Why a great idea beats a big event budget

Well thank you so much, Laura. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm a big fan. And so it's just thrilling to have you here today because when I think about an unfiltered take and in the events world and the global impact, I think Leon Winkler. So so we're gonna start Leon by going off the record. So I've got three rapid

I am born ready.

What was it? probably have to say the Cannes Lions. So that's the event that takes place every June in the south of France. So it's summertime is beach. It is basically the entire creative industry coming together to drink rosé on the beach. I w one of the one of the best things that I like about this event's the fact the proximity. It's everybody's there. and it's all very like casual. I d I don't like these suit-and-tie business meetings. I like talking to people because I'm interested in their energy or I'm interested in their story and through that hopefully do business. So that's why I would say the Cannes Lions for me is one of the best events that I've attended.

Yeah, yeah. whatever event I attend, I always come back, even if it's like a smaller event or a local like concert or something, I'm like, that would be cool if we could do that at Ubisoft. And that I mean that's where I got my inspiration from. I mean, I try to build experiences for Ubisoft. So in order to build these experiences you need to experience yourself. Not experience yourself, experience comma yourself. in order to have this pool of ideas and vibes that you can pull from whenever you create something for the company you work for.

yes. I think it was 2019 E3. as you probably know I'm very much also involved with the music industry, with hip-hop, with like street culture if you can call it that. And I know I grew up watching TV. mean, back in the days people watch TV. And MTV was one of my main things that I always used to watch even before my TV show. And there was this program called Celebrity Deathmatch, where they had like these clay figures, like clay celebrities battling it out. And I love that. So that was part of the seed. And then I attended this event South by Southwest, like back in the days before esports was a big thing, and there they were talking about how big esports was already in Asia and how they have like these massive like arenas filled with people watching other people play video games. So this one year 2019 when I have the challenge from our CEO like, Hey, how how can we do something cool for Rainbow Six? Rainbow Six is one of our esports games shooter Well, have two teams battling each battling each other in order to win whatever prize they win. Anywho, our CEO asked us to, to do something additional for this for this game. So my idea was why if what if we do celebrity deathmatch, meets esports and no meets hip-hop and bring it all together on a stage. so I remember pitching this to Yves, our CEO, and again. Be cool if we do this and this. And I created like this mood board with what it could look like and a little bit more information about hip-hop and the culture because he's not per se he's not per se down with the culture and he was like yeah go for it here's here's an envelope and go do it. And first of all, I was that's a huge envelope, like okay, well that's fun. so we managed to we went to our agency, we managed to work with T-Pain and Lil Yachty. And made them like team captains for two esports team of professional esport people, and brought it together for a post show deep dive into Rainbow Six.

How do you prep for that? You create I mean, I'm pretty good at creating decks, and I think a picture says more than a thousand words.

exactly, if if you manage to visualize it, and as you can see, I'm also pretty enthusiastic when I when I speak about things that I am enthusiastic about, it all kind of made sense. And also data. I could show that hip-hop at that time and still is one of the biggest drivers of music culture or culture as a whole. Esports was something that we were dabbling into. I was thinking about this partnership that we had with Twitch, Twitch Rivals. So I thought, we it's like if we bring Twitch together with hip-hop, together with esports, together with Ubisoft, we can create something cool. So in, sure you can show a picture, but if you don't if you don't show the data then that can be a tough sell, but come prepared. And be enthusiastic and believe in what you yeah, what you pitched.

What's gonna be the direct impact? And then they get something out of it too. So So I appreciate you bringing, both of those worlds together. I think it's something everybody needs to do. And even if our strength isn't in data, hey, you gotta find it. You gotta find it or find somebody to find it. And if I may add to that, I think I mean one of the important things was it wasn't the first year I did E3. So I already had five years of building up the trust with our CEO of doing crazy shit and making it work and making it actually look really good. So there was also a level of trust.

has a crazy idea, go for it.

I mean I think all trends should be talked about. I mean I don't think there should be anything like off the table because if you do that there's you limit your creativity. I mean that to say w I think what we should talk about more is in person. In person, in person, in person, in person is everything.

component. Exactly. I mean, even though I get it, the virtual component is important to increase your audience and reach more people. But if you look at qualitative attendance, in person is king. And I think that especially in a time that we live in nowadays where everything all of our communications are mostly digital, AI writes our emails, AI is our, these kind of things, we need these in person face-to-face interactions. And I see that at an event like the Cannes Lions. It's like we need that. We the as as a as as human beings, it's innate that we need that human connection. So I think that is something we should talk more about. Even though virtual I get it from a marketing perspective and reach, but I'm all about quality over quantity. Even though I can create the quantity, no problem. But quality of experience. Because then you create something that embeds itself in people's subconscious. And then in a year, two years even, they might even still think back of this as like, this was pretty cool because we left them with something. Good, hopefully.

I think there were there were a few. I mean there were a few standouts from me and I sorry if I'm blanking out on the names, but I can describe their approach. it. Experiential. in person experiential events where they brought a specific brand or specific feeling to life through building out an experiential activation. I think there was also one that added education in there. There was this one where it was like stargazing where they created this event to go look at some stars in the middle of the night. I forgot what the goal and what it was for, but just the way that they approached it and how they also connected it with some virtual experience so that people can look at the star maps and all I think it's it that's super cool because then you leave people with something. It's not just asking them to come and buy your product or buy your service. No, you give them something and through that they might buy your product or your service. So I think the DC event they really stood out where it's it's almost feels bespoke, like custom made, custom built for this specific audience, for this specific brand, and with a specific goal in mind of, actually involving your audience with your event, with your experience.

Mm-hmm. yeah, for sure. I mean there there they I must also say there were there were a few disappointing ones in a sense of like same same shit different day kind of stuff, which I get it, but for me it's like a lost opportunity when you have the budgets to do something huge and you just focus on level one, the picture. instead of going a little bit deeper and maybe scaling down your event. 10% and using that 10% savings to go deeper in the experience, to really leave people with something. And I know I'm repeating myself over and over again, but I think that's Why else would people come to your event? If I leave them with something, or why would they remember your event? Why would they remember the service that you provided to them?

if it's not about giving to back to your audience.

all brands, but No, but I think it can work on any scale. leave nothing on the table and leave everyone with something. Well, let's talk about going deep here and head on over to your real origin story. One of your first, and you're pretty young at the time, was creating a TV show.

sure. Thanks for the question. I always like talking about that specific time of my life because there's like a before and there's an after. Before Urban Lifestyle I was and I still am kind of. I was like the introverted nerd, zero social skills, almost as a going through life as a That's almost like an alien being trying to observe humanity, but not really knowing how to engage. And I remember when I was 16 years old, my older brother and a friend of his, my mom kind of forced forced them to take me along with them. They were going out to drink, go clubbing. And I was how old was I? I was fifteen. So they were around twenty. And they took me to this club, bar, dancing, small place where people get wasted. And they and they were looking for a bus boy, so someone that picks up the broken pieces of glass. I applied even though I wasn't even at age to really go to this location, but I was big guy for my for my age. started working there as I was one of the few people of color that the only person of color that worked there. all of the attendees of color came to be like, hey, we should play more R&B and hip-hop music. So I was I was the guy who always nagged our manager, be like, we should play a little bit more like diverse music. At a certain point in time he kind of swayed in like, okay, if you if you're getting all of these questions, maybe we should let you organize or host one of these evenings. and I remember the evening of the first event that I did, riding my little bike to the to the venue, like approaching the square where the venue was and seeing like this entire queue of people all dressed up in like hip-hop gear. waiting in line two hours before the doors open and I was still Yeah, I was still I was still super naive. come. I guess, but I was like that they can't be here for me. This is just my little event. Like what the hell? But they were there for me and the event sold out. so, how commerce works. When things fill out, the venue was like, let's do this more often. So I think I got to do this quarterly at first and then certain point in time monthly. Through that I got in touch with with the culture. Once again, as the alien exploring this world of hip-hop, of this music and of this vibe that I kind of enjoyed but didn't really feel a part of. And Approximately around the same time I started to get in touch with my with my older half brother who's like 10 years older and I kinda lost track of him in my first like half of my or my first 15 years of life. And he was like major hip-hop head, super like yo yo.

Very knowledgeable hip-hop dude. And, so I started talking with him about hip-hop and he's like he shared like music with me that I didn't know and this is interesting. At that time it was also broke, so I didn't really have money to buy music, to buy CDs. There was no MP3s, no known Spotify at that time.

so through him I got in touch with the actual culture. then at a certain point in time, this one evening, don't know where it came from, we might have been involved, so I might have been on this creative kind of moment. And I had this idea for a TV show. And this comes from the fact that, like I said, before before urban lifestyle of this introvert, TV and TV and film raised me, so I was fully like involved with that kind of stuff. So had this idea for wouldn't it be cool if there would be a TV show in the Netherlands that wouldn't just be about like the yo-yo hip-hop, but explores this like emerging culture as a whole. Because at that time we're talking early 2000s. even though hip-hop, urban music, R&B music was popular, it wasn't as big as it is as it was in the States at that time or as it is now. And there was this Because I did all these events, I knew there was a demand. this one evening wrote wrote a format for a TV show, Urban Lifestyle. next morning woke up, still had the idea in my head. I though I didn't write it down the first night. I just was I had it in my head. Next day I wrote it down. I think I had to I had to babysit my nephew so I had to go see my older brother. I showed him the idea that I had. He was like, yeah that's cool. Let's, let's noodle on this. Let's let's work on this a little bit. We kinda like, as as two brothers do, have fun with it. So naive as I was, when we had this treatment for the TV show, I was like, let me send it out to some info at emails of all these big publishing houses in the Netherlands and see what happens. And actually we got like one of the biggest companies reached out back to me, Eyeworks, and we're like, let you want to do a meeting because we want to talk about this cool idea

No connection. I'm Leon, I'm a film and television student and I had this idea for a TV show about hip-hop and R&B music. And they were like, Yeah, come on in. And like I said, it was a very, very big mul like multinational company. So we walked in and my brother and I and it was one of the most beautiful offices we've ever seen, marble everywhere, that kind of shit. And we were felt so out of place because like I said, I was broke coming out of welfare, that kind of stuff. My brother also. broke and we were talking with these guys and they were like talking all this kind of jargon that we had no we had no idea what they were talking about but we were just nodding yeah yeah yeah super cool the meeting concluded with them saying yeah we would we would be interested in making an offer but making an offer and so we asked what do you mean like we want to buy this format from you guys And then they would take it and do whatever they wanted, but take buy if you buy it from us, we take the money and peace out. once again, naive as I was, because maybe I should have said yes at time, we were like, Well, if they want to buy it, it means they see money in this. So let's keep it ourselves and let's produce this ourselves. before even before even asking how much money they wanted to offer. We were like, fuck it, we got we got this.

in hindsight, maybe. but we were like, this is our way in. And, we were already like fantasizing about buying a white Lexus and like all like if you if Eyeworks wants to buy this, maybe we can sell this or do this and da-da-da. So we kept on working on it. through my like college friends, we managed to get someone who had access to a camera and an editing PC. so we had all of the things in motion. We started filming random shit. That didn't really look good at all actually. and then at a certain point of time I send it out to a TV channel called The Box, and the Box was a sub channel of MTV networks. At that time they weren't, at that time they were still still their own thing, but they became a subnetwork of MTV. I managed to find some email addresses and just send it to random folks. And then this one time a guy called Eric called me back from the box. He was the program director and he was like, Hey, super interesting because we are actually talking to some other parties about a similar kind of format and yours is super fresh, super interesting. And he mentioned the other people he was talking to, which was like for me, I knew all of them and because they were like big media platforms that were emerging in the in the social media scene in that time and like hip-hop scene. And but they were like, yeah, no let's can you create a pilot episode? And he said, sure, no problem. And then then, walking out of the meeting like, what is a pilot episode?

We got we got you. Two weeks, we got you, no problem. So I had to Google. What is a pilot episode? okay, okay. So pilot for those who don't know, pilot episode is your your test case episode, your sh example of what a series could look like. We managed to shoot some interviews with local hip-hop artists and created some random content about we have this very posh shopping street in Amsterdam, and I came up with the idea of an item called How urban is. So basically we went to this posh, basically white locations and started talking hip-hop slang to them to see how they would respond. And you got the most hilarious, like random responses of weird shit. Anywho, we cut this, we cut this pilot together, sent it to the box, and they were like, Okay, eight episodes.

weekly tape on desk, meaning they don't pay us. But we get their 30-40 minutes of broadcast time. We get sponsorship around our TV show, anything that we could sell. and we were we had a TV show all of a sudden.

immersive or taking it to the next level? It was it was mostly about maintaining. I mean having like a weekly delivery in a time where you didn't really have any digital delivery, so we actually had to burn stuff on a tape that had to be like transferred to another tape that I then had to bring to our like the production house and all the kind of things. So for us it's just really just just maintaining. But I really liked that creative part of coming up with these ideas of where should we go next to or Who should we interview next? And I remember like we had a TV show, we had a contract, so I could reach out to the big like music companies and being like, Hey, you don't know us, but we are going, we're we have our TV show on the box starting next month. And we see that let me see, who do we have? Nelly, the hip-hop artist, is coming to Amsterdam. Could we do an interview? And they were like, Sure. Like, like, okay.

yeah. So we just started building that out and it turned into a very big success within this specific audience.

It was weird. Just for the record, I did not do the editing. We had some people for yeah, I'm very I don't have the patience for that. Nowadays I can do I can edit, but that's a different conversation. but yeah, it was weird because it felt like from one day to the next I turned from this introverted wallflower to I remember walking to the university one day, walking past Burger King and two girls came running out screaming my name. Or the first time that somebody asked me for an autograph. It was weird. It was weird. Love I loved it. And at a certain point in time, you started living for that kind of stuff, which probably also contributed to the end of the TV show.

I but I still but the thing is I still felt like an alien because I still felt like even when we went to these like interviews or like events or like being surrounded by by hip-hop people, I wasn't I wasn't that. I tried to emulate that by going all yo yo yo but that was just fakery. So I've I've always felt like the outsider, which was my comfort zone because it allowed me to kind of explore things instead of knowing things or no it's like explore this stuff because I'm intrigued by this. And the TV show started to go south when I started to feel like I was a part of it and like acting like I was instead of exploring this.

So there was this, we were going, I think into our second or third season being the number one TV show on the channel. so at certain it's great. So at a certain point in time sponsors start coming knocking. And there was this one big sponsor, which I won't mention because, but a huge concert producer in globally. And they were interested in working with us, sponsoring our entire next season for a lot of money. caveat was that they wanted to have a test case where we were supposed to document one of their huge events in this massive arena, the Amsterdam ArenA, where they had like people perform like Missy Elliott, Sean Paul, like all good events. Their only footnote was like we want you to document vibes, not performances, because of like legal music rights, all these kind of things. Just focus on the people and how they're experiencing this event. Do some of your quirky, quirky items that you normally do, Leon, ha ha, tongue in cheek kind of stuff. And I was like, okay, bet. instead of going through our regular camera guy, I knew a guy, an old friend of mine who, his concert was sold out. So I was like, hey, you want to take it? I need the camera guy.

Yeah, kind of. I mean, yes, maybe a little bit. Yeah, he did, but still probably not the right approach. the moment I walk in, I became celebrity Leon because everybody knew me there. Everybody. So I w the went from high five to like drinks, yeah, smoke, And I lost track of the guy with the camera. And then all of a sudden from the corner of my eye, I see h him standing next to the stage. S being surrounded by security guards. And I was like, shit, I got this because I'm Leon, Mr. Celebrity. I'll I'll fix it. So I ran up to them and be like, Hey, it's all good. It's me. Like, we know it's you. Come with us. So they escorted both of us backstage where they into the production room. We all know the production room, we're all like the big people are. We're surrounded by all the big people of the company, all the big people of the venue, everybody. And they were like We told you not to shoot the stage. You shot the stage. And I was like, he just panned past. He's like, We don't care. Give us the tape and get the fuck out. And I still was trying to like, aha, it's not that serious. And they were like, give us the tape or give us your camera and get the fuck out. And before I knew it, they came, they gave us the DJ Jazzy Jeff treatment where they picked us up. Yeah. They escorted me through my fans, like my leg swinging, flailing, and basically thrown out of the venue.

who was my business partner and co-host, be like, I think I just fucked up.

yeah, that was that was not a fun conversation. That was not a fun conversation. And my brother was cool. He was like, Yeah, we'll figure it out. Don't worry, fuck these guys. but yeah, no, through that, that was the beginning of the end because it was a big company and they I don't know. I mean, I don't have proof, but if I would have been them, I would have told all my partners do not work with them because she can't trust them. And I think that might have happened, which also cost our contract with the box. not to be prolonged, even though we did have the number one TV show, we were super popular. And the box was like, they didn't even, we didn't have, we didn't even even have like any conversations about the new contract. There was just blackout. And then all of a sudden after our contract ended, a few weeks later they announced their own urban TV show. And we had no, we didn't have any money. So what are you gonna do? You gonna lawyer up? Or you're gonna go against MTV? Like really? it cost me a lot in the sense that it cost me everything. I mean money wise sure. Not that mu I mean the initial amount was not that much. I think we borrowed in the beginning we borrowed five thousand euros, which in the bigger picture is not that much. so the fifteen thousand turn into ten thousand turn into fifteen thousand and so on and so forth. Yeah. as a student, that is a lot of money on top of your student loan that you already have. So that was the monetary part. But then it also cost me basically everything else. It cost my relationship at that time. My friends, family bonds broke. So that was that was very sober.

How did you pick yourself back up? Mm-hmm. what they say, it never rains what it but it pours. So my TV show ended, my mom had a heart attack, my dad died, so it was always like all everything all at once. So it was dark. It was it was really dark and I think one of the things that kind of helped me through that time was when my when my dad died. He died of cancer, very sudden. we didn't really have, he was the absentee dad. That I didn't really have that much. I saw him every few months or so. So there's one time that I saw him, he was like, Hey, I have cancer, but I'll be all right. He was big, big, strong black dude. And then the next time that I saw him, he was like skin and bones.

It was it was that was super intense. And then I had to like clean out his He didn't even have an apartment because he was living with a friend because he was an alcoholic. So I had to clean out his apartment. And I remember seeing like this big suitcase, not even that big suitcase that he had filled because he kept on saying to me, I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna pack my stuff and go to Suriname, in South America, where he was from. And seeing that suitcase packed with all of his stuff, that was intense.

it was like he had so many plans but wasn't able to do it. And for me that changed f of course super sad and it was crying of course, but it also changed for me the perspective of like you can have all the plans in the world, but sometimes life happens, so get out of your depression, Leon, and start living. So that's what I decided to do. I s decided to be like, okay, well, a nobody's feeling sad for me because he was to do it on the TV chip TV show. People still recognized me, which was weird. And I just had to get a job. So I started get a job and started to grind back up because even though I was like, I, I have a TV show on my resume, so and my college degree, so now everybody's going to hire me, that wasn't the case. So I just had to start from scratch and work my way back up.

And I appreciate that your

I think it was always there because I remember that one of the first jobs that I got after that whole that whole ordeal was Mm-hmm. telemarketing bullshit kind of job where I had to call to sell whatever the hell.

know that I was this guy that they might have seen like I know you from somewhere, that kind of shit. And I wanted to prevent that. But, whenever you had a call, you had to like write a report. And my creativity came out writing the report. So instead of just writing the report, I wrote my report as a rhyme, as a rap. Like a poem And so I always have, my ways to my ways to vent my creativity, even in the darkest times. And sure, maybe when I was super dup super duper depressed, and creativity was not per se the thing that was on my mind.

so

I appreciate it. I agree, but I still appreciate it. so I went from odd job to odd job and then at a certain point in time through a friend of mine, or like a guy that I knew from back in the days, he was like, Hey, you should look at this position that this publisher of magazines, they're looking for someone to sell account manager to sell pages in the magazine. magazine was MSN magazine. For people that don't know, MSN was a social media sort of platform that you could communicate with.

and I had to like call like the Dutch tech and gaming industry to sell pages. So through through that, I got to find out that there was such a thing as a Dutch representative or Dutch the representation of the gaming industry. Like, that's cool. I didn't know Ubisoft, EA, Activision all had offices in Holland. I didn't know. at no time. Yes, I was. I mean before yes, actually because I was an introvert and I single playing single player games was my shit. That was I loved that. And certain point in time I got fired at that company at that publisher because reasons. so I was already Almost losing hope in the sense of okay, I'll probably just find the regular mediocre job that doesn't really do anything for me. Yada yada yada. Sad, sad, sad. And then one Day one glorious day, I opened up Monsterboard, which is a job platform, and I saw an opening for Project Product, yeah, product manager at Ubisoft Netherlands. And I was like, Ubisoft Netherlands. I think I was playing a game with them at that time. And I was also, these were the guys that I had to try to sell a page to and they never bought one of the pages. they were looking for someone with six years of marketing experience and a marketing degree, and I applied and they invited me. And rejected me after the first the first conversation they had. they sent me an email like, thank you so much for your time, appreciate it, but we don't think you're the right guy for the job because you have more sales experience. I disagreed. And then I wrote them basically an essay back telling them how where I disagreed with them. they invited me back and they offered me the job. And that was twenty years ago.

I mean basically because they were like, Yeah, no, we're looking for someone that has a marketing degree and marketing experience and you so far on your resume have been account manager here, account manager there. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, but I created a TV show from nothing. Mm-hmm. I made it the number one TV show on the channel without budget. That is marketing. And I gave like for all of their arguments, I gave counterpoints where like pointing at the TV show mostly, or pointing at my parties that I used to do like the DJ stuff that I used to do. Like, no, I'm a guy who brings people together. I hate sales. I mean I don't hate sales, but that's not my I don't per se like doing sales. I like creating vibe. so they invited me. If I or they offered me the job and And I remember like the final chat before I got my contract with the general manager for Ubisoft Benelux, this towering big dude, former boxer. he was like, we like you very much, we wanna offer you the job. However, keep one thing in mind if you commit to something, you do it. No excuses. If you can if we can agree on that, we're both gonna be great.

Yeah, so it was product management. my job basically entailed doing like the marketing, product marketing for specific range of games, the licensing sports and entertainment games. the year that I started working at Ubisoft, 2006, was also the year that the Nintendo Wii launched. So I started working on games like Rayman Raving Rabbids or Just Dance and at a certain point in time Assassin's Creed.

I mean I found the right person that understood my intention with my manager, Marcel, who was the marketing director for Ubisoft Benelux, who really understood what I was trying to do, building bridges between gaming culture and popular culture instead of just focusing on the gamers because my philosophy always been like gaming is so much bigger than just the stereotypical nerds that people have in mind. It's like no everybody plays video games. And since I have this experience with the urban hip-hop culture, which at that time was the most popular culture, it's like let's build some bridges. And he fully understood that. So he allowed me to create and do do crazy shit. And the more you do and the more you succeed, the more freedom you get. And at a certain point in time, I remember it was 2010, 2011, my colleague, like my senior, he moved to another division within Ubisoft. So I basically had to report it back to the marketing director again. And he was he loved to do, but he was lazy and he had to go to E3. So E3 is a big game show in Los Angeles. And he was like, I don't really want to do this. like, Leon, can you come along so that you can take care of all the appointments with the media and like book all the restaurants and all that kind of stuff? And he was like, You want to fly me to LA to book fancy restaurants and have dinner with journalists? fuck yeah. So I did a great I did an amazing I did an amazing job there. I was like any day, I like printed out like folders for him, like everything was like here, Marcel, you don't have to do shit. Just just arrive here and here, this and this time. Basically, I was his personal assistant. But I apparently did such a great job that when when I when then we went when we came back and I had my annual review, he was like, You're pretty good at this PR stuff. Which would you like to would you like to venture more into this? And I was like, Yeah, I would, because With all due respect, I like the marketing part, the creative part of marketing, but the reporting part of marketing, keeping the Excel sheets, I hated that so much. I'm all about the creation. So for me to be like all about blah blah blah creation PR stuff, I was like, Yeah, that's great. But I had like a request that was like, Okay, well, if you wanna make me PR manager, can we change the title to PR and Events? Which allows me to do the PR for all the titles, meaning all the travel, all the press trips and events, all the stuff that I love doing. And he was like, Yeah, go for it. So started doing that, doing events, so really focusing down on how can we bring these games of ours to life through live activations or through cool PR stunts. And I did a few events that caught the attention of, our global marketing teams. I did a fashion show for Just Dance with a shoestring budget that got global pub publicity.

I mean my girlfriend at the time was watching a lot of Project Runway. So I was I was like fully like immersed in that shit as well. And I remember seeing like the year before my American colleague from a San Francisco studio, Michael Beadle, he did a similar kind of fashion event, like working with this like huge fashion designer in the States and with like big musical artists. And because Just Dance was more than just a dance game, it was also about lifestyle and fashion and blah blah I managed to clear the budget with my marketing director, Marcel, to do a shoestring kind of, fashion show. And I reached out to one of the contestants of the Dutch version of Project Runway, a guy that I lived in the same city or used to live in the same city. I was like, hey, I'm not a line. I wanna want to work with you. Here I have like almost nothing of budget. Would you like to create a full fashion line for us? And he was like, hell yeah.

Yeah. And he but he it was mutual because for him it was a way to also get his fashion into the video game. And for us it was a way to get a cool experiential event that touched upon a new audience that we normally speak to. So we did that, caught the attention of our international audien or in international teams,

And then how did you integrate it into an event? I think we had around like seven months, six, seven months.

What was the what was the genus of it? Okay. do a launch event differently. So we have like we normally got our our internal briefings for new products a year prior to release. So we got that briefing for the new just then. So I was like, fashion is even more important there. Cool. Let me pitch my idea. Got the budget approved, reached out to the fashion designer dude, reached out to some other people as well that I knew in the industry that we couldn't afford.

yeah, yeah, but that's why I think we you need that's why I think the personal touch and meaning, talking to that person and understanding where he's coming from and where he wants to go is important because that's like, okay, well we can help you. You want to get your fashion out there? Well, we can help you. We can keep putting in a game that sells millions. just give us some designs.

magic.

so we asked him to create like a fashion line in collaboration with the just dance team in Paris. He created this line. I went to this venue in Amsterdam, the t tobacco lounge it was called. I don't know how I think through our agency that we already work with some of the events, they pointed us into that direction. We locked that venue down, did the whole co negotiation, like, okay, we want to like the you the The runway, the lighting, the music.

know what the fuck I was doing. but I brought together all of these elements of that I knew or people that I knew the DJing knew from back in the days because he used to DJ for my R&B parties and the choreographer that we asked to create some like interstitial choreographies in between the fashion we worked with for all of the Just Dance. activations the years prior. So we all brought it together. And from a media perspective, we worked with our PR agency and we fo we asked them, okay, focus on fashion media, lifestyle media, content creators. And back then that was still new, the content creators.

No, no. So they really appreciated the fact that we reached out to them. So they all came. All the big names. they showed up. We had some celebrities that asked us to be be part of the fashion show for free. We're like, yeah, sure. Like a host for a host for MTV. He's like, can I like sure?

like the friend of the choreographer we work with just had like a hit with Flo Rida, the rapper, in the States. But she was a Dutch girl and she was in Amsterdam at the time, so we had her perform for almost nothing. So it was all it all came together and it and it worked out really well. And yeah. I think that gave me this. image within Ubisoft International that this is a guy that can do a lot with a little. Yeah, I think that sometimes

I think it's a testament too, and you've mentioned this, at different areas, how you talk to that manager at the club as a busboy, and then you were able to do your first R B event. all the way through. It's been these conversations and these relationships. And hearing how you tapped into those, even like the choreographer that has a celebrity friend, I mean, that doesn't happen because You give a request for proposal from the choreographer as in who do? What else can you bring to it? It's through a conversation. And it sounds like that's something that you constantly surround yourself with and you don't forget about those bridges. true, but it took me a while to be conscious of that. For me it because back in the days it felt like it just happened. yeah, of course, because I know this dude and blah blah blah. But not really thinking about the infrastructure that I was building with these relationships that I was, nurturing. And that's something that now that I started and that's just happened the last few years, basically since COVID, that I started to realize like, okay, so this is how I build. I'm a producer. I bring people together. I work with e or I'm a chef. I bring like ingredients together to create a dish. And these ingredients are people or experiences or all kind of different things that I all bring into the mix and get them all excited about this idea that I have and create a situation for them where they can also shine and do their thing.

Now, t let us know, what I mean, this is a pinnacle in the gaming industry. So let us know like what it is and how you execute an experience of that scale. Cause everybody out there, I mean, this is massive. How many people attend Gamescom? Three hundred fifty thousand.

in Cologne in Germany. It actually is happening in two weeks again.

I mean I work from both places.

right now, but I have my apartment in Paris as well. I mean, because, this is happening in Cologne, Germany.

Sure. so how did I get the Gamescom first and foremost? Because I was doing my stuff for Ubisoft Netherlands. And then as I told you before, my manager, marketing director, Marcel, he's a lazy fucker.

that. Yeah, exactly. We had our annual like corporate meetings in Paris where he normally has the marketing as the big shot marketing guy he was supposed to attend. He's like, I don't want to go. Leon, would you like to go? And I have no idea what it entailed, but I saw the guest list and I saw Our CEO, CMO, CFO, all these people were there. I was like, yeah, let's go. and they asked us to make to do a presentation of how we would improve Ubisoft or what we our recommendations on how to shake things up. So I took that, I took that to heart and I basically created this caving presentation where I was like, this is what we're doing wrong, this is what we're doing wrong, this is what we're doing wrong, this is how I would approach it. Very focusing on content creators, culture. events, fans, community. And I remember presenting that, getting a standing ovation from all the people there. And, a few months, maybe a year after I got the call from my general manager, Edwin, big dude the big dude, who was like, Hey, hey, I just came off the phone with the big boss and we were talking about you. I was like, I hope it's good. He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's talk about it tomorrow. The fuck because he called me in the evening. Next morning came to the office. He invited me into his office, close the door, close the drapes. I was like, I'm gonna get fired. What did I do?

No, actually, yeah, we're talking about this thing with E3 and they're looking for someone in the team, blah, blah, blah. He was very vague about it. He's like, Would you be interested? Sure. I sure E3, yeah. I mean, I've been there once. Sounds like a fun sounds like a fun event. And I got a call with our chief communications officer, who was the woman who was part of the standing ovation during my presentation. So it wasn't really an interview, it was more of a hey, Leon, would you like to do this and would you like to move to Paris and not just be part of the team but lead the team into a new direction?

so that was an offer I couldn't refuse, even though I didn't per se want to go to Paris. So I managed to negotiate my back and forth, hence me having two apartments. that almost killed me by the way.

and since I was pretty well known within Ubisoft at that time already because I was very vocal, and I was the guy also on internal videos and the guy picking up cameras and filming everything that we did. When I had to go into Gamescom, when I had to start producing Gamescom, first of all I already there was a team That I kind of took over that was already like working on Gamescom. So the team in Paris, they already worked on Gamescom the previous year. And the German team that led the local negotiations and local stuff, anything with Gamescom related, they knew me. So I just came in with some new ideas. And I remember that first year, I was like, so we have this huge stage. We do Just Dance performances, game demos, but 90% of the time the stage is empty. Like, let's bring a DJ, let's bring an MC, let's, let's do some activations on stage that go beyond just these demos. And I remember the German team being like, not being stereotypical, but they don't like change that much. Like, we're not sure if this is gonna work. And I was like, trust me, let me try it one day. If it doesn't work, we'll take the cost from HQ level, and you won't hear me about it anymore. So I called my friend. guy that also had do the Just Dance fashion show they're like hey cash his name is cash DJ Cash like hey would you like to come to Cologne next week or whatever and to do a little DJ set together with me on the stage for Gamescom he was like yeah bet we did the show and we basically turned the entire event into a Ubisoft party which was really fun.

It's like this opportunity. It's like we have so for those who haven't attended a video game event, assume like visualize like all these big game publishers that all have that are all fighting for attention. They all have three, four, five, ten specific new games that they're trying to trying to push. And the gamers they wait in line for hours. So they queue up to play five, ten, fifty minutes of a game. But have to wait in line for hours.

two hours to five hours, sometimes.

a long time that you have your that you have their attention. You have them on your booth for hours. They must they're not gonna leave that queue. So what better than to entertain slash indoctrinate them and like throw goodies at them and like make them feel a part of the show? And at a certain point in time, year one, it was People were waiting in line and like, there's something cool happening on the stage. The next year we had people that just came for the stage show. They were standing in st in front of the stage the entire day. The entire day. People showing up with I Love Leon signs, which was very weird because I was like, I never even shared my name here, but okay, I appreciate it. think it's so important because indeed I hate when I did the presentation and I said that like I was pointing out things that they were doing wrong and that might not be the right explanation. I s I always look at what can I add.

But what if we're already spending the money, but so what if we maybe spend a little bit more or spend it a little bit different, but add this and this layer. communication or experience to this. And that's what I also brought to Gamescom. It's like, okay, what you guys do is amazing, kind of. But I think I can bring something that you don't have yet that would set us apart from everybody else in this in this huge event, which it did. Because the year after, so second year we had the entire crowd, the third year we had copycats. So all of the different state all the different publishers also all of a sudden had a stage with hosts and stuff.

So best thing that I ever spent money on was Gamescom example. It was, I don't know what year it was, but it was extremely hot. In August, super hot heat wave.

but this was like extremely this was like unpleasant like and people had to wait in line and they were dying there. So my investment was going to our agency and be like, okay, I want you to go to the supermarket and buy 300 ice creams, ice popsicles, and hand them out. And we did. And it was, the investment was negligible in comparisons to well the other stuff that we spend, but the goodwill that it created because it showed that we cared about the audience. We're not here to sell you shit. We are appreciating the fact that you're spending your time with us and the least we can do is make your wait as pleasant as possible.

Mm. multiple things that come to mind actually. E3, for example, when we host these massive live shows and Just Dance, for example, Just Dance after segment, we sometimes have performances of celebrities to sell the game and be like, hey, I am such and such, and I'm in the game too. Buy the game. however, you have to pay for them to perform. They it's not part of the deal that they already have. So you pay them to perform. And this one year, and I'm not gonna mention who this was, But we had this one year we had this performer and it was so expensive to have him perform for like two, three minutes max. And he did he insisted of I am going to do this live. It's no issue. I'm gonna do this live, no backing track. I got this, I got you, Leon. I'll do my dance and sing live. And my god. Like my god, that was that was I mean I'm not as I'm not a singer, but I could sing better than that.

I mean during rehearsals we kinda like got an idea that it was probably not gonna be great, but the contracts were already signed and he was going to do it live, so it was like okay, maybe he's just saving his voice for the live performance. Sure. But my god, that was that, and God bless him, and I'm sure he bought some more diamonds with that money, but I don't want to sh shit on any like celebrity endorsements or collaborations.

stuff and take away as much of the of the of the risk as you can by yeah, maybe pre-recording that kind of stuff to make sure it was it was a lesson. It was an expensive lesson, but it was a lesson learned.

start over?

what an example of during Ubisoft. It was the second or third year that I produced E3 and one of the things that we did at E3 was hosting E3 parties. and this one year normally we our E3 parties were always semi indoor outdoor venues. But I thought it would be a good idea to, keep everything a little bit more local. So that instead of going to Hollywood, let's host the event downtown. close to the hotels, close to the venue.

to be in a skyscraper on the twenty first floor. well didn't have to be, but that's what we ended up doing. what I didn't take into consideration was that there was a capacity of let's say a thousand and fifteen hundred people showed up. What I didn't ha anticipate was the fact that if you do something on the 21st floor, people are not gonna take the stairs, they're gonna take the elevator. So if there's an issue with the elevator, which we did have, that's gonna cost some shit. So we had like a group of execs partners and like important people stuck in the elevator for around two, three hours. people screaming at me at the door because they couldn't get their partner in because we're at capacity and in the States they don't fuck around with that. It's like capacity is capacity.

Well, fire the fire department had to show up and like the, had to do the whole running up the stairs, breaking open doors, that kind of stuff. so that was fun. But that's it, I mean we, we when they finally got up after that because they still wanted to go to the party, we we gave them an additional drink and some additional attention. And I think they were fine because the party was the party was really good. It was a really, really good party. Everybody was having we had DJ Jazzy Jeff perform. all that kind of fun stuff going on. but yeah, I had to deal with the whole fallout on site where p where people were screaming at me downstairs and I had at a certain point in time I just had to tell the people that were waiting in line and we're talking over a hundred people waiting in line and be like maybe have a drink, go have some dinner somewhere else, and you can try to come back later if there's no line. So yeah, I received a few emails that evening and the next day and I had to apologize, Yeah, how did how did you make that right? How did you make that right with the people externally that were waiting that line and the people internally that witnessed it? that I remember that evening having a moment with Yves with our CEO where he looked at me and be was like, What the fuck? I'm like, so I remember having a debrief meeting with him in Paris like a week or so or a few weeks later where he was like, Please don't do that again. And like, I got you. Learn less lesson learned that will never happen. We'll go back to the previous venue that we used to be at. And then it was all good.

we're not, you tried it, didn't work, you're moving to the other one.

Was there anything else that you guys did? so I tried to make sure that our ext external partners got in by taking some internal people out to smoke a cigarette, have a drink, go for a walk. So that kind of balanced it out. That was fine. We didn't get any external complaints for as far as I know. I I think the only complaint that we got from external was that the party was too much of a party and that their people got too drunk and that kind of stuff. Which I know that's not my responsibility.

who do you put that on? It's a combination. It's it's, unless your agency is completely incompetent. Even then even then it's also your fault because you chose to work with this agency. but I think it's, it's where two partners or multiple partners work and their st stuff gets fucked up, then well then that's all of your fault and we need to figure out why this happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. For example, we for our thirtieth anniversary, I think it was our press conference or media briefing in LA three E3. We went over budget a little bit.

it like it was it was intense, intense.

And it was a huge budget. So that was fun. But then afterwards, you the agency will have to go through all the data and show where the budget had, where that additional budget came from. explain why, explain why it didn't go through the right approval things, and then you have to go to your CEO and also explain why you went over budget with so much and I explained it. But thank God the results were really, really good that year. So it was like, okay, please don't do this again. Never ever ever do this again. but okay, keep it pushing.

having to answer for agency decisions, you know, good, bad, or otherwise. Has there ever been a time that you trusted an agency and it just turned out to be a mistake?

You either finish the project if you're already like past like the point of no return and then never work with this agency again, put in additional staff to mitigate any shit that might happen. If it happens early in the process, involve legal.

is there something that you yeah. So can you just share that with us? Cause I think there's a lot that we all miss. it's an intuition kind of thing. It's like, you're you're feeling it, you feel it in your guts. For example, the venue that I went to for the party that was over capacity, already their approach and their management, when I walked in for like the walkthrough for the first time, it was there was something off. Their energy was off, it was something weird, and I was like, but still I went against my intuition. we'll figure it And I think it's that. I think you always kind of know something is off unless once again the ANC or your partner that you work with completely fucks you over and sorry, pardon my French.

Yeah, and and you learn from learn from that.

Trust

Events can turn fans into ambassadors, ambassadors into almost preachers. events are the best way to get close to your audience. Once again, especially in a time that we live in, digital communications, everything digital, having an event, having that in person contact with your audience, whoever your audience is, is the most qualitative way to build the relationship. And I think a lot of events a lot of what I see is people just doing events for events sake, but not adding that final thing to really make an impact. Once again, that's just my opinion.

it's probably the element of put yourself in the position of your attendees. Not just as a the brand and what we want to get across and the y the amount of units we wanna sell, but put yourself in the shoes of your attendee. What's the process? How did this person get the invite? What's in the invite? When the person enters the venue, what do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell? When they when they talk to people there, what's the vibe? When they leave the event, what do they feel? What do they take away? Like really build that user experience from the ground up and get someone in your team that understands your audience. That understands the audience that you want to talk to. For example, one of my main pet thieves is agencies that reach out to me on LinkedIn that want to work with us but have zero experience working in gaming have zero experience working with this specific audience and I'm not saying that it's a must have because there's also something to say for having fresh perspective but know the audience know the audience know who you're talking to Also, if you reach out to me, like know who you do who I am. it's that. I think that's something that a lot of agencies actually could probably spend a little bit more time on. It's like, if yeah, if you want to reach out, you want if you want to pitch to someone, know who you're talking to and know what you want to get across and know who they

So you're you're t yeah. that grinds my gears when agencies do that or anybody that reaches out to me on LinkedIn is like all you need to do is go to my LinkedIn page. You see that even though I live in Paris, my first language is not French. So stop pitching me in French. Like sure, Google Translate is perfectly fine, but damn what a Or like these g these these generic messages is like, God, like come on.

a lot. like I like agencies that actually want to do the business and want to go the, the additional mile to make sure that whatever you trying to get across shines. a lot of espe especially these are big agencies, they don't need they don't need the business. They don't need it. They just wanna add the Ubisoft or whatever name to their to their portfolio list and They come with formulas. Like I like sure, formulas are nice, but what what why would I go with you? Just because you have a big name? I don't care. I'd rather than go and so far we have gone in the past with boutique agencies that bring personality, that bring something different, that are not cookie cutter because F that. I mean y you mean you wanna stand out, right? Otherwise once again you're just doing events for events' sake. No, you wanna do something special. Not something that everybody else has been doing but just in a different jacket, but not. Yeah. Thanks for that unfiltered take on agency. I think we can all take a lot from that, whether you're on the client side or agency side and what you look for and what you offer.

All of the above, it's a tool that can become a threat if you don't understand it. And for me, how I use AI in my workflow is I'm a visual thinker, I'm a visual presenter, I present ideas, and you can you can write down your ideas, or you can write down your ideas and add a generated image to sell the idea, to give more color to the idea that you have, or to have a sparring partner. I see that I see it as an extension. it should not be the end result, it should not be okay, AI go generate an event for me and then go with run with whatever no. But it can be a sparring partner. It can be someone that can help you create a pitch deck. that can c help you create that mood board that prevents you from back in the days you had to Google for hours in order to find that right picture, like the exact picture to get your thing across. Well now you can have it generated. Show what it looks like. So that's how I that's how that's how I look at it AI. And I think it's a threat for people that are afraid of it. And through their them being afraid that they keep it at arm's length. No, embrace it. Or at least know what it is, know what it can do, and then form your opinion.

It gives me, if from the production side you're all like in the trenches.

on and just focused down on your specific event or the thing that your your specific goals and KPIs. What I loved about being a part of the Ventex Award and being the jury part of jury. is seeing this global overview of all these amazing events that are taking place all over the world that kinda like fill my heart with hope with the fact that indeed brands, companies, people are so investing in these in person events. And what I love seeing that it was there was a lot of bespoke experiential Mm-hmm. small, almost niche style events and I think that's where the future of events is. Sure, big events will always be there, but I think these small scale events that you focus on a smaller group but really create a bespoke experience for them and then let them take that experience and talk about it online or wherever you want them to talk about it. I think that's something that I really loved seeing. And the fact that it wasn't just me that thought that was the trend, but actually that is the trend and these are the events that are nominated.

Outcomes matter. yeah, but that's but that's why it's so important that there's this platform where you can see your peers in the industry, the work that they've done, the challenges that they've overcome. And learn or learn through that or get inspired through that. And I think that's, I that's why I'm super happy to be a part of this. super happy to To be able to see indeed this process and see who's winning and see who's contributing to this event industry of ours.

Mm, I wanna see the passion through their submission. I mean if you just highlight the facts and the make a fact sheet. It's difficult to capture an event and the energy in words. So then bring the passion and show that you actually care. And I think that's for me the ones that stood out were the ones that seemed to have written it themselves or the guy or woman or person behind the event wrote the submission themselves and you could see that they felt something. Mm-hmm. And the images that they attach and just the overall look and feel to show that your attendees are having fun and not just show an empty event wall, the beautifully designed thingy. Like, yeah, sure, everybody can do that. But what's your audience thinking? How are they feeling? What are they taking home with them? I mean, these are nice, especially the auto industry was doing this. It's like, sure, it's beautiful, and I know you have a lot of money for events, which is great, but like Jesus man, it's like it I've if I would work for the auto and automotive industry. I will move mountains with the events because I know how much budget they have. And it's like you could do so much more without spending so much more.

You wanna see smiles. You want to see that you actually reach a person. We're so numb nowadays because of all the bullshit in the world and media bullshit. it's seeing an actual human connection, seeing the actual sparkle in someone's eyes. It can be for something big, it can be for something small, but it's like that. I mean if you create an event that you're proud of and that had that evact effect on your on your attendees, show that. Show that. Because that's what we do this for. We wanna make an impact. We don't just want to spend money, even though it's fun, but no, we wanna make an impact and spend money.

Your network is your net worth. It's especially in for me then in my what I do building these experiences, these events, it's a collaborative effort. it's I can't do this by myself. And being more aware of the value of the people that you have in your surroundings, in your network, and being able to leverage that in a way that is creating win wins. I think that's being being aware of that, even though subconsciously I was, but being like consciously aware of that would have probably speeded up my process maybe a little bit more. At the same time, I'm exactly where I need to be, so what can I say? Yeah.

Huh, ill preparation. I mean if you don't have if you're not prepared and you do not have experience freestyling shit, you're gonna fail. You're gonna fail. People will see it. if you can't keep your cool, even if your event is very well produced, you're gonna fail. You're gonna burn out a certain point in time, I think. Because it's events doing these kind of things and working with people can be very emotional, very draining. And can be very stressful. And especially if you're leading the events, people do not want to see stress on your face. Everything is under control, even if it's not. Even if you're dying on the inside and you have to like go around the corner to scream a little bit. We've all been there. every everything is under control. I mean, at that time when we were over capacity, I wanted to walk away, but like, no, everything is under control. We'll figure it out. Yeah, guys, go have a drink later and Send me the invoice and we'll pay for your drinks, which we didn't.

go go have drinks. Send us the invoice. We got you. We got you. my email address, right? so yeah, sorry.

Events are here to stay. People think that AI might kill events. Like no, we as human beings, we have the need, the innate need to interact with people. And especially if you can interact with like minded people through these events, Mm-hmm. they will always be there. They will always have there will always be a place in society for events and especially in person.

if if you live your life like I do, indeed, like you said, you give your all. Not always, it's like you live this is my life. My work is my life. And that sounds cool and sad at the same time, in my opinion. you give up a lot. You give up a lot by in general in whatever career you have, by going all in. I mean, I'm forty five now. I mean, I could have had like wife and kids and these kind of things, I don't have that. I mean I have got my girlfriend or my partner. but now I'm like shit time flies by like okay now I'm 45, which is not per se a problem, but it's like don't forget to live. Don't forget to breathe. Don't forget to touch wood and also career is important. Title is important. Money is important but there's more important things than that. Or equally as important things if you want to call it that.

yeah, I think I mean for me COVID was a blessing in that sense that it forced me to slow down. I was I was flying all the time, flying all over the world, or on a train, or traveling all the time, and it forced me to be here at home and like spend time with my partner and get to know her actually because I used to basically be in Paris during the week and only have like a weekend relationship. So for me that was a moment to sit down, assess where I was. assess where I was going, assess where I were where I used to be. And, breathe. Because I think before that time it was probably very close to a burnout because I was going that hard. So for me, like I said, COVID was a blessing in that sense, even though yes, it sucked and all these kind of things, but

Yeah, you want it on filter? You get it on filter.

Thank you very much for these very kind words and this very accurate assessment of our conversation.

to see your comments in the next round of nominations. Same here.