Name: Natasha Pearce
Job role: Senior events manager
Company: Timebased
What was your background before joining the company? After leaving education, I tried for as long as possible to live the life of a nomad, spending my time travelling and living abroad.
I originally decided to get into the events industry after helping my friend plan her wedding, so I packed up my bags and left my home in the south of France and moved to London, where I interned at an events agency for a few months.
This was key at the time as, apart from the wedding, I had no previous experience and no formal qualifications to get my foot in the door. The internship quickly gave me the experience I needed to secure my first proper job in events, where I started out booking promotional staff. I spent five years with the same company before moving to Timebased in 2013.
How did you secure your job? How long was the interview process? The interview process began with a telephone interview with the owner of Timebased, Richard Dodgson, following which we had a face-to-face interview.
The final stage of the process was to respond to a brief, something quite common these days, which was to include a proposal to deliver a press event for a well-known department store in London, and outline a budget. All in all, this process took around two weeks. I didn’t have experience in the field of fashion, so there were some elements that were unknown to me, but I think by showing I was eager to learn and willing to work hard, I was able to secure the job.
What is your remit at the business? What are you expected to manage? I do end-to-end event management, which basically means I do everything from taking the brief from the client right through to the delivery of the event on the day and working on site during the event itself.
My responsibilities include creative development (working with the in-house design and production teams), proposal writing, budget management, supplier liaison and negotiation, researching innovations and new developments relevant to the industry, client management, talent booking, show producing and much, much more!
What are your working hours? Strictly speaking, it’s 9:30am to 6pm, but often earlier, and often later, depending on the events we have on at the time. We produce a lot of evening events, which means that some days are very long and our schedules change frequently.
Who do you work closely with? I work closely with a designer on every event to develop the creative ideas, which can be as simple as creating a logo and doing some graphics, right through to designing a runway or a retail shop interior.
I also work with a production manager, who helps us to take our wild and wonderful ideas and make them a reality. In addition to this, I work with graphic designers, caterers, venues, florists, film and photography teams and a wide variety of suppliers, which change with each and every event.
What do you love about your job? I love the diversity - every day can be different and the only limitation to that is your imagination and creativity (and clients’ budgets).
What are the biggest challenges of the job? Time - there is never enough of it!
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