Reim El Houni 00:00

Live TV is just a completely different animal. I honestly don’t think everyone is cut out for it. Because it’s, you know, you’re on your nerves the entire time. And what you come to realize is that you need to be making hundreds of decisions, you know, every second, and you make one wrong decision and it could be detrimental.

Evan Le Clus 00:21

Hello, you were listening to the Dare To Scale show with me, Evan,

Warsha Joshi 00:25

And me Warsha. This show is about all things scaling, scaling your business, your journey. And you.

Evan Le Clus 00:34

You are here because you dare to dream, dared to dream big. So, sit back and enjoy the conversation, or perhaps even join in.

Evan Le Clus 00:47

Hi there, and welcome to the next wonderful episode of The Dare to Scale Show and boy, have we got a real corker for you today. I think every episode gets better and better and better and recently in Dubai, we had Expo 2020 Which sort of became Expo 21-22 and that it was a tremendous success and we have wonderful guests from there. Warsha

Warsha Joshi 01:07

Yeah, thank you. Expo2020 turned out to be a different year and still branded as Expo 2020 in Dubai, one of the biggest successes of recent times, despite so many adversities, I think what Dubai managed to pull it off with people like our guest involved, that is a feat that needs to be talked about every time. So, who do we have here today, listeners you will really are in for a treat, because who we have here today, somebody you’ve heard from before. And today she’s here in a very different capacity. Our guest today is Reim El Houni. Reim, as you remember, is the founder and CEO of the award winning video production company called Ti22. And lots of other brands all leading into video production. Today, she is here in the capacity of the executive producer of Studio Expo. Now studio Expo who did daily live TV shows with a global reach. And when I say live TV shows, remember the expo ran for six, six months. So Reim and her team were producing live shows for every single day of those six months. And she has some stories successful stories of how that daily show intimidating as it sounds became an effortless exercise to the rest of the world who we were watching. So Reim, welcome to our show. Thank you so much for being here and sharing these stories with us.

Reim El Houni 02:45

Thank you so much Warsha and Evan, it’s always a pleasure being here. Always a pleasure chatting with both of you. So, thank you for the opportunity.

Evan Le Clus 02:54

You’d welcome Reim.

Warsha Joshi 02:55

So where did this all start? I know, Expo was announced for 2020 For obvious reasons it was moved for a whole year. And yet your story with Expo started well before that, didn’t it? 

Reim El Houni 03:09

Yes, that’s true. What many people may not know is that I used to be an executive producer at Dubai One which is the local terrestrial TV station in Dubai. And that was many moons ago. So, I actually was there 15 years ago. And I was there for about four years. And I was also head of events. So, whilst I was there, I actually ran a number of a live event shows it was things like you know, the opening of Burj Khalifa and the diff at the time, there was the Dubai International Film Festival, and the air show and all of these large scale events that used to happen in Dubai, I was responsible for the TV coverage of those events, as well as a lot of local content and programming. So this was very much full circle me coming back and working with with the station as they were actually the official host broadcaster for Expo 2020. So, working with the station to deliver what was now the greatest show out there with a global audience was just a great opportunity and a great reunion.

Warsha Joshi 04:10

I bet it was, did you also just say opening up Burj Khalifa.

Reim El Houni 04:15

I did, I did say the opening of Burj Khalifa, that was a very, very interesting story, actually. And I remember it so clearly. And if I’m honest, it’s probably one of those events that paved the way for Expo and being able to handle the kind of pressure that comes with live events. I’ll take you back to that time to what I remember very clearly is I’ve been working on the Dubai International Film Festival, which for those of you who have been in Dubai long enough will remember there was a week-long event that took place and you know, had a lot of celebrities and films and premieres and I was working on daily live content there but that was only ever about a week to 10 days so nothing like you know the six months that we were looking at with with Expo and 182 days that we had, but still it was significant project. What I remember clearly is on my last day of the film festival, I got a call and I was asked to come in to meet the CEO The following morning with my plan on how we would do an opening show for the Burj Khalifa. And it was December and I walked in, and I spent my evening planning coming up with ideas and what the show was going to look like. And I walked in in the morning, and they said, Yep, we’re gonna do two live shows for the opening of Burj Khalifa. And they’re both going to be live. And it’s happening in 10 days. So I had 10 days to plan these two live shows, both of which were around, if I remember correctly, about three hours each, that’s a lot of content to pull off in in a short period of time. But like with everything in Dubai, you have a goal, you have a vision, you have a mission, and you run for it, and you make it happen. So, we had a team and we literally threw everything at it, and just started getting guests in and getting content together. And you know, suddenly we were doing like wreck ease around Burj Khalifa and figuring out like where the locations were going to be Anwar set was going to look like it was a lot to handle. And just fast forward and and skip some of the detail. But I’ll fast forward to the day. And we had a show in the morning. And we had a show in the evening. And the show in the morning was as you’d expect, it was kind of setting the scene for the event that was going to take place in the evening. So, you know, a lot of guests talking about, you know, what an amazing feat, the Burj is and architecturally and what it meant for the city. And you know, we successfully pulled off a three-hour show, and that went very well. We thought Great, one down one to go. We’re halfway there. And the evening was what everyone was looking forward to. Because that’s when you know, His Excellency, His Royal Highness Sheikh Mohammed would appear and there’s, you know, expected to see the fountains and fireworks and all these things. And I remember, you know, with any event where the royal family are involved, you always have a direct relationship with his media team and his protocol team. Because they’re, you know, sure that everything is secure, especially if you’re filming, you need to have a little bit of a heads up as to you know, where he’s gonna go, just to ensure that your cameras are in the right place. So, Sheikh Mohammed was meant to arrive at 8pm. And I remember sitting in an OB truck, because we were actually at Burj Khalifa. And they were sitting there and it was about 10, past seven, so 50 minutes before his meant to arrive. And I looked at the I just happen to catch on another screen that one of the princes had arrived. And I thought that’s really unusual. You know, why would the prince arrive before and, you know, whole 50 minutes before his Highness arrives? And I rang the media team, and I said, I’ve just spotted the Prince arrive, like, Are you sure on schedule? everything’s on track? And he’s like, yes, yes, yes. Nothing’s changes arriving at eight o’clock. I said, Great. I literally literally got off the phone. And someone ran in and said, His Highness is here. His Highness is here. You’re going live, we’re going live, you’re going live in 30 seconds. Notice that and the next thing I knew there was someone counting down and it was 25,24. I know just kind of try to figure out like, are we ready to do this. And all I could see, fortunately, fortunately, our two presenters, they were sitting in the studio, however, you know, the desk was full of papers. And we were not ready to go live. We weren’t we, you know, we had a good 50 minutes to go, you know, we were not ready to go. But next thing I knew we were counting down 10 Nine, and apparently, we’re off. And not to mention the fact that our guests hadn’t arrived yet. Because you know, we’re not on air yet for 50 minutes. So we’re on air. And, you know, Sheikh Mohammed walks out his vehicle and he starts walking straight. And meanwhile, I’m doing my best. As a producer, you’re feeding a lot of information into the presenter’s ears. So I’m trying my best to figure out what’s happening next. So, I can you know, feed them that information. And I know that, you know, Sheikh Mohammed is going to reach the end and he’s gonna turn right because that’s what I’ve been told, I’ve been told is gonna turn right. And I’m like, Guys, he’s gonna get to the end. And he’s gonna turn right. And I’ve got all my cameras ready to the right, and what do you think he does? Left? So, he turns left, and we have zero cameras on the left. So it’s like, get the guy who’s got the cameras and the cameras are running to the other side. The next thing I know, there’s like something, some thing falling from the sky. And we’re all looking at going What’s that? There’s something falling from the sky, what’s falling from the sky? And next thing I know, there’s these parachuters who have like jumped. I clearly there was coordinated do just fail to tell us you know, so you know camera man trying to catch something red that’s now falling from the sky. And everyone’s highly confused as to what it is. I was then told that as per the agenda, Sheikh Mohammed was going to push a button and the fountain was going to go off and what the Sheikh Mohammed do, right past the fountain and into the building. And I’m like, okay, scrap that idea. And you can imagine that the presenters are literally telling viewers Yeah, well, Sheikh Mohammed will be launching the fountain any moment now. And of course, he doesn’t he walk straight past and into the building and next thing was a bit on, because I received a phone call from the media office. And they said, there’s an announcement. We can’t tell you what the announcement is. It’s very important. And I need your presenters to be happy about the announcement. And I was sitting there thinking, how am I meant to react with this information like this? Give me some hint. What is this? He’s like, Nope, just pay attention and make sure they’re very happy. Okay. And so there I am in their ears again, saying, Guys, there’s an announcement. I don’t know what the announcement is. You have to pay attention. But you have to be very happy about the announcement. And obviously, they’re on air so they can’t really react to what I’m saying. But next thing we know is if for those of you who remember Originally, the Burj was named Burj Dubai. And at that moment, they pulled off a, I guess it was the cloth from the plaque. And that’s when it was revealed that the name was now going to be Burj Khalifa and not Burj Dubai. And our instinct, the minute it happened was we thought they made a mistake, you know, we looked at as, like, how they made a mistake, is that right? And then that’s when the penny dropped. And I realized,

Reim El Houni 11:10

that’s the announcement, be happy, be happy, be happy. You know, and they literally were like, what an amazing gesture. And it just, you know, I that’s such a tribute. And you know, it just went from there. And I just remember the other thing that was happening alongside this is because there were so many people around the Burj the signal was so weak that I had to rely on my mobile phone, to communicate with the cameraman and with the reporters. And it’s something we didn’t really anticipate or expect. So, what was happening every, like 10 minutes or so I was running out of battery on the phone. So then I would just get to a point where it’s like another phone, another phone, another phone, another phone, and someone else would hand me someone else’s phone, and I’d go on to someone else’s phone. And then I must have gone through about four or five phones during the duration of that show. And meanwhile, obviously, as I mentioned, we started so much earlier, that you know, our guests just started to trickle in. Yeah, as we were approaching the end of our episode, but for that first period, it was just the presenters trying to fill air and, and us feeding them information. But the one thing that struck me the most after all of that is that the show ended, and I came off air and I just felt so defeated. I came off air. And I just thought that was the worst show that I’ve ever produced in my life. And I just felt you know, everything I had planned to happen didn’t happen. Everything that I had visually anticipated, would look a certain way. Just look the opposite. And at that moment, my mom messaged me, and I looked at my phone. And the message that my mom had sent was Mabrook! Well done. That was an amazing show. Oh, wow. I messaged back and I said, Mom, what show were you watching? Where I was sitting, I was terrible. My mom just always like, it was amazing. The fireworks were amazing. It was just great to see the live crowd. And she had a very, very different experience. And, you know, being a viewer and audience at home. And I think that to me is when the penny dropped in terms of, you know, whatever you may plan, especially in the world of live television, things change every second, and no one at home knows what you ever planned anyway. So as long as the viewer is having a smooth experience, that’s really all that matters, you know, so perception is reality. And thankfully, I think having that experience is really what laid the groundwork for the six months of Expo 2020 Because honestly, it was like having the opening of Burj Khalifa every day for six months every day. So that was my birth story. Yeah.

Warsha Joshi 13:58

Wow, what a way to…

Evan Le Clus 13:59

It’s incredible. This is amazing. Oh, at that time, we actually lived across the road. And we were watching on TV, because there were so many crowds and stuff. It was it was a nightmare to just get out of home. And we thought it was an amazing broadcast. Again, we have no idea. Absolutely no idea. So well done. Totally well done.

Warsha Joshi 14:17

Oh, so that totally set the scene now.

Reim El Houni 14:20

Yeah, I still remember it. I remember it like it was yesterday. Because it really that’s how impactful the experience was.

Evan Le Clus  14:27

Oh, I mean, they say don’t work with animals and kids, when the other one I think must be live TV. Anything can happen?

Reim El Houni 14:36

Absolutely. And I think what’s interesting is that, you know, I’ve spent the last 11 years building my company and working primarily, you know, with corporates and companies on prerecorded content. So and it’s a very different environment. It’s a simpler environment in a lot of ways and it’s a more controlled environment. So, and it’s just live TV is just a completely different animal. I honestly don’t think everyone is cut out for it. Because it’s, you know, you’re on your nerves the entire time. And what you come to realize is that you need to be making hundreds of decisions, you know, every second, and you make one wrong decision, and it could be detrimental. So it does, I can see why a lot of people stay away from live TV, for sure. But on the positive side, it has a different energy to it as well, it has momentum and energy that is very difficult to replace, and very difficult to find somewhere else. It’s like you’re on a roller coaster every day. And then it’s to find that in something else, or a different project is difficult.

Evan Le Clus  15:39

You know, don’t just chuck you know, a golf analogy over there. The difference between somebody who’s on a handicap of 20, and somebody who’s on the handicap of five is not that they can’t hit the ball well, and all that sort of thing, it’s being able to get out of trouble. So somebody on a very low handicap has got the experience and can do things that are 20 handicap just cannot. And Reim that person in fact, I’d say you play more scratch, because not only been there done that you can actually nimble enough to make that decision. And to you a bad decision is a great decision to me, you know, so getting out of trouble is exactly what that calls for. That’s amazing.

Reim El Houni 16:12

Thank you, I have to say, I’ve seen it affect other areas of my life as well. Because you get used to handling, you know, these situations that you know, when someone comes to you in a day-to-day situation and says, Oh, we don’t have time to do this, I’m like, you’ve got days, you’ve got hours, compared to like, you know, I’m really late. I work with a lot of corporate clients, and they’ll come to you on a for the weekend. I don’t know if it’s possible to get it done before Monday morning, I’m like, we’ve got a whole weekend, you know, whereas because you get used to you get used to the situation where you need to react within seconds and minutes. And so it just becomes a luxury of time, and all other kind of video mediums.

Warsha Joshi  16:51

Oh, wow. So let’s fast forward to unless there is another story that you’d like to share, let’s fast forward to what happened when you’re brought in to start discussions about the greatest show on earth?

Reim El Houni 17:04

What’s an interesting one, because obviously, we did have a year in between where we’re things kind of settled down to COVID. But, you know, it was a very exciting project. And I think what was great about it is that, you know, the world literally was our oyster, we were able to we were given sort of free rein to really share as many stories as we could and you know, really bring Expo to viewers fully as we could. But what I think none of us could have anticipated is none of us had worked on an Expo, or let alone been to an expo before. So it didn’t really understand the scale of the event. And to be honest, you know, we physically moved into our Expo office, I think it was beginning of September 2021. And when we moved in, it’s fair to say that, you know, the site wasn’t fully operational. And you know, we had a live show that was going to start from the first of October. So, we’re sitting there with a live show, and we still didn’t really have much content. We hadn’t, you know, understood our way around. We didn’t have the contacts yet. So that that first period was a bit nerve wracking because it was that feeling of how do we pull off a Daily Live Show when at this moment in time, we don’t really know what’s going to happen on a daily basis. And we don’t really have the context. And we don’t really know where we’re going. And it was very much pulling content out of thin air. So, you obviously improvise, and you find ways to loosely connect your content to the themes of Expo and all of that. But I think what was more of a challenge was moving into any new facility, there are going to be challenges. And we had moved into a brand-new studio, which had a new gallery, which is basically the viewing room, which has all of the machines where a show gets run from. And we were also working with a new team. So, we had a lot of technicians.

Warsha Joshi  18:58

So, hold on. So, this studio that you’re talking about was on the actual site. You weren’t off site, you were actually on the side of the Expo.

Reim El Houni 19:06

Correct. So a studio was custom built for us. Yeah, in the expo Media Center, specifically for the show. Yeah. Which is great to have our own base on site and you know, be in a position where, you know, we’re literally right in the thick of the action. But again, when everything is brand new, you know, you’d expect like in any normal situation, expect some time to rehearse, you’d expect some time to practice, whether it be you know, on the technical side or on the people side. Yeah. And the situation we were in is that I had originally planned a month of rehearsals and then gradually I came to realize that no, no, that’s not happening. No, no, maybe we can get three weeks in No, no things aren’t going to be ready by then. Two weeks in. No, I started to hit a bit of a panic point about one week in when I realized we’ve got one week to go and we have yet to rehearse anything in our new Use studio and started to have some rehearsals in that last week. So last week of September, and they were frightening. They were frightening because, as I mentioned, everything was new. So, when things are new things break, things don’t work the way you need them to. When people are communicating you for the first time, you know, one person means one thing, and you mean something else. So, you know, the way we were even just cueing each other, we had language barriers. So, we had like Arabic team members and English team members. And so, you know, someone would queue something in Arabic, and then the English team member wouldn’t realize it been queued and like, oh, okay, now we’re gonna try that, again, we just had a whole range of teething challenges. And to be fair, you probably would have had those teething challenges on any show anywhere. But because of the time pressure, you know, these are not the kind of teething challenges you want to be having a week before the world’s greatest show, you know, so. And what became even more frustrating or difficult, is that, at that time, our first episode was on the morning of the first of October, but everyone was very, very focused on the opening ceremony, which was happening on the 30th of September. So, no one really, really cared about our requirements, because the opening ceremony is what was taking precedence at that moment in time. And the opening ceremony needed all the best resources. So, it needed, you know, our just to just to make it clear, there was a studio, and then you operate the studio from a gallery. And the opening ceremony needed our gallery. So, for the week, prior to us, starting, we were using a different gallery, we weren’t using our gallery, we were using a different gallery. And I was told that we would only be able to use our gallery, after the opening ceremony. I was sitting there thinking, well, this isn’t going to work. I can’t I can’t be using our gallery for the very first time, on our very first episode, like I don’t even want to imagine the kind of problems or the kind of challenges that will happen live on air, you know, but so I was trying to, you know, speak to the powers that be and say, look, you know, we’ve been rehearsing from a certain gallery, can we possibly just do our first episode from that gallery? Seeing as we’ve now at least I understood all the technical challenges in this in this space. And then, you know, we’ll you know, we’ll practice. And this, you know, they kind of mulled this idea. And I thought that no way will I end up in this situation. Well, it gets a little bit more tricky than that. Because we, if I recall correctly, it was the was the Wednesday, so it was two days before. And I was meant to have we were about to start a rehearsal. And it was about that it was just hitting noon. And I had that rehearsal day, I had the following days rehearsal. And then I was live. So, I was three days away. And I suddenly got a phone call at 12 noon, just before we went live to say, your rehearsal has been canceled tomorrow. We need we need the resources for the opening ceremony. And I was standing there going, but I need more time. You can’t possibly be telling me that today is my last rehearsal. And I said, yep. And the next time you’re in the studio is your first episode. And I said, Well, again, you can’t possibly be telling you that I’m gonna end up you know, using the new gallery for my first episode. So in that moment, I made what, in hindsight, might have been a crazy decision. But it was a split-second decision where I said, right, it’s 12 o’clock now. I’m going to use my time to pre-record my first episode. Because so this is the day before the opening. This was the day before the opening. Correct, but not our first day. Yeah.

Reim El Houni 24:06

So I’m going to use the day I’ve got this the only solution safe solution I have is to pre-record an episode. And I literally I just I made that decision. Quickly. I got on the phone. I started calling my presenters, and one after the next it was like, Katie, where are you? Oh, I’m in a meeting. Can you get here? Yes. How long? 45 minutes to get here now. Lee, where are you? Oh, I’m currently in Mall of the Emirates. I’m in a changing room. Well, can you please get here? Well, my leg is in a tear, put it down and just get here. Does that Okay? Yep, yep, coming all right. And, you know, they all managed to it to race over to the Expo site. Meanwhile, I had a script writer, I was like, right, get scripting get scripting and literally what what we were doing is he was scripting a section and we were feeding it into the autocue as he scripted it. We didn’t have reports ready. It’s a whole other complicated story there but we didn’t Have reports ready? So I was I went over to another department, I said, I need all the reports you have, and I need them now. And she’s like, oh are you know, I’m not sure I need them now. Just give me whatever you have, I need them. And I think it was probably the first time anyone had seen me be as assertive as that. And next thing I knew these reports appeared on that, right. That’s what we’re using, we’re using the reports that have appeared. And I think it was roughly around 3.30 or 4pm, that we were finally ready. With a script with the reports, the presenters, everyone ready to attempt to pre record this episode. And we were off and we started the show. And we were still facing a lot of technical challenges. But as I note, we’re just going to go through, we’re going to keep going, we’re going to keep going. The one fairly amusing, sad thing that started to happen was the sun started to set. And for those of you who are aware, we started off as a morning show. So as work as I’m going through this race in time of trying to pre-record this episode, I’m now not only just racing, you know, time in terms of my studio booking I’m not trying to race the sun, you know, because as as we’re recording, the sun is getting darker and darker and and I just, you know, we eventually finished recording the episode and it was pitch black behind them when it was done. And it was a weird sense of, you know, I came out of that gallery. And it was a mixture of relief and a combination of like, wow, we actually managed to pull off a pre recorded episode but also a disbelief of what I can’t use it because the sun’s down. And I was literally that was probably the first day that broke me and I had a I had a break down in the carpark I walked all the way out to the car park and had a break down that day, because I couldn’t believe that after that huge effort everyone had put in to pre record this episode, I was now faced with an episode that you know, with the sun setting. But what I decided to do, given that I no longer had a rehearsal the next day was to spend the following day trying to salvage it. So, the following day, with the team, we worked on re editing the prerecorded episode to try and cut out you know, all of the wide shots, everything that made it appear. You know, that made it obvious. It was prerecorded and and we managed to somewhat pull it off, we had an episode at the end of it, which which looked like it was all shots, you know, in the morning. It was it was highly stressful. But I felt it was important given that I was about to go into the first of October, and our first episode, and not having used our gallery before not really knowing what was going to happen live. I thought at least worst-case scenario, I need to have a backup plan in my hands. And I have one. So that’s the story of the day before.

Warsha Joshi  28:20

And on that absolutely brilliant, brilliant first episode story, we’re gonna take a little break, because this is the conversation has just started with Reim. There are more stories to come. There are more success stories to come. And that’s going to continue in part two of this series of episodes now. So, keep listening. And we’ll be back in two weeks’ time.

Warsha Joshi  28:49

Thank you for joining us and for listening all the way through to get the show notes, the transcription and of course to subscribe, visit dare to scale.fm

Evan Le Clus  29:01

The show is thanks to you. So please keep the five-star reviews coming. Remember to share this with your network and keep the community expanding. We’ll catch you at our next episode and in the meantime, keep daring and keep growing