Intelligent systems for events sector businesses
Grow your business, not your overheads.
We help established events sector businesses use intelligent systems to win more work and deliver it with less effort.
Agencies · Production · Exhibitions · Venues · Event technology · Staffing
Built by people who have scaled events businesses.
Our founder built Concise from a standing start into an event technology business with seven international offices, sold it to PSAV, now Encore, and ran digital for the group until 2023. Our implementation and sales systems leads each bring more than 20 years of delivery and commercial experience.
1996
Concise founded
7
International offices
2017
Acquired by PSAV, now Encore
Where the next gain is
Success creates its own workload.
Events businesses grow by doing great work and saying yes to show dates that cannot move. The systems get built along the way, by busy people, between deadlines. 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.
Peak season, without the strain
Spring and autumn stretch every team. When systems carry the routine work, you take on more in season without the long nights.
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.
These are the opportunities a review typically uncovers: specific, repeatable work that fills your team's week.
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 and first-draft responses built 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, drafted the 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, and cancellation exposure tracked.
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 contact, following up at the right moment and converting more of them, so the diary fills ahead of the quieter months.
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.
We know how events businesses make money and where the pressure falls: 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 mid-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 Concise in 1996 and spent 27 years building it, first as owner, then inside Encore as Group Director Digital. Offices from London and New York to Hong Kong and Johannesburg. Works with each client's leadership on where the commercial gain is.
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 sales systems implementations, 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
The Review
From £1,850
Fixed scope, fixed fee, agreed before we start.
What we do
Time with the people who do the work, a map of your systems and processes, and a baseline of what key tasks cost today.
What you receive
A written report and a prioritised plan: what to change, in what order, the cost of each step and the expected return.
What happens next
The plan is yours to act on, with us or without us. Implementation is a separate decision, priced from the plan.
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: personal accounts, client briefs pasted in, and nobody quite sure where the information goes. We put it on a footing your corporate clients will be comfortable with.
Business accounts only
We only deploy business AI services and configurations where your company data is not used to train 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, on accounts your company owns and controls.
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.
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.
Which AI tools do you use?
We choose technology to fit the problem, rather than starting with a preferred platform. Claude is often a strong choice for documents, company knowledge and business processes, and we also work with your existing systems and other AI and automation tools where they fit better.
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. Implementation and support are priced from the plan, so you see the cost and expected return before committing to anything further.
Get started
Book 30 minutes with Phil.
Tell us a little about your business and what is taking up too much time. We will explore whether there is a practical opportunity to improve how things work. If there is, the usual next step is a Review.
We are taking on a small number of founding clients this season, on preferential terms.
Or email hello@capstanscale.com