Inside Event Security: How Screening Tech Is Changing Festivals & Stadiums

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Hello everybody, welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast
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with me, James Dixon, wishing you all a very good morning, afternoon, or evening,
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wherever or whenever you join today's podcast from.
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And on today's podcast, talking all things security,
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my guest today is the first time, a first-time guest on the podcast
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and a company that I must admit before today's recording I wasn't familiar
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with. So as always on the podcast, we hope to find out a little bit
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more about both our guest and our company before we get into the conversation
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about event security, how it's evolved, where it
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stands at the moment, how technology indeed is probably shaping the security
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that we deploy at our events, and probably more
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besides that. So I'm delighted to say that joining the podcast for the first time
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is the Business Support Director for Detectnology UK,
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Mia Moles. Mia, a very good morning to you. Welcome to the podcast.
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Morning. Um, did I say that correctly? Deteknoloji?
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Yes, we hear a lot of funny versions. That was quite tame,
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actually. Okay, yeah, I know, I bet, I bet.
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It seems obvious, but I think I said to her, not— it's not always,
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you know, you— we've had so many, so many different
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company names and things on here that I think, oh, that's how to pronounce it,
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and I'm wildly wrong. So Deteknoloji UK, let's find out a
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little bit more about you first of all, Mia, if we can. Tell us a
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little bit about yourself, what you do, um, in the company. Of course.
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So business support director probably isn't a very typical role.
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It's one that we adapted more for an American structure, which basically
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gives me the access to all different arms of the company. So I dip
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my finger in sales a little bit, more heavily so in operations. I'm kind of
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aware of the financial goings-on, but it's not my core responsibility.
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And yeah, just looking to improve the business in any way we can, whether it
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be processes, product offerings, customer service, trying to
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make sure everything runs smoothly and kind of the tie that pulls it together,
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if you will. Yeah, but more and more companies, we're seeing more and more
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of these roles, aren't we? Just before we get into the actual company, but,
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you know, people who really have an idea of what's happening in every single department
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because you need to have that overview as a business. You need to be able
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to see what's, what's happening and all those different aspects really pull it together.
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So let's get into the technology and what the company actually does.
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So we provide security screening equipment, and it's that simple. We provide
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only the hardware, the technology. We don't get involved with the operators.
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We would always recommend that be somebody separate for validity
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purposes as much as anything. So we provide screening solutions for people,
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bags, vehicles, explosive and narcotics, whatever it
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is that you're looking to find. If you're willing to use technology to do it,
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9 times out of 10, we'll have a product that will help you.
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And, and how long is— I'm curious to know how long the company has actually
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been in existence and how this correlates maybe with developments over the
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last couple of decades. Of course, about 36 years now. I think we're
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about to go into our 37th, um, with the name change along the
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way. So we've been D-Technology since 2013. Fun plan was
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their detection technology, get it together, and you get D-Technology.
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Um, so our founder saw a lot of screening equipment when he was
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living out in the US And this is, you know, pre-7/7,
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pre-9/11. It was not something that we really had in the UK so heavily,
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pretty much just at airports. And even then, you can't compare what we see in
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an airport today versus what we saw in an airport, you know, almost 40 years
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ago. Absolutely. Um, so personal circumstances
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meant that he moved back to the UK from the US and found
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himself in a bit of a rut and kind of didn't know what the direction
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of his life was going to be, didn't know what to do, and was reading
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a newspaper and saw that there'd been a threat on a nightclub and thought,
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I know what could help this, this technology that we saw in America.
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So he reached out to the gentleman that was in charge of it over there
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that he'd met whilst living out there and said, I need to buy a machine.
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And, uh, at the time these machines are very heavy,
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very tall, and he had it over the sofa in his living room.
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Yeah. And, uh, just bought one and used to rent a Luton van, driving it
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around trying to— well, I love that.
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Starts— and when he's, you know, it's interesting that you say proved that it
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was needed because it's always— I don't know if chicken
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and egg is the right sort of phrase to use, but, um,
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you know, questions often asking, are we in, you know,
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are there more security threats now than there were 36
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years ago, or are we just more aware of them? You know,
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uh, is our awareness changed? Has the threat level gone
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up. And it's probably a combination of all those things, I guess, that,
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that contribute to attitudes towards security today, particularly in events.
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Yeah, I think the truth somewhere is in the middle. Ironically enough, one of the
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first customers of this company was a large nightclub chain. Um,
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they accepted the need for these items before courts.
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The courts were the next client that we onboarded, but we had nightclubs first.
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And when I say we the company rather than myself. I wasn't here back then.
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Um, but it's, it's a mixture of things. It's— there is more
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threats, and there's a lot of more kind of people who will act
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as lone wolves now. They don't need dependence on numbers like they used to years
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ago. And without going too much into it, there's many ways
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nowadays with the evolution of technology in general to find out how to
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do things that you wouldn't have been available to the average person on the street
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40 years ago. Well, of course, yeah, that's an
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important point to make when, when you're, you know, addressing security
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and risk, uh, you know, risk of threat and,
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and all the rest of it, is that, you know, our ideologies,
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you know, have, have changed and developed. But,
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you know, arguably some ideologies have always been there,
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but people's access to information and how to act
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on a particular instinct has changed significantly,
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hasn't it? So you're quite right to highlight that because that's where threat levels change
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is people's ability to act on, on things. Um,
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so go on, sorry. No, I was saying exactly,
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and in the same token, we're more aware of it now because we have access
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to those same means. So it really is, as you say, chicken egg's
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probably a good term. It's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
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Is it going on more? Perhaps. Is it because ideologies have
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changed? Probably not really. People just used to be comfortable to have those ideologies in
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their living room with the door closed, and now they can have them on Twitter,
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which sparks other things. For the same token, we hear about everything
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that happens because there's a constant news cycle, you know, worldwide that everybody
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has access to. When it comes to the actual hardware itself,
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I, I mean, one of the things that I was keen to ask this morning
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straight away is sort of one of the first things was how much of it
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is about detecting potential
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threats. So, you know, you, you said you deal with the hardware, so it's,
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it's scanning equipment bags, scanning people, scanning, you know, identifying are they carrying objects
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that they shouldn't be carrying Um, you know, knife crime
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is huge. We have to sort of— we can't sort of skirt around that.
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Knife crime is an issue. It's, it's been a growing issue for the last few
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decades in this country. So no doubt some of the hardware that you're providing is,
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is looking to, um, to detect, you know, elements and
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objects like that. But how much of it is also a deterrent, a visual
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deterrent to stop people rather than actually catching them with those items?
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How much of deployment of your type of hardware in any circumstance,
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but particularly events it is about giving that visual deterrent to people
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to say, look, we've got these things in place, so don't
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even think about it. That's totally up to the organizer or
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the venue, because the equipment, the technology exists now that if you wanted to,
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you could have it on a very high level of sensitivity and detect everything,
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right? Not many people do that. There's not many environments where that's needed.
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You know, you don't need to feel like you're going to an airport to go
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to a concert. There's environments where it's totally necessary and they deploy it in that
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way, but this is the same equipment. You can change sensitivities on
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the same pieces of equipment. We've had clients say, I don't
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care if it alarms on everybody, I want to search everybody, I need to see
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what happens. And we've had clients say, I actually want to go
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for this older piece of kit because people are more used to seeing it,
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and seeing these old-fashioned mag arches, a line of them in front
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of my venue, acts as security theatre, and that's enough for me. Me. So it
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totally— theater, that's a great— that's a— that's a new— I've not
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heard that term before, security theater. So we worked with a venue
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that was, uh, it's quite a new-built venue, and the head of
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security there, one of his main— and he's a very well-respected
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gentleman in the industry, he knows about all of the emerging technologies, and he was
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very clear, I'm going for, you know, what was groundbreaking 10
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years ago because I want to see— I want people to see,
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recognize that it's screening And you often find
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that when people see that, they'll go to the bush and throw their knife away,
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and you never get to that point of confrontation at the door, at the perimeter.
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Your security staff never have the sometimes awkward,
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uncomfortable, and unsafe interaction of removing a knife from somebody.
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There's lots of different ways to run security these days, and that's
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an ever-growing popular way to do it now is with security theatre.
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When the team at Deteknoloji are talking to new clients,
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how many of them are not aware of what you've just said, that there are
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actually different levels that you can actually set certain pieces of hardware?
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How many of them think that basically you just turn it on and it will
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do its job? About 15%.
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And I say that because our business is quite evenly split. 50%,
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uh, 30% sales, so permanent deployments,
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30%-ish maintenance.
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And that will be in any kind— anywhere that you see this equipment, um,
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we most likely maintain it. So we do preventative maintenance and remedial works on
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it. And then you have 30%, which is the hire market, the short-term hires for
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events. And of that market, I'd say about half, so 15%
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of the overall business, are unaware of the capabilities of this screening equipment.
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You've got some people that have been in the industry for a long time and
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worked on your bigger events that have had to have security for many years now.
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And then you've got people last year, particularly this year, and definitely
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from next year, who've never had to worry about security that will now
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need to due to different changes in regulations. And it doesn't mean they have to
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deploy technology because they don't— nowhere in Martin's Law does it state, and it's
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important to be clear on that, that you have to have screening technology. There's a
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lot of people spreading misinformation on LinkedIn or calling themselves experts. It's not necessary.
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The only thing that they're going to state is necessary is
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to search, and one way to do that efficiently and
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whilst maintaining guest experience is to use technology. There is other ways
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to do that too. And, and, and something
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that has popped into my head again, just from what you've explained,
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are there— you talked about security theater and having solutions
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that, you know, traditional archways, you know, big visible things that people
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know, all right, that is a security archway and I'm going to get scanned,
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I'm going to go through that. Are there now covert options as
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well? Can— is it— is there hardware that can be deployed where people don't even
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realize they're walking through it? Exactly. So our new kind of— the
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new mass threat detection systems in the industry at the moment mean you can just
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walk free-flowing, 2 people together, mother and child.
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You don't have to stop and go one by one, um, and you wouldn't know
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you're being screened. You can keep small bags on you. They even make x-rays
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that you can put your bag on now that the belt goes the same speed
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as you walk and you grab it on the other end and you'll never— in
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that case, you know you'll put it on an x-ray, but, um, you'll only ever
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be stopped if it finds something. And that's not an operator sat doing that,
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that's now AI because the industry is constantly changing.
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You obviously then use an operator for secondary search. It just means that
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when they're looking, they have a better idea of where to look.
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And because we're all human, inevitably we get tired,
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things get missed, particularly sometimes in this industry with late night work and
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pressure and days and everyone coming to the gate at the same time. It kind
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of just adds a layer of reliability because,
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you know, as the strongest part of every security system is the people,
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we are also the weakest part. Interesting. Yeah,
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you, you mentioned AI there, and when it comes to sort of linking
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people and the technology and the hardware together, you know, when I think about,
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you know, events, you know, events will always— most
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events will have some sort of ticketing process. If it's a public event, a concert,
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live music event, there'll be a ticketing process. If it's a, a big trade
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show, you know, a business convention, something like that, there'll be a registration system
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in place where you collect your badge, you have to have a badge to enter.
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So you've kind of got these ticketing/registration systems
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depending on the nature of the event. How integrated
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now is the technology, the hardware technology that you would deal
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with, with things like ticketing technology, with badging technology?
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What are the difficulties in terms of linking up these sort of different systems nowadays?
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There are manufacturers that are trying to get there. I've not
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seen anything in real life in this country yet that achieves that.
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Right. Um, what we can achieve is we work with
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a particularly large festival organization
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group. They put on multiple festivals every year and they give away tickets
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on the radio and they upgrade people's tickets. And before deploying our technology, they never
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had a way to confidently say X amount of people entered the venue
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because people were scanning tickets twice. The ticket got upgraded on the door. Is that
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2 people? Is that 1? What our equipment can do is, while screening you,
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count out footfall. Right, so you get that accurate idea
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of how many people actually passed the threshold, each machine, how many people got
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in. And then from that you can see trends. What was the busiest
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hour for ingress? When did most people leave? You can
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get all of these other metrics that then help with the general kind of running
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of the festival. Um, getting people in quickly,
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they are a lot happier. The first experience is nice.
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And on venues where we've deployed that technology, their bar spend has gone up.
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For example, you know, it's different, different ways to
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measure. I'd never considered that the security elements of
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the hardware could actually be utilized at that. And of course, it makes complete
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sense when you explain it like you just have done. But, you know, I guess
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what you say, irrespective of ticket, even from a product,
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even the production entrances for crew, for staff, for people who
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are working on site, if everybody's got to pass through some form of security screening
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to get on site, then irrespective of who you are, what your ticket says,
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what your badge says, what your wristband says. You're just— you
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can't— you can count physical bodies in. Exactly.
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And more so now, we are seeing the security perimeter
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be established days before setup commences, and our equipment is then typically
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the first thing to go in, also with sporting events. And then they screen every
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member of staff for build and break for that site, and it keeps the site
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secure because you set up a perimeter if your festival's in a park But
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then think how many people come and go to set up the stage, microphone boxes,
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all these different things. There could be a breach.
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And, you know, again, many years ago that wasn't something people had to worry about,
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but the reality of where we are today is— is every festival at
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risk? No. Is the country,
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the world, in a constant state of knowing there is going to
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be an incident, an attack, whatever you want to call it, and not knowing
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when? Yes. We've always been that way, we just talk about it more
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now. And I think we've seen so many incidents recently, particularly in this country,
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and access to knives has, you know, there's been an ongoing issue around
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how people can access knives so easily, underage people. There's— it's highly publicized,
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and I think the government has rightfully so decided that it's time to put some
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kind of regulation in place to ensure that people can feel
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safe, because that's a lot of it as well. You want to go somewhere,
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you want to feel safe. Yeah.
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Does the technology detect contraband as well? When I say contraband, I mean,
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you know, obviously we've spoken, we've used the word knife
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on here a few times now about detecting objects and, you know, weapons and things
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like that. Does the hardware actually detect things like drugs?
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The ones you walk through yourself? No, that's a secondary
16:31.190 --> 16:33.560
screening level. So we have that equipment Um,
16:34.699 --> 16:38.258
we've only seen really this year we've had interest from festivals about
16:38.758 --> 16:41.818
deploying that, I think, where they predict they're going to particularly have issues.
16:42.556 --> 16:45.426
Um, what we've seen a lot of people do is have dogs. If the dogs
16:45.458 --> 16:49.355
identify a person, they'll then use our equipment to confirm
16:49.467 --> 16:52.674
the presence of contraband, narcotics, whatever it might be.
16:53.315 --> 16:57.452
But we don't have access to, that I'm aware of in this country,
16:57.645 --> 17:00.531
anything that you can walk through and it will detect drugs on you.
17:01.318 --> 17:04.625
Okay, that's interesting. So tell me about statistically,
17:05.332 --> 17:08.640
you've already mentioned that the hardware that you deploy on event
17:09.140 --> 17:13.023
sites can be used for generating all sorts of metrics, you know, not least counting
17:13.055 --> 17:16.154
people on site. But taking it back to the actual
17:16.427 --> 17:20.425
subject of security, in the last decade, for example,
17:20.505 --> 17:24.231
have you seen statistically your hardware detecting, are there
17:24.731 --> 17:28.179
more logged incidents uh, at events that you have got
17:28.371 --> 17:31.965
hardware deployed at where they have detected weapons,
17:32.542 --> 17:36.072
objects, things that have been confiscated from people? Uh, you know,
17:36.264 --> 17:38.702
is that statistically something you can see a trend of?
17:39.777 --> 17:43.242
Yes. So out of all the hardware we offer, only 2 of the
17:43.852 --> 17:48.167
types of equipment machinery have a process where after screening,
17:48.761 --> 17:51.905
the security officer selects what has been found
17:51.953 --> 17:54.135
on the person or if it was a random alarm.
17:55.161 --> 17:58.753
That's uploaded to a database and then security officers
17:59.010 --> 18:01.752
and analysts look at that to see how they can improve the machine.
18:02.217 --> 18:05.777
But other pieces of equipment like your standard x-rays and archways, we would never know.
18:06.483 --> 18:09.915
We have feedback from clients that it's good, but as we're not always on
18:10.415 --> 18:13.635
site for the events, it's quite hard to say. What I can say from personal
18:14.135 --> 18:18.318
experience is I've been to a lot of trials at Premier League football clubs,
18:18.575 --> 18:21.924
at events, be it sporting or music,
18:22.680 --> 18:26.685
and we've seen the presence of our
18:26.717 --> 18:30.127
machinery leading to people disregarding items before they even get to the perimeter.
18:31.620 --> 18:35.722
We, when we're doing a trial, will always have kind of a box, our version
18:36.222 --> 18:38.689
of an amnesty box if you will, where you can surrender the item before it
18:39.189 --> 18:42.478
gets to the point that you would be screened. I know some events have that
18:42.526 --> 18:45.734
as well, but we see a difference. Whether it's across
18:46.234 --> 18:48.718
every event, it's hard to say without being there, and I definitely can't give a
18:49.568 --> 18:53.371
reliable statistic on that. No, sure, sure. Um, in terms
18:53.871 --> 18:56.628
of sort of the public perception side of things, I appreciate that you're not the
18:56.644 --> 18:59.467
organizer, and an organizer ultimately is going to know their,
18:59.676 --> 19:02.708
their audience. But as a company who are working in this industry,
19:03.286 --> 19:08.067
how do you, do you perceive the public's interpretation
19:08.115 --> 19:11.388
of, of security when they're going through airports,
19:11.629 --> 19:14.647
into football stadiums, into sports arenas, into concerts,
19:14.711 --> 19:18.435
into events. Um, are we becoming
19:18.532 --> 19:22.127
more accustomed to this, and are we generally happy that this is happening now
19:22.144 --> 19:26.028
because we feel safer? Or do you see sort of public— have you experienced
19:26.528 --> 19:29.464
or seen public pushback from this, saying, why do we need all of this?
19:30.026 --> 19:33.156
What's, what's kind of your own feeling about it as a company working in that
19:33.656 --> 19:37.603
sector? People are becoming more and more accustomed to it, and actually they
19:37.860 --> 19:41.200
from what we see, they expect it. Um, I know I expect
19:41.700 --> 19:44.620
it when I go to a festival, when I buy a ticket and I want
19:45.120 --> 19:47.125
to go and see live music. I expect it. And if I don't go through
19:47.625 --> 19:51.011
security, I feel on edge. Now, I'm slightly different. I'm probably slightly more paranoid.
19:51.075 --> 19:54.865
I see a lot of this world that maybe the general public don't. But even
19:54.897 --> 19:58.430
going with friends and family, people expect to see
19:58.930 --> 20:02.043
it now. And, um, interestingly, we recently ran some polls on LinkedIn because we were
20:02.543 --> 20:06.185
curious as to what the feedback would be on our company page, and quite
20:06.217 --> 20:09.652
a few people seem to agree. I think people would find it extremely
20:09.684 --> 20:13.183
tedious if we had, you know, aviation-level security at every festival.
20:13.520 --> 20:17.228
But yeah, I think there should
20:17.728 --> 20:20.101
be proportionate security for the event, and I think most of the general public would
20:20.601 --> 20:23.600
agree. Yeah, and I think it comes back to sort of, you know,
20:24.387 --> 20:27.228
a common sort of way of thinking, which is if you've got nothing to hide,
20:27.260 --> 20:30.278
why would you be worried about it? You know, personally,
20:30.631 --> 20:33.809
if I'm going somewhere and I have to go through any form of security process
20:34.082 --> 20:37.154
then I think, great, they're working hard to,
20:37.235 --> 20:40.679
to keep me safe, and I've got nothing to hide, so I'm
20:40.711 --> 20:43.507
more than happy to participate. And so I,
20:43.651 --> 20:47.026
I'm always curious about people who sort of push back against this, and,
20:47.669 --> 20:51.301
um, you know, have they got something to hide? If you've got— if you
20:51.801 --> 20:55.054
think it's sort of, you know, reducing your freedom
20:55.151 --> 20:58.938
somehow, um, I'm, I'm not quite sure how to interpret
20:59.438 --> 21:02.502
people who think along those routes, because, you know, inevitably we live in a world
21:03.002 --> 21:06.290
where people— some certain people do want to cause other people harm,
21:06.627 --> 21:09.400
um, whether that's on a mass scale or a one-to-one scale.
21:09.528 --> 21:12.557
So anything that kind of helps us be a little bit safer,
21:12.894 --> 21:15.971
my own inclination is that I'm happy to participate. And, um,
21:16.564 --> 21:20.123
yeah, I, I'm curious to sort of observe people when they're going through stuff like
21:20.187 --> 21:23.536
this and, and see how they take it. Yeah, I totally agree.
21:23.601 --> 21:27.207
And I think what people don't realize is that a lot of these larger events,
21:28.024 --> 21:31.502
there are con ops going on and there are trained security officers
21:31.566 --> 21:34.948
watching how people react to the machines before they even go through it. Because as
21:34.997 --> 21:38.636
you say, that's a massive part of it. And that's why it's so important
21:38.685 --> 21:41.972
to understand if you're running or organizing any kind of event,
21:43.094 --> 21:46.638
this technology isn't your be-all and end-all. It needs to be integrated
21:47.138 --> 21:50.774
with good policies and procedures, a good team, you know, other measures.
21:51.031 --> 21:54.094
It shouldn't just be, oh, well, we've got some archways on the door, there's no
21:54.594 --> 21:57.605
knives in, we're fine. No, you know, you should still have people walking around,
21:57.685 --> 22:00.652
boots on the ground observing. You still need to have your showstop procedures. You still
22:01.152 --> 22:04.708
need to have all of these other things in place. It's not— I
22:04.756 --> 22:07.882
think for a long time people looked at perimeter security
22:08.507 --> 22:12.050
as very isolated, and it's not. And it works best, and the people
22:12.550 --> 22:16.105
have— with the strongest security have it all integrated together. There's different layers.
22:17.180 --> 22:20.786
And I think people— what we most commonly see, people don't
22:20.850 --> 22:24.201
like machines where there's visible cameras because what they don't want is
22:24.233 --> 22:28.577
their image being taken, or, you know. But there's very strict
22:28.770 --> 22:31.994
government guidance around GDPR. These machines
22:32.494 --> 22:36.181
are automated to only hold images if the unit has alarmed, which can
22:36.681 --> 22:40.192
be cleared by the operator who searches you if there's nothing on you. And only
22:40.692 --> 22:44.202
at the point where you had something particularly dangerous would this image be shared
22:44.702 --> 22:47.010
with the control room, and the control room then have to make the decision if
22:47.510 --> 22:52.015
they want to share it with law enforcement. But that is no different to CCTV,
22:52.464 --> 22:55.159
which by the way is on most of the public streets in London.
22:56.220 --> 22:59.451
So exactly, exactly. We're surrounded by
22:59.951 --> 23:02.989
it, aren't we? And it's what you've just said there, and the way that you
23:03.489 --> 23:06.949
phrased it suggests to me that as a business you have to stay,
23:08.632 --> 23:12.465
you know, intrinsically up to date to the absolute second.
23:12.773 --> 23:15.004
You must be checking this. You must have people in the business who are checking
23:15.423 --> 23:18.731
legislation, guidance, GDPR regulations,
23:18.747 --> 23:22.765
sort of almost on a daily, I dare say weekly basis, to make sure that
23:23.088 --> 23:26.610
you can then offer that advice and guidance back to your own clients. You must
23:27.110 --> 23:30.448
have to stay completely up to date with it in order to retain viability
23:30.948 --> 23:34.382
within the industry. 100%. And it's a massive— here, that sits under
23:34.882 --> 23:37.577
our ops team. It's a massive part of what they do. So the same people
23:37.609 --> 23:40.788
that are scheduling these works and arranging delivery of
23:40.820 --> 23:43.871
these machines, before they even get to the stage of booking a vehicle
23:44.371 --> 23:47.821
and having it delivered, know that it's fully compliant, know that
23:47.869 --> 23:51.532
there's going to be no kind of issues with legality or anything like that.
23:53.251 --> 23:56.738
Is there, is there any sort of training or guidance that
23:57.284 --> 24:01.054
is deployed by your team to event organizers, for example? Because I'm
24:01.070 --> 24:04.703
guessing that people may stop and ask questions about this when they're going into
24:05.833 --> 24:08.700
any given location, whether that's a sports stadium or,
24:09.143 --> 24:12.338
you know, a festival, whatever it may be. If the public are going to ask
24:12.838 --> 24:16.279
questions, what they want is to be able to give some sort
24:16.779 --> 24:20.669
of response. So is— are there briefings? What— how do your team brief the
24:21.169 --> 24:24.348
clients? Of course. So somebody engages
24:24.380 --> 24:27.981
with us, they either know what they want or they have no idea what they
24:27.997 --> 24:30.677
want, and it's normally that polar of opposites. Okay.
24:31.388 --> 24:34.149
Either way, whatever it is, we first of all will have a call with them,
24:35.663 --> 24:38.351
really get to understand what they need if it's our first time working with them.
24:38.883 --> 24:42.006
And if they've not seen the equipment we're suggesting, we always invite them down
24:42.506 --> 24:44.163
to our warehouses to see it. So we've got a demo room in our Midlands
24:44.663 --> 24:48.430
warehouse in Stratford-upon-Avon. We have got one of every piece of equipment
24:48.930 --> 24:52.586
ready to go at all times. Come down, bring what you're looking to find.
24:52.939 --> 24:56.614
We encourage you to test it, you know, bring the items that you expect
24:57.114 --> 24:58.781
to be an issue on your site, or if it's not your first year,
24:58.797 --> 25:01.894
know are an issue on your site, and let's find them. And as part of
25:01.991 --> 25:05.345
that, we will really explain to those people in the room
25:05.377 --> 25:08.811
how this works. We have to be quite careful because it's not something we
25:09.311 --> 25:11.556
can, you know, put on a website or on LinkedIn because you don't want that
25:12.056 --> 25:15.169
information falling into the hands of the wrong people. Absolutely. Because to understand the
25:15.669 --> 25:18.960
machine's benefits, you also know its weaknesses, and every machine has weaknesses. And if people
25:19.460 --> 25:22.527
don't tell that, they're lying to you. Yeah. But they can come here, they can
25:22.575 --> 25:25.418
see what it can do for themselves, see what else we have, because it might
25:25.515 --> 25:27.909
be that they have their heart set on something, but we know something else would
25:27.941 --> 25:32.134
work better. So we'll show them that. That's why it's particularly important for
25:32.182 --> 25:35.733
us as a company to work independent to any manufacturer, because I
25:36.233 --> 25:39.637
think sometimes manufacturers want their product to fit and they kind
25:39.669 --> 25:42.894
of make it fit. And, you know, with security, you cannot put a square peg
25:43.394 --> 25:45.878
in a round hole. What you are looking for depends on,
25:46.792 --> 25:50.064
you know, that's the crucial thing, and that dictates what security system you have,
25:50.176 --> 25:53.497
not the other way around, or it should. So they come here, they see all
25:53.529 --> 25:57.010
of those things, and then once we deliver the equipment to site, if it gets
25:57.510 --> 26:01.694
to that stage, we always send down trained engineers that do a handover. We recommend
26:01.902 --> 26:04.389
for your kind of head of security to be there for that, but if not,
26:04.437 --> 26:07.388
send down a supervisor, send down someone that's going to be using it. And our
26:07.420 --> 26:10.404
engineers do not leave the site until we have explained our side.
26:10.468 --> 26:13.822
We'll never tell you what to look for. Because that is operating the system and
26:14.322 --> 26:17.771
that's different. But we will tell you how the machine works. We'll tell you kind
26:18.271 --> 26:21.302
of with the equipment that takes photographs how that works, because there's often questions around
26:21.802 --> 26:25.235
that. And we have LMS platforms for
26:25.735 --> 26:29.569
anybody that has an approved, pre-approved email address that can
26:30.069 --> 26:33.148
go on there and have access to all of that information before delivery and also
26:33.164 --> 26:36.519
while the event is live. And how closely do you work? I mean,
26:36.952 --> 26:40.484
there are a handful, you know, I'll not name their names, but people know who
26:40.984 --> 26:44.816
they are. There's a handful of really sort of well-known companies within the events
26:45.316 --> 26:48.921
industry in the UK who are very visible at sports stadiums,
26:48.970 --> 26:52.369
at festivals, at concerts, etc., etc. Um, there's a handful
26:52.869 --> 26:56.684
of companies. Do you work, or have you worked closely with
26:57.184 --> 27:00.693
them to actually work with their management and their supervisors so that if you're
27:01.193 --> 27:03.243
going to be present at several events that they're going to be working at,
27:03.259 --> 27:07.252
or several locations that they're working at, do you work directly with those security
27:07.752 --> 27:11.490
teams as well? Yeah. So particularly 2 of them we work extremely closely
27:11.506 --> 27:15.040
with. We work with others, but 2 of the major ones we work very closely
27:15.056 --> 27:18.557
with. And a lot of the time, before they even get to a point of
27:18.669 --> 27:21.255
bidding for said event, will come to us and see what would be a good
27:21.319 --> 27:25.014
fit. And they have people fully trained in our equipment. They've had people
27:25.514 --> 27:28.595
come to our offices and do refreshers with our team, and they are, you know,
27:28.868 --> 27:32.771
they know what they're doing. It's fascinating,
27:32.803 --> 27:36.671
like you said, this multi-layered approach now, you know, that events
27:37.171 --> 27:40.744
are complicated machines, particularly, you know, the bigger end of things, and it
27:40.808 --> 27:44.688
could be so easy to sort of deploy this technology and
27:45.188 --> 27:49.114
it be sort of quite fragmented and people within organizations and within
27:50.108 --> 27:52.882
organizing communities not being fully aware of it.
27:52.930 --> 27:56.875
So it's great to hear that, you know, you're obviously working directly with those
27:57.375 --> 28:01.236
security companies and people who are actually delivering that. One final
28:01.268 --> 28:04.381
thing to sort of ask is from a budgetary point of view,
28:04.397 --> 28:08.414
again, is one thing that we've not really touched on today, but you mentioned
28:08.914 --> 28:11.627
about the warehouse and people being able to come down and see the equipment firsthand
28:12.127 --> 28:15.707
and see, you know, what certain bits of hardware do and what
28:15.723 --> 28:18.840
others can do. You know, how easy
28:19.340 --> 28:23.579
is it to work with clients from a budgetary point of view? Because inevitably
28:23.595 --> 28:26.712
this equipment costs. Over the last decade or so, you've probably
28:26.728 --> 28:30.214
worked with a lot of new festivals, live events
28:30.326 --> 28:33.873
um, you know, organizers who maybe haven't deployed this type of
28:34.373 --> 28:37.356
hardware before, who then have to— they know that they need it, they know that
28:37.404 --> 28:40.694
they— it's an important part of their organizational aspect,
28:41.079 --> 28:44.032
but they obviously have to factor that into their budgets. Um,
28:44.289 --> 28:47.563
how sort of important a process is that, that you are able to offer things
28:48.060 --> 28:51.334
at varying levels for clients? It's critical.
28:51.992 --> 28:55.105
And for any business to grow in this day and age, I think regardless of
28:55.121 --> 28:59.006
what industry you're in, that's critical. We typically are
28:59.506 --> 29:02.025
very proud of the fact that we are a premium company, we offer a premium
29:02.525 --> 29:06.023
service, but by that we mean the customer service, the engineers,
29:06.681 --> 29:09.138
the amount of times we can do a first fix on site, the fact that
29:09.170 --> 29:12.461
we will not allow equipment to be delivered without a technical handover
29:12.961 --> 29:16.299
from an engineer. That's where we're premium. It's not in terms of price.
29:16.957 --> 29:20.265
And whatever your budget is, it is more important to
29:20.409 --> 29:23.168
us, and I feel we have a responsibility you know,
29:23.426 --> 29:27.323
as citizens, as people that like to attend events, as people in this country full
29:27.823 --> 29:31.283
stop, to ensure that we can find something to make work. Because if any organizer
29:31.783 --> 29:35.802
is coming to us and they have already got that intention to implement
29:36.302 --> 29:39.387
security, we never want it to be
29:39.887 --> 29:42.734
the security company that stops that from happening. It's true, you know.
29:43.996 --> 29:47.781
No, it can't be that. We've, um, we've been talking today on the podcast
29:48.281 --> 29:51.264
to Mia Moles, the Business Support Director for DeTechnology UK,
29:51.280 --> 29:54.177
talking about modern-day security deployment,
29:54.241 --> 29:58.399
hardware deployment particularly on event sites, how that's evolved over
29:58.415 --> 30:01.128
the 36 years of them being in business.
30:01.466 --> 30:04.644
Um, Mia, before we wrap up today's podcast, tell us,
30:04.837 --> 30:07.309
uh, if people want to find out a little bit more about what you guys
30:07.422 --> 30:10.376
do, where do they need to go and how do they do that? Of course,
30:10.392 --> 30:15.384
so our full product listing is available on our website, that's www.dtechnology.co.uk,
30:16.075 --> 30:18.900
and we also have a LinkedIn page that we are really trying to keep up
30:19.400 --> 30:24.527
to date. Um, and a general inquiry email address which is info@dtechnology.co.uk.
30:25.377 --> 30:29.176
Fabulous. Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. Really fascinating.
30:29.240 --> 30:32.575
I've been trying to think, have we ever sort of tackled this
30:32.623 --> 30:36.277
sort of particular subject and have we had a guest on before
30:36.678 --> 30:39.884
that is even remotely similar? And I can't say that we have in all the
30:39.964 --> 30:43.459
years of doing the Events in News podcast that we've spoken specifically about
30:43.571 --> 30:46.681
event security, but specifically about the hardware and to a company
30:46.938 --> 30:50.400
that deal in the sector that you do. So it's, it's been, it's been genuinely
30:50.900 --> 30:54.311
interesting to have the, the podcast today and to find out a little
30:54.811 --> 30:57.982
bit about the world that you guys operate in. And if anybody out there listening
30:58.014 --> 31:01.204
or watching today's podcast has got any more questions or wants
31:01.704 --> 31:04.762
to find out a little bit more, if there's anything that I've completely not asked
31:04.810 --> 31:08.256
Mia today that you would like to ask yourselves, then do get in touch with
31:08.756 --> 31:11.943
those guys. Like we said, dtechnology.co.uk is the
31:11.959 --> 31:15.533
website to go to, and as Mia said, LinkedIn, you'll find them on there as
31:15.565 --> 31:18.899
well. So a couple of mentions for stuff happening at Event Industry News.
31:19.156 --> 31:22.963
Before we wrap up today's podcast. Um, plenty of news features,
31:22.979 --> 31:26.256
special supplements, all available on the eventindustrynews.com
31:26.321 --> 31:30.240
website. And of course, the supplier directory. If you work in the events industry and
31:30.321 --> 31:33.646
you're looking for a product, service, or a supplier, the chances are you will find
31:34.146 --> 31:38.096
it on the supplier directory, a comprehensive listing of suppliers within
31:38.112 --> 31:41.565
the industry on eventindustrynews.com. If you've
31:42.065 --> 31:45.196
started your journey on the website today by watching today's podcast on video,
31:45.517 --> 31:47.862
thank you very much for doing so. Please do make sure that you go to
31:47.910 --> 31:51.636
wherever you get your audio podcasts from and make sure that you like and subscribe
31:52.136 --> 31:54.350
to the podcast so that you can listen to them when you're out and about.
31:54.672 --> 31:58.462
Of course, you may have started your journey today by doing exactly that,
31:58.590 --> 32:01.754
listening to us on your audio podcast platform. If you've done that,
32:01.802 --> 32:05.319
thanks very much for listening, but please do head over to eventindustrynews.com
32:05.673 --> 32:08.339
when you have a minute and check out all those little bits that I've just
32:08.403 --> 32:12.386
mentioned. Once again, my thanks today to my guest Mia Moles
32:12.402 --> 32:16.323
from d.technology. And it's, uh, been a pleasure to talk all things security on
32:16.355 --> 32:19.907
today's edition of the Events Industry News Podcast. We'll see you all again very soon.
32:20.213 --> 32:20.438
Goodbye.