Intelligent systems for events sector businesses
Grow your business, not your overheads.
Capstan Scale works with established events sector businesses. We review how the business runs today, build a practical plan to improve it with intelligent systems, put it in place, train your team and keep it working.
Agencies · Production · Exhibitions · Venues · Event technology · Staffing
Founding clients
Where the next gain is
Success creates its own workload.
Events businesses grow by doing great work and saying yes, usually to show dates that cannot move. The systems get built along the way, by busy people, between one deadline and the next. That is how good firms get established. It is also where the next gain is.
Your experience is in your spreadsheets
Every event leaves behind budgets, supplier lists and run sheets. Put to work, that history makes each new event quicker to plan.
Your best people are stretched
The people who win the work also write every proposal. Give them a head start and they get time back for the client.
Your tools could do more together
Most firms already pay for good software. Connected properly, it stops the same information being entered three times.
Your network deserves a system
Relationships win work in this industry. A simple, well-kept pipeline makes sure none of them go cold.
Revenue that outpaces cost
When routine work takes less time, revenue can rise faster than cost, and margin finally moves.
Peak season, without the strain
Spring and autumn stretch every team. When systems carry the routine work, you can take on more in season without relying on long nights and extra freelancers.
What we do
Review. Plan. Implement. Train. Measure. Maintain.
One team takes you from how things work now to how they should work, and stays to keep it that way.
In practice
Where AI earns its keep in an events business.
The value is in specific, repeatable work: the tasks that fill your team's week and could be giving them time back for clients.
Across your events
Proposals and pitches
First drafts from a client brief, in your house style, drawing on past work.
Tenders and RFPs
Compliance checklists, scoring criteria and first-draft responses built quickly from your previous winning bids.
Budgets and costings
Supplier quotes compared side by side, with budgets built and checked against final actuals.
Late changes
When a brief changes late, budgets, supplier orders and client paperwork all update together.
Client reporting
Post-event reports and ROI figures for your client's board, drafted the very next morning.
Across your business
Profitability by event type
Quoted against actual by event type, client and season, showing which work really pays.
Trends and forecasting
Booking patterns, seasonality and pipeline turned into a forward view of revenue and capacity.
Supplier spend
Spend with each supplier across the year, so you negotiate from the full picture.
Contracts and risk
Venue and supplier terms checked before signing, with cancellation exposure tracked across the year.
Knowledge that stays
Notes, handovers and event lessons kept together, so the business retains everything it learns.
Business development
Turn strong relationships into a steady pipeline.
Most events businesses win work through relationships, and that is a real strength. The right tools make it repeatable: finding the next relationship, following up at the right moment and converting more of them, so the diary fills ahead of the quieter months. We put in place the stack a business development team needs, and help your team get the most from it.
Who we work with
Built for established events businesses with room to grow.
Typically owner-led, ambitious, and growing faster than the systems behind it.
- Event and experiential agencies
- Production and AV companies
- Exhibitions and stand design
- Event technology providers
- Event staffing agencies
- Venues and corporate hospitality
We work best with businesses that
- Want gains in time and margin they can measure.
- See this as ongoing improvement rather than a one-off workshop.
- Want a competitive edge without adding overhead.
Why Capstan Scale
Events people first, technologists second.
Our founder, Phil O'Brien, built an event technology business from a standing start to seven international offices, sold it to a global event production group, and stayed on to run its digital division. Rob and Jo both worked in that business, delivering complex technical projects and leading major client accounts. Today they lead the teams who implement our work with clients.
We know how events businesses make money and where the pressure falls: a show date that cannot move, a brief that changes the week before, and a team that is busiest exactly when there is least time to fix the back office. We also know what a team will and won't adopt in the middle of a busy season.
Why Capstan
A capstan is the drum sailors used to haul anchors and heavy lines. It lets a small crew move a load far heavier than its own strength.
That is the job: giving a strong team far more pull for the same effort.
The leadership team
Phil O'Brien
Founder
Founded event technology business Concise in 1996 and built it into an international business with seven offices, from London and New York to Hong Kong and Johannesburg. Sold it to PSAV, now Encore, in 2017, then led digital for the group until 2023.
LinkedIn
Rob Purton
Implementation Lead
More than 20 years in events. Founded and ran an events and installations business for 16 years, then led complex event technology projects at Concise and Encore, most recently as Projects Leader UK in Global Technical Support. Leads process discovery and implementation.
LinkedIn
Jo Merriman
Sales Systems Lead
More than 20 years across client services, commercial operations and business development, leading strategic accounts and guiding teams through growth, integration and acquisition. Leads CRM and business development implementations for clients' sales teams, and mentors on Elevate, the events industry mentoring programme.
LinkedInHow we work together
The heavy lifting happens once.
Typical timeline for a 30-person events agency
Review
Weeks 1 to 3, baseline set
Plan
Week 4, signed off
Implement
Weeks 5 to 12
Train
Weeks 8 to 14
Measure
Week 16, first results
Maintain
Month 4 onwards
An example, not a template. Every plan is scheduled around your own event calendar.
Step one
Review
From £1,850. Fixed scope and fixed fee, agreed upfront, including a baseline of how the business performs today. You keep the findings and the plan whether or not we go further.
Step two
Plan and proposal
We devise the plan and present it to you: what changes, in what order, at what cost and with what return. Nothing starts until you sign it off.
Step three
Implementation
One focused project, scheduled around your calendar, with clear measures of success agreed before work starts.
Step four
Training
Your team learns on their own work, with sessions for permanent staff and the freelancers who join for the busy months.
Step five
Results
We measure the same tasks against the baseline and report the return, so you decide what comes next with the numbers in front of you.
Step six
Support as you grow
A monthly or quarterly retainer that keeps everything current, adds new uses as the business grows, and trains new joiners and seasonal staff.
Security and governance
AI is only as safe as the way it is set up.
In most businesses, AI arrived before anyone decided how it should be used. People sign up on personal accounts, paste in client briefs and budgets, and nobody is quite sure where that information goes.
It is an understandable start. It is not a footing any corporate client would be comfortable with. We put it on a proper one.
Business accounts only
Every tool runs on accounts your company owns. Access ends when someone leaves, and your data never trains public models.
Due diligence on every tool
Before we recommend anything, we check where data is stored, who can see it and what the supplier's terms really say.
Client data kept private
Clear rules on what goes into which tool, so client briefs, budgets and delegate data stay exactly where they belong.
Access matched to the role
Staff, freelancers and seasonal crew see what they need and nothing more. Access is removed the day the job ends.
Data protection built in
Set up with UK GDPR in mind, with a written record of what each tool holds, who can use it and why it is needed.
Ready for client scrutiny
Corporate clients now ask suppliers how they use AI. You will have a clear written answer for their procurement team.
Questions
What clients usually ask first.
Do we need to replace our existing systems?
Rarely. Most of the gain comes from connecting and simplifying what you already use. Where something should go, the plan says so and shows why.
What about client confidentiality and data?
We set tools up on business accounts that do not use your data to train models, document who can access what, and agree data handling with you before anything is connected.
Do we need technical people in-house?
No. We build and maintain it. Your team simply uses it day to day, and the training is designed to make that easy.
Why Claude?
It is strong at the writing, analysis and document work events businesses run on, and it works directly with everyday files and tools. Where another tool suits a job better, we use that instead.
How quickly will we see a difference?
The plan is ordered so the first changes land early, in the areas where your team loses the most time, and ideally before your next peak season.
What does it cost?
The first conversation is free. The review starts from £1,850, a fixed fee agreed before we start. Implementation and support are priced from the plan, so you know the cost and the expected return before you commit to anything further.
Get started
Start with a conversation.
A free 30-minute call about where time goes in your business. If a review makes sense, we will set out the scope and fee. If it does not, we will say so.
We are taking on a small number of founding clients this season, on preferential terms.
Or email hello@capstanscale.com