, but they often just let me run wild and have free reign from a design perspective. It’s really nice to see my rough ideas on paper be completed and come to life and see delegates be wowed by what has been created; getting good feedback will never get old.