The Wedding Professional's Podcast - Episode Thirteen - I uncork the world of the Wedding Hospitality Industry with Kesh of KSB Beer and Bar Supplies

Get ready to uncork the secrets of the wedding hospitality industry, as I sit down with Kesh, a seasoned veteran in the field and the force behind KSB Beer and Bar Supply for over 20 years. Filled with insider knowledge, Kesh spills the details on the complexities of supplying events with custom-built bars, the demanding logistics, and the intricate dance between venues, caterers, and event planners.

I'll also journey through Kesh's unique style of event management, and his unwavering dedication and energy. Discover the essence of his hands-on approach, how he fosters strong bonds with suppliers, and his secrets to mentoring a high-performance team. You'll be fascinated to hear about Kesh's infectious passion for customer interactions and his drive to always put his best foot forward. 

Kesh also shares his refreshing insights into the rising trend of mobile cocktail bars, the subtle art of work-life balance, and the double-edged sword that is social media. He's candid about the hurdles he faces, the fierce competition and the rewards of delivering a memorable event. This episode is a unique blend of hard-earned wisdom, passion, and humor - a perfect cocktail for those with an appetite for event management or those who relish a behind-the-scenes story. Tune in, you won't want to miss this.

You can contact Kesh at his website - http://www.ksb-beers.co.uk/

Transcript

Andy: 0:01

Hello and welcome along. It's Andy, your host on this hero podcast. Hello, and here we are, episode 13,. Unlucky for some, hopefully not. We'll see Wedding professionals podcast crash and burn or carry on, let's see. Anyway, this one is Kesh from KSB beer and bar supplies, chappasie all sorts of weddings, and I'm sure you do too. He's hardworking, always seems to be running around at 100 miles an hour, always seems to be there early, always seems to stay late. So yeah, let's get on with it. And it's Kesh from KSB beer and bar supplies. Here we go.

Andy: 0:46

So here we are in the leafy suburb of Albury in the West Midlands which is just trees for as far as the eye can see, and then with Kesh from KSB bars. Welcome to the pod Kesh. Thank you for spending the time. Thank you, andy. Thank you so much. Now I've seen you at jobs all over the place and you always seem to be working late. Hard work, dragging in barrels, dragging in glasses, building bars it's just like nonstop, nonstop hard physical work. So does that pretty much sum up your day?

Kesh: 1:22

Most definitely, and all the pre work leading up to it as well. So it's just a continuation of hard graph.

Andy: 1:27

Okay, so who actually kind of books you to begin with? Is it the client themselves, or do planners get in touch and want to book you, or is it the venues? Or who makes the first contact for you?

Kesh: 1:44

It's a lot of what you've just mentioned there. So we've got really strong relationships with a lot of caters, a lot of strong relationships with event planners, and we do have a lot of venues that we've continuously worked with. So a lot of it comes from recommendation, just from the industry, and also we've got a lot of past clients, from families that booked us before and they've just continued to book us.

Andy: 2:10

So, yeah, so it's a lot of different avenues, so you become like a family bar.

Kesh: 2:14

Yeah absolutely yeah. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people have got my telephone number stored in their phone book.

Andy: 2:19

Okay, so we're here in a fairly sizable unit in Albury, but this didn't just appear out of nowhere, so where did you actually? How long have you been in the business? Let's start there.

Kesh: 2:29

Okay, so KSBBs start trading in 1994. Well, yeah, 1994. So there's not actually many people that know this, but it wasn't actually started by myself. It was started off with a really good family friend of mine, and he's your brother. We've known each other since like 11 years old, and so I started in 1996. So, I started two years after, straight out of school, and next thing you know I've got access to all of these weddings. Weddings are obviously completely different back then, so I've been doing it for nearly 28 years.

Andy: 3:09

Wow, wow. And did it start with weddings or did it start with other functions?

Kesh: 3:14

Yeah, so mainly weddings, but it was. It started off with kegs of beer at people's houses, people's houses, back of a marquee, and you know people used to book community halls back back in 1994. And maybe schools, or we used to have a local swimming baths in West Bromwich where they, you know, every single wedding took place there, because obviously there's no bar there at all, isn't?

Andy: 3:37

there.

Kesh: 3:38

There's nothing there yet, but there wasn't no bar back then. It started off with trestle tables trestle tables with a bit of white roll and wasn't even. It wasn't even cloth, it was paper roll, a couple of pumps and about 20 kegs, because that's how much beer people used to drink back then. And then in 1996, when I started, that's when we started to build these mobile bars and I can probably confidently say that we are the first people to bring a mobile bar to a wedding?

Andy: 4:10

Yeah, custom built bars, Absolutely Okay. And those bars that you do turn up with I mean, we did one at Ragley just last week was that, is that your bar, or was that supplied?

Kesh: 4:22

So that particular bar was Fews marquees Okay. So we had to bring everything else that attaches to it, so the actual beer pumps, the cooling systems, all of the glassware, everything that we needed to do but we could have. We could have built that bar if the client obviously needed us to build that bar for them.

Andy: 4:41

Yeah, Fews actually built some massive marquees.

Kesh: 4:44

Amazing, absolutely Incredible yeah.

Andy: 4:46

Yeah, they do good work. Yeah, so you were sort of saying that you had to bring your own glassware, your own pumps, this, that, the other one thing, another Logistically, where do you start planning what equipment you're going to take to an event?

Kesh: 5:04

So it starts from, from the initial client contact. You know, they give me the guest numbers, the total guest numbers and just as a rule of thumb. Now I've got to that point where I understand what is going to be consumed and you know for the duration of the event that we're doing. So you know, if somebody says to me that there's 500 guests and we've got an unlimited cocktail package, which which is unlimited, I don't think we've ever ran out. I just know that we need to bring a tonne load of glassware, a tonne load of ingredients, and I do everything where I always make sure that we're not going to run out. So it's my team don't like it because we, you know, we've filled too many vans up to get to, to get to site, and then we ended up bringing a lot of stuff back. But I just don't want to be that company that.

Andy: 5:53

Better that way than the other? Yeah, absolutely. And so for a wedding of of, let's say, 500 guests, how many barrels of beer, or whatever, do you kind of take along?

Kesh: 6:05

So for the 500 people I would probably be taking about, depending on how many ranges that they choose, somewhat along the lines of about six to seven kegs, whereas it's got to the point now where there's been a shift in in drinking trends. So, yeah, so when when people used to like I said back in 1994, we could be doing a function for for 200 people and half of that is, you know, women that are not going to be drinking lager We'd easily get through about five kegs. But now we're doing 500, 500 people and we may only use two to three kegs.

Andy: 6:37

So it's kind of there's a massive shift. Sorry, is that because people are switching to more cocktails and things, switching away from, you know, just the traditional pint of lager or bitter or whatever?

Kesh: 6:49

Absolutely. So. You mentioned bitter. I can't even tell you the last time we've put on bitter anyway. But yeah, people are a bit more health conscious and I know, you know, still drinking full fat coke with vodka and stuff, it's, it's still got everything in there, but everybody just shifting into it and I think it's just it's how they feel when they're, you know, holding a cocktail or a spirit, rather than you know, a big chunky point. Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

Andy: 7:15

Yeah, I can see that. And how do you go about creating those cocktails then? I mean, there's some standard ones but obviously alcohol free as well. You've got a cater for the, for the non alcoholic drinkers. So I mean, and I've seen your stuff, I think at Ragley they spent probably a good day, three hours, prepping, prepping. So you know how long does all that sort of stuff actually take you? What? How early do you have to be at a venue to make sure that you're ready for when the doors open?

Kesh: 7:47

Oh, yes, so that's all I've got. My standard for that is to be there five hours prior to the event, starting from the first guest Picking up and picking up a drink. So that means that we're, you know we're. We've offloaded the van, we've built the bar, we've got everything where we need to be, where it needs to be, in station. So when the mixologist arrived so that they arrived three hours prior to the event, they've got everything in front of them. They don't have to think about anything else other than here's my loins, here's my mint, here's my garnishes, here's my, my vodka, whatever it is that they need to then get prepared, and even if we're standing around for an hour, once we've done all of that, I'm happy because I know that I've covered every single eventuality and, and if something has gone wrong somewhere along the line, I've got a window.

Andy: 8:34

Yeah, you got time to.

Kesh: 8:35

I've got a window to get something sorted and get it done. So that's why we arrive as early as we do and, like I said from a mixologist, they've got prior to the event. They've got a spec sheet from me, so they know exactly. You know what, what needs to go in each glass, what quantities. So if, if I have to shift somebody on to a different drink, there's not going to be an inconsistency. Okay into you, know. So if you speak to bartender one and bartender two, you're going to get exactly the same drink. You're not going to get a different version of the same drink?

Andy: 9:04

Oh, that's interesting. And those mixologists that you're talking about, are they kind of freelance bar people that you can hire in?

Kesh: 9:11

yeah, so they are freelance and I think a lot of the bar companies you know in in the Midlands right now and we're wherever nationwide they're all using freelance mixologist. Yeah, however, I'm in a lucky position that we're so busy throughout the year I'm able to have the same pop of mixologist yeah and, and they know exactly how we need to operate and how we need to work, so we get that consistency for every single event and the logistics of knowing how, what quantity of, I mean how many, how many kilos of limes, for instance?

Kesh: 9:44

Yeah, so well, for Ragley Hall, I think there's about 200 limes. And when you think of 200 limes and and you cut them into into apes and that's a lot of limes, it's, yes, a lot of limes, and unfortunately there is some wastage at the end of it. But you know, like I said, I'd rather be over prepared in terms of kind of billing the customer.

Andy: 10:05

How? So at an English white wedding, for instance, normally it's a pay bar and somebody will walk up, order a pint of lager and pay, you know whatever a price of a point. What is a price for a point of lager these days in Birmingham? At about 3 pound 50 Long time since I drank. But of course you're just handing it across the counter free of charge to all the guests. So how do you stock, take all that that you're selling and therefore what you're then charging to the customer?

Kesh: 10:35

so, like I said you know, we basically on numbers, it's all in numbers game and if there is 500 guests at the event and we provide, say, for example, you know, a choice of six drinks on the unlimited package for our cocktails, and my rule of thumb on that is the iron hole, from 500 people there's gonna be a certain percentage that I'm not gonna be drinking. But out of that 500 now, majority of the people are drinking those drinks and if they're not drinking the alcoholic version, they're definitely drinking the mocktail version. Sometimes the mocktails are more popular than the cocktails and the cost of making a mocktail and a cocktail it's my newt. Yeah, in regards to the actual you know unit price or ingredients, and so we have a. I have a rough guide to say that if I've got six drinks on the menu and there's 500 guests, I least want to be making 300 of each one of these drinks. Yeah, for me to know that for a 4-hour window.

Andy: 11:30

We're not gonna run short. Okay, so basically you're just doing it on numbers of guests. Yeah, you're charging a quick round.

Kesh: 11:35

I've got it. Yeah, okay, sorry, sorry if I didn't answer that. No, no, no, that's perfect?

Andy: 11:40

I didn't, because I've never really thought about how it was, how it was charged. It's interesting so. So what's the biggest event you think you've ever catered for, ever done? This is kind of one of my usual questions like when did you, when did you do a job? And? And you arrived and thought wow, you know, we're here now. This is the big time.

Kesh: 12:05

It's a really tough question because, honestly, I've been involved in some absolute showstopper of events. Yeah and, but at the same time, for us it's it's, it's a normal day. Yeah, because we prepared for it exactly the same way that we would prepare for it, you know, for any other event.

Andy: 12:23

And of course, I suppose you got your head down behind the bar so you don't yeah.

Kesh: 12:28

Right now when I go to events. I'm still really hands-on with events, yeah, and but there is times that I do try and step away a little bit and let more guys. Let more guys do it. If anything. They push me at the bottom, like, just get out the bar. You're in our way and I'm not you, but I need to do this and it is not we've got it. So then I can spend more time speaking to you know, speaking to guests while they're there, speaking to the client, speaking to suppliers. I find that, you know, I build relationships with suppliers better when I'm not behind the bar, because you get to have a bit of a chin bag, you get an understanding where they're coming from and it just for the for the next event that you're doing. You know, if everybody's under pressure, you know each other, so you understand that this is not that person right now.

Andy: 13:10

They're just under pressure and you just kind of trying to and yeah, yeah, and can you see yourself in 30 years still doing what you're doing now? Or if you've got ambitions to build KSB larger, bigger, what could you do?

Kesh: 13:27

So I'm 44 this year Congratulations, thank you very much. So, yeah, I don't think I'm going to be doing this for another 30 years. If we are around for another 30 years which hopefully so, it will be me definitely on a hands-on roll. And I still love the customer interaction with the brides and grooms and the dads and the young calls, you know, before the day. I love that part of it. I love the selling of my business to the clients because I've got a real big passion for it. I know how good we are at what we do, so I love that side of it. And I love, after we've executed the event, you know, the reviews that we get, the messages that we get.

Andy: 14:13

That's my payment and that's that really is the point of this podcast is to kind of showcase, because a lot of the people, most of the people in our business, are completely passionate about what they do and they excel at what they do and I've always felt that there's nobody kind of flying the flag and going yeah, you know, look here look over here, we're great.

Andy: 14:36

Which was why I started doing this. Really, you're talking about the hard physical nature of the work before you've actually served even a drink. How do you keep your energy up and keep yourself motivated to keep going?

Kesh: 14:53

I think we've been doing it for as long as we have and we are at that point now where our bodies are just conditioned to do this graph. And we are generally I mean myself personally, I am generally a gym goer, so I keep myself quite fit in that sense. But some of the you know, the younger guys that I have working for us, they sometimes can't keep up with us in the physical aspect of it.

Andy: 15:22

No, it's the same for me. I see a young freelance cameraman and he'll be sitting down and going look, you're 20 something. You should be full of energy and you know.

Kesh: 15:32

I'm the one that should be, sitting down. We're kind of like we're so accustomed to it now and we're just used to it.

Andy: 15:39

Yeah, and I guess working hand in hand with other suppliers so I mean Black Velvet we were working with the other day. You've got to be hand in glove with Sharon to know exactly what she wants and when you're going to be serving and all that sort of stuff.

Kesh: 15:52

Yeah, absolutely. So that's one thing that we're really good at, from the point that we're doing the planning stage and to the execution on the day. Once again, I've got amazing relationships with a lot of suppliers, to the point that you know I can just turn up to their office or their base and just have a sit down and have a bit of a chin wag with them and then, whilst we're there, sometimes we talk work, but nine times out of ten we've just got to that point now where it's a socially really good type community. Yeah, and we all know what our end goal is, and our end goal is always going to be, you know, the best of what we're doing.

Andy: 16:29

Absolutely yeah. Yeah, is your job fun? Absolutely Love it.

Kesh: 16:35

Love it. That's the if you know, when me and my wife joke sometimes if I ever, you know, decided to shut up shop or leave or step away, she's like, you know, I don't know what you're going to do with your time, because your farm's constantly ringing, You're constantly talking to somebody, You're constantly arranging something or planning something. So if that goes, she's like your identity is gone.

Andy: 16:56

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You were saying you could sort of came into KSP a couple of years after its inception, so was there a period of mentoring from the previous guy? Or was it just like there you go, get going, go on, go on about?

Kesh: 17:13

It was, yeah, it was definitely mentoring, but it was more so back then. It was more so like this is how you pour the point, which is, which is great, but you know? So the original owner? He's initials our KSP. So that's where that comes from.

Andy: 17:28

Yeah, and there was me thinking it was KSP.

Kesh: 17:33

People make up their own little versions of what KSP stands for, but but he's still, you know, very involved in my life, so you know, I still treat him as my older brother, so it's it's really good. But I think a lot of it was that they had so many different things going on. You know, they had shops, they had pubs and stuff, and it was kind of this kind of ended up just leaning towards me and and, and I just had, I think, more of a more of a kind of passion in regards to being on time. I'm very timely person, being on time, making sure that everything's done, you know, getting stuff there, getting stuff back, and then it just kind of I just ended up just being more involved in it than than they did, and but they were just happy that it was being I was going to say, from his point of view, he could just sort of hand it over and go go on, then get on with that and sort it out.

Andy: 18:21

Yeah, brilliant. So here we are just breaking in again for my usual request and I won't shut up about it. But please, if you're enjoying what you're listening to, if you're enjoying what you're listening to, then please share it out there on social media. Get the word out. A couple of VR and it's much appreciated. Thanks, jeff, thanks for Lucy, for your kind words online. It's very, very much appreciated. But, yeah, please share it. That's the biggest way you can help and support the wedding professionals. But, guys, right, let's get back to it. Kesh from KSB a bit and bar supplies on we go. And also, you know all these hours that you're talking about you work life balance how does that sit? This is a question that comes up for virtually everybody as well, because what we do is is a relationship unfriendly business.

Andy: 19:15

I think you know you can be leaving at seven o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, getting back at two o'clock next morning. So how does that? During the week, have you got downtime?

Kesh: 19:27

Yeah, that's one thing I'm I'm very strict about in regards to the work life balance side of it. Don't get me wrong. Obviously we still have to do stuff during the week, but I do school runs every single day without fail. I do a morning school run, then I do 1145 school run, then I do a free 30 school run. I'm involved in kids swimming classes, gymnastics, all that stuff. I get to see all of that. I don't want to miss any of that. That's really important to me. The downside is, on the weekends, when the kids are actually free to have, you know, to go to a park or to go to, you know, a festival or whatever it is, it's not available, yeah, not available for that part. So that part I'm missing. Yeah.

Kesh: 20:09

So there is a rise of cocktail bars.

Andy: 20:12

So how do you think your competitors look at you? Do they look at you with envy, or do they look at you and aspire to be what you are?

Kesh: 20:23

So first answer is there is a lot of bars popping up, cocktail bars, more ball bars popping up in the last few years. The thing with cocktail bars, and especially mobile cocktail bars, is it is actually quite an inexpensive start up. So because, realistically, if you want to be a one man band and you have got a garage and we have all been there, we have all started from somewhere, we have all started there and you have got a garage, you need some wood to make a bar and then you get some hip sheets, like everybody is using dance floors, dj booths, bars. You make the bar look pretty. You go on to some social media feed and say mixologist required for an event. You hire some glass wearing, you buy some alcohol. You are a cocktail bar.

Andy: 21:15

You are a mobile cocktail bar.

Kesh: 21:17

Very inexpensive, very inexpensive. The part that sometimes the clients can kind of get bamboozled with is that why we would charge so much and this new company would charge this amount? I always say this to the client what you have got to remember is that the new companies are using your event as a trial and error. If it is their first event or the second event, they have got no data in regards to what they are going to use, what they are not going to use. They have not really formed any relationships with any of the mixologists, because mixologists can basically turn the phone off on the day and say not coming in.

Kesh: 21:55

So I always say to my clients that we are here and if anything ever goes wrong, we are still here. You are going to get to come and see us. If something goes wrong with your event and you only get one shot at it, we cannot say we are going to come back and tomorrow we will do it again. You have got that one day and if you get it wrong, you get it wrong. That is the thing with cocktail bars. You can easily set one up, but the execution and the delivery on the day is completely different. We are consistent. There is never going to be a time where day one we are going to be an excellent job, but day two we are not going to do a very great job. We are consistent throughout.

Kesh: 22:33

But with the new guys, I think some of the new guys spend a lot of time on the social media and obviously the social media have some great benefits. But at the same time, social media can sometimes be a little bit deceiving in regards to how people operate and what they are doing. I am just really transparent with what we do. I was a really honest company. You are never going to come to our bar and you are going to stand in a queue waiting for a drink because, like I said about numbers earlier, we have got the numbers right. We have got the numbers right, we have got the staffing right. We have got everything right on the sense that when you come to the bar, you can have a bit of a chat with the bartenders if you want to, but you will have a drink in your hand while you are having a chat. You are not going to be watching us thinking can I please have my drink?

Andy: 23:19

It is interesting what you say about social media, because it always makes me smile to myself a little bit. When, I do not know, a waiter will be walking around with their phone filming and they will be putting it on their social media and it is like this is my event. You know what I mean. All sorts of suppliers walk around when I am trying to do room shots, for instance, and they are wandering around with their phones up in the air filming. And so you are right, social media can be very deceptive, because anybody can make an event look sexy and like it is their own and actually it is not. So what is your approach to social media?

Kesh: 24:04

I have got better at social media.

Kesh: 24:06

If I am at an event, what I do tend to do is I will give it a snippet of what we are doing on that day in regards to what kind of drinks we have got.

Kesh: 24:15

I have a look at the guests we drinks in their hands because they have actually got a drink standing at the bar. And then I have got a thing where obviously I make sure I am tagging the other suppliers because I want people to understand that we are constantly with the same suppliers all the time, and the reason that we are the same suppliers all the time is because we are all good at what we do. We are all good at what we do and we work really closely together. Just yesterday I put up a social media post of me and he is a friend of mine with a catering company, just to show the outside world, the people looking at our social media, to say that we are actually really good at working with each other. You are not going to have no problems with getting lots of different vendors together in one room to execute your wedding. We are all there with the same goal we want to make sure that your event is absolutely amazing.

Andy: 25:09

Something I noticed at Ragley the other day was with your bar, because it was a very rustic sort of themed event. You had straw bales and everything. Everything just looked so on point. And how much effort goes into making sure that the bar looks the part as well as everything else.

Kesh: 25:30

That is a massive thing, because we cannot just turn it with an LED bar when there is this whole rustic thing happening.

Kesh: 25:39

This is all at the planning stage. It is not just about drinks. The one thing that I do tend to find is that in the pecking order, when a couple are looking to book their event, there's a bit of a shift there as well. So before it used to be the case that, well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna book the venue and then we're gonna book some food, because those are important, you know, because everybody needs to get fed. It's got to the point now where, where clients are Not, there's no right or wrong answer to this. Obviously, if that, if that's there, you know how they want to do. In their pecking order, they will go to say, for example, and you know, a DJ or a decor company.

Kesh: 26:21

Yeah and then they'll kind of get to the venue and then they'll think about the food, and Then they'll think about a piano player, cameraman, and normally, nine times in a ten, drinks is kind of the last thing that they think of.

Kesh: 26:39

And so by that point, what's happened is and everybody's spoken to the, the, the couple by then, and they're already kind of got so many ideas in the head of what they can do, what you know, what they can't do and, and a lot of the time, sometimes the bars already sold to the client from from a DJ. Okay. So the DJ said, well, actually we're doing the DJ, we're doing the dance floor, we'll give you a bar as well. It doesn't really make that much of a difference to us. We, you know, as long as the bars designed the way that a bartender needs to use it, okay, it's aesthetically outside, fantastic, you know. I mean, they look absolutely amazing. But if it doesn't do what we need it to do inside the bar, where we're gonna stand and where we need to basically grab one thing from here and grab one thing from there, then that slows us down. And if we've got no storage, where are we putting all of our equipment? Where we put our glassware? And it's a massive knock-on effect to us.

Andy: 27:31

That's interesting. You see, I've not even considered that. I mean the space behind the bar, like you say, has to be tailored. I suppose that comes back to your years of experience of knowing where stuff needs to be one side of the bar or the other. And, yeah, and how many bar people you've got operating in that space.

Kesh: 27:49

What? So I'll give an example. So Bradley Hall, initially on the plan it was a four meter circle bar when we had the planning meeting, okay. So obviously I was in that planning meeting. I was like that's just not gonna work for us, you know, because we've got, we had, I think we had 11 staff members that day. So I said that's just physically not possible for us to do what we need to do.

Kesh: 28:07

So we I said we need to elongate it you know, make it an oval shape, make it eight meters, make it six meters and, you know, even still then it was a little bit tight. But you know, we had obviously access to different parts of marquee to do what we need to do. So for us, as a bartender, we just need to be the bartender, just need to be making three simple moves, so basically they're able to step right, step left, step back, that's it. They shouldn't, they shouldn't move any more than that and everything should be within reach. And if everything's within reach, that's when you get a speedy service. If you come to a bar and and the person doesn't know when, you know the Prosecco is or the vodka is, or whatever, they're standing there looking for that item, thinking where is that, and then by that time You're just like you know, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, but he does. It's just that they just, the bars just not organized.

Kesh: 28:52

Yeah.

Andy: 28:53

So what about making sure that people get adequate breaks and all that? You have to pay attention to that as well and give people Time away from the bar.

Kesh: 29:00

Yeah, they tend to find that time themselves to be fair, but it is something that you know. The one thing that all when I brief my guys at the start is that if you need to leave your station and, and you know, and your drinks are topped up the readily available on the bar, then that's fine, but you need to tell the bartender next to you to say that, cover me, I'm just gonna quickly go out for, you know, a toilet break or on, quickly grab some food or whatever it is. And and then it's always covered in that sense, because if we all decide to go at the same time, it's like people are looking. You know we're our people.

Andy: 29:36

Yeah, is there any unfulfilled ambitions that you've got in the industry and I have.

Kesh: 29:45

I've never tapped into the corporate market and we are 100% we're aware of wedding more, bar, bar company and and that's the way it's just panned out. Yeah, and so, yeah, we've never had an opportunity to do you know anything on the corporate side of it. I'm 100% sure it will be the same same service.

Andy: 30:05

You just do it for a good year.

Kesh: 30:06

You're doing it for a corporate company and not not yeah, not, not like I think, season.

Kesh: 30:10

Yeah, conferences or or even like festivals and stuff like that. I've never a lot of people have said that to me. So why don't you get involved in festivals? And? But festivals goes back down to you know, if it rains and you're selling, you're selling your products out there. You're not, obviously. You know nobody's paying for it or you're selling it, and if it rains or if it's a bit of a washout, then you've done all that effort and you just don't know what your return's going to be from it. So that's why I kind of sometimes steered away from that Perfect example. I was actually at a festival on Sunday and there was weather warnings so they halfway through they just everybody had to vacate. So for all the vendors that were there that would have been a really tough day. Thinking well, I've had like six, seven hours worth of sales.

Andy: 30:53

Plus presumably at a festival or whatever you've got to pay to be there.

Kesh: 30:57

You've got to pay, yeah, you've got to pay to be there. Yeah, absolutely.

Andy: 30:59

And not an insubstantial amount either. I wouldn't have thought it's a lot.

Kesh: 31:03

It's a lot to put up a pitch because they just know how much money you can potentially make from it. Yeah, you're probably better off sticking with weddings. Yeah, weddings, I understand weddings are not weddings prepaid, and obviously you can kind of factor in what you need and what you don't need.

Andy: 31:18

Yeah, Do you ever go as a guest to a wedding where there's another bar and sneak a?

Kesh: 31:24

sneak an eye over the oh that's how you're doing it, is it?

Andy: 31:28

Or talk to me about that.

Kesh: 31:32

I have been to a couple of weddings. Funny enough, I've actually been to events where we've done the beer, for example the draft beer, and, as other companies have done, the cocktails.

Andy: 31:44

Yeah.

Kesh: 31:46

And I try not to look. I honestly try not to look, but you just can't help it. Because when you see that queue and you know I'm standing there just sweating, thinking oh, there's that queue ever going to go down and then I just see that you know, in the nicest possible way they've got it wrong. Because you know the bar's two meters, two meters wide and you know there's a the events for 400 people and when you think about a bar for two meters wide, you can only get two people behind a two meter, two meter bar. There's physically no more space for anybody to do what they need to do. And you know, and then I can see that the clients potentially got the best price. I'll get that side of it. You know, I absolutely get the side. So they've got the best price. However, the company have got it wrong in the sense that they've sold the client that dream to say that we can do this.

Andy: 32:38

Yeah.

Kesh: 32:39

Where they should know that it's physically not impossible. It's physically impossible to do what they're trying to do with two people. You know, I'm surprised that those two people just halfway through the shift I just not going. I've had it, I'm going home?

Andy: 32:52

Conversely, have you ever turned up at an event and thought wow, yeah, these guys are on it.

Kesh: 32:56

I've seen some companies obviously I'm not going to mention them, but I have seen some companies and I think, wow, okay.

Andy: 33:01

Yeah, fair play.

Kesh: 33:02

Yeah, fair play, you're really good. There's, there's, absolutely there's. You know, we hear this all the time there's enough work out there for all of us, as long as we do it properly, in the sense that go out there with the best intentions to do a really good job. Yeah, if you're going to go out there and the best intentions to make you know 50, 100 pound, 250 pound, but not do it right, then just this is not for you. You know you need to kind of concentrate on your, you know your nine to a five, whatever it is, and you know, maybe just do a bit more overtime there, because what that's doing is that's kind of it's skewing the figures in regards to you know what you should actually charge. You know what, what you know reputable company should charge to you know, and then that gives doubt to the client that well, actually, you know why is, why is there such a price difference? But that price is just never realistic.

Andy: 33:50

It's the same. It's the same in my field, you know, with the camera crane. There are people going out there for 250 quid. You know these guys sometimes are standing there looking at the phones, checking social media when they're supposed to be filming. I've seen, you know, guys standing with a tripod just on the phone, looking at the phone while they're supposed to be filming, and it's just like come on, you know what I mean. You're here for this couple. This couple of days. You have a lot of money, a haste, and to add that those people are few and far between, but they, you know, they do exist and they, you're right, they should be sticking to their nine to five. So it's time for the for the one question that gets asked to everyone, which is when I find out whether you've actually listened to the podcast or not, because you'll know what the answer is. If I could give you the skills and the tools and the knowledge to do any other job within the wedding industry, what would you choose?

Kesh: 34:40

Probably it's. I think, just just from, just from this fame aspect of it, it's going to be a DJ, hasn't it Really the fame aspect of it? Because because of the limelighting yeah, a bit of limelighting, and and you know why? It's because at weddings they get to sit on a table and eat, as do the dog words.

Kesh: 35:04

They get to sit on a table and eat. Yeah, so yeah, probably that, because obviously they do bring energy to an event and but at the same time I think every part of you know this this event is every, every person's important to kind of get it done.

Andy: 35:20

Yeah, absolutely yeah. Well, there's a business idea for it. I'll give you this one free of charge. What you should have is a paradox behind the bar and be spinning you know, spinning numbers while you're serving. Well funny, you say that.

Kesh: 35:31

So our first ever bars that we made back in 1996, in there was a cassette player with speakers.

Andy: 35:40

Really, yeah, yeah.

Kesh: 35:41

So if we were ever in this foyer you know sometimes we're at the bar it has to be in the foyer area we used to have our own little music there and people used to spend a bit of time there, can't?

Andy: 35:49

fault it. You see, going back to the future, that's what you should be doing. Yeah, so listen, Kesh, it's been absolutely pleasure and thank you for spending me the time and I look forward to seeing you on the next for a mocktail, on the next, on the next event somewhere. Thanks, man.

Kesh: 36:04

Thank you very much, Andy. Thank you.

Andy: 36:05

Cheers. So there we go. That was episode 13. Fascinating chat with a fascinating man and a very hard working man. Always seems to be there early, usually before me, which is unusual. Always working, absolutely always working so hard, running around like 200 miles an hour getting stuff sorted. Okay, so there we go. That's the end of episode 13. Onward to episode 14. And we'll see you soon on the Wedding Professionals podcast. Thank you, bye-bye.