After the challenges of the past couple of years, we couldn’t be more delighted by the return to live events or the opportunity we now have to build a stronger team than ever.
Our Event Operations team is one of the quickest growing in the venue, as we expand our options for full event management. We’re delighted to welcome not one, but two incredible members to the lineup! What’s even more exciting for us is that one of them used to be clients, so already well-versed in what Tobacco Dock, and has experienced running events here from the other side!
Alice Botham – Senior Events Operations Manager
Life sometimes throws out moments of pleasing symmetry, and Tobacco Dock is where I got my first job when I moved to London. The art show I worked on gave me an insight into the spaces of Tobacco Dock and highlighted their innate drama and atmosphere. I remember our show involved a giant crochet bear in the Great Gallery Courtyard and a well-endowed naked minotaur!
At the start of my career, I was fresh from a Masters in Museum and Gallery Curation after completing a Bachelors in Classics, so my focus was on a very different field! But I had a change of heart when I worked on an outdoor arts festival. I loved the dynamism of live events – so much more exciting than the pace of museum life.
I came to London and worked across a variety of projects, including as the Event Manager for a London borough and at festivals like Boomtown and Glastonbury. After being the Operations Manager at Printworks in their inaugural year, I returned to Tobacco Dock while working with LWE on their daytime music festivals. The venue is a labyrinth of amazing spaces and so versatile.
From there, I worked with the GLA in the Royal Docks, mainly focussing on helping to set up new venues and co-producing weird and wonderful outdoor events. It was wide-ranging work, but I felt ready to get my teeth into a fresh challenge.
In 2021 I worked with Sky, HBO and Punch Drunk on The Third Day which was meant to be an immersive experience for a live audience on Osea Island. Due to the pandemic, it became a 12 hour single-shot livestream, and I was working with stars like Jude Law and Florence and the Machine to keep the continuous action seamless. Being an Ops Manager for live TV meant being ready for everything and find clever ways to hide from the camera!
I’ll be supporting our clients in turning their ideas into living breathing beasts. I see my role as being the grease in the wheels to make sure events turn out the way they’re planned and to quickly enable changes when challenges get thrown our way.
In terms of what I am looking forward to: having encountered Tobacco Dock from the ‘other side’, I can’t wait to get to know the venue and get under its skin.
Chelsey Hulbert – Events Operations Manager
My route into events was quite a traditional one, studying International Event Management at the University of Surrey. Looking ahead, I took advantage of as many volunteering opportunities worldwide within the industry as I could alongside my degree to enhance my practical experience. I stayed with one of the event companies alongside my studies and took the role of as their Event Manager shortly after graduating, working globally throughout Europe, New York, Asia and the UAE.
Within this role, I worked with Tobacco Dock as a venue to bring Urban Living Festival “2020” to life in October 2021, navigating through the pandemic and multiple postponements.
Tobacco Dock’s unique personality, size and Grade I listing is a new experience to work with as an event professional. This made the whole event even more special, and I really enjoyed working with the venue team, building a lovely working relationship along the way. When I saw the job advertised on LinkedIn, I knew it could be the perfect opportunity for me broaden my horizons to venue side and am now so delighted to now be a part of the team that I had worked so closely within from a different perspective.
The event industry is well and truly building again and I am enjoying running events and working alongside external teams. I think that my experience of working on the ‘other side’ really helps me to understand how to give our clients the best experience and to anticipate their needs.