John Drury has spent more than a decade at the helm of the legendary SSE Arena, Wembley, presiding over events such as the MTV EMAs, The X Factor final and gigs by some of the biggest acts on the planet. Here, he offers us a glimpse into the action-packed world of venue management…
My favourite part of running a venue is…
“That ‘Hello Wembley!’ moment. We’re in the unusual position of being one of the only venues where you shout out the name of the area rather than the name of the city. We’re only here to do events – nobody makes money from a dark day – so it’s all about keeping a busy diary and seeing people having the best time. Being a small part of that is a big thing.”
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is…
“To be honest in your dealings because that way you can’t be tripped up and people respect you for it. It’s far better to put forward an honest opinion, even if it isn’t the opinion that people want to hear at the time. The other thing is to just enjoy what you’re doing because you can tell when people don’t. There are a lot of pressures but ultimately it’s a cool business to be in and if you see somebody go on stage and don’t think, ‘This is pretty good’, then you’re probably doing something wrong.”
My proudest moment in the business is…
“The team that we have here. It’s not a moment in itself, but it all leads to a moment. Last year was the best year we’ve had since the venue reopened in 2006. We had 127 performances and this year looks like it could beat that, which would be a big achievement in a competitive market with a building that’s been around a long time.”
Hosting the MTV EMAs last year was…
“Amazing, it was the biggest production we’ve ever had, it took up the whole of our flat floor area. It was a big deal for all of us because we hadn’t held the event before; it was the first time the EMAs had been in London for 21 years and only the second time ever. There wasn’t a bad seat in the house – because there weren’t that many seats! It was only about 6,500-capacity by the time we’d taken out all that floor space.”
My favourite backstage story involves…
“An R&B band. I don’t think I can say which one, but some people will know. Their soundcheck went on and on until the promoter said to me, ‘We paid them for rehearsals but they never turned up.’ They were trying to turn the soundcheck into a rehearsal, but by that point we’d opened the doors to the public and were having to keep people on the concourses. The band kept saying, ‘We’ll be done in two minutes’ and in the end we started letting people inside because it was getting so busy. The audience looked as surprised as the band to see each other before they expected, but it was the only way to get them off stage. When they came on later, one of the band jumped off the stage and fell on his arse. They were booed off after 20 minutes – and then blamed us for it!”
We once presented Spinal Tap with an award in the shape of Stonehenge and…
“Derek Smalls said to me, ‘You’ve got a great grasp of the obvious.’ I took it as a compliment.”
