On tour with Tap Dogs

In August 2005 I was invited on tour with Tap Dogs - the industrial tap dancing troop best known for their performance in a BBC ident. This is what happened when they were booked to perform at the Spanish premiere of Real the movie at Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.


9am
Waking up in the Spanish capital city, Madrid, I head down for breakfast to meet the reason I’m here – six talented tap dancers from Backrow Events that will be performing their unique brand of industrial tap tonight at the Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid football club. Dean Magri, Aaron Sweetman, Nicky Yeoman, Jason Lewis, Chris Ernest are Tap Dogs. The sixth dancer is Australian Dein Perry, the creator and lead choreographer of a tap troop that has been performing in theatres worldwide for the past 10 years.

9.30am
Perry’s rare outing with the troop, managed by Backrow joint managing director Garry McQuinn, is testament to the importance of tonight’s booking. He has flown from Australia to perform with Tap Dogs at the premiere of Real the movie, in front of a star-studded audience. McQuinn believes that a good show will open up a new corporate market in Spain for the guys: “We embarked on corporate work 18 months ago and can choose from a pool of around 20 dancers that perform all over the world. This will be the highest profile piece of bespoke corporate work we’ve done to date and the guys selected are excited to be working with the act’s original choreographer.”

10am
The first rehearsal is due but on arriving at the stadium, the stadium authorities declare that the lads aren’t allowed to use the dressing rooms to work on the choreography for tonight’s show. Whilst an alternative is sought, Perry lines up the Tap Dogs along the technical area between the dugouts and the pitch and hands them each a football whilst explaining which elements of the theatre show they’ll be including in tonight’s act. The Tap Dogs theatre show comprises a basketball sequence and Perry decides to adapt the routine and add a new intricate move. Sweetman throws the footballs from one end of the line to Ernest at the other end before they’re bounced back along the line from one Tap Dog to another as each dancer continues tapping.

11am
Whilst Tap Dogs continue practicing with the footballs, on the other side of the pitch there’s a problem with the stage being constructed in front of a cinema-sized screen for tonight’s performance. The stage floor isn’t flat and the scaffold stairs that Tap Dogs will use in their act have been fixed far too close to trigger pads at the front of the stage that each make a different noise when struck with a tap boot. Backrow’s lighting designer is struggling to direct the Spanish contractors to move the scaffold to the back of the stage and flatten the floor.

11.15am
Tap Dogs are taken to a treatment room in the stadium so they can rehearse. Lewis, 18, is the youngest of the dancers and this is his debut performance. According to McQuinn: “Dein came to me three months ago and said that he’d found a promising young tap dancer from his dance class in Australia. It’s important to bring through young talent so we took him on tour around Australia, taught him the routines and threw him into a couple of shows in Brisbane but this is his first major performance and he’s so full of confidence.”
Perry works the boys through their routines and the sound of boots tapping on wooden floorboards echoes around the treatment room. Tonight’s show includes six solos so Perry discusses which Tap Dog will take on which of the act’s character roles. “I’m not very funky,” says Ernest as he strips off his shirt in the soaring heat of the treatment room. “Let’s get Jason to be the funky one.”

12.10pm
On the other side of the pitch, the Spanish contractors have finally laid the wood to ensure the stage is flat but the scaffold staircase is still to be moved. Tap Dogs complete the rehearsal and head back to the hotel to continue practicing the football routine that has yet to work without someone dropping a ball. There’s still one vital ingredient to tonight’s act that’s missing as well – four pairs of Wellington boots required for a routine that sees Perry, Magri, Ernest and Yeoman sit on the scaffold steps and tap with their feet in a water tray to splash water towards the audience. McQuinn and I are going shopping.

12.45pm
In the car McQuinn chats to Perry on his mobile. Perry is still adding bit parts to the performance and needs a red and yellow card plus a referee’s whistle, which he’ll use to direct his troops.
“Dein is one of the most prominent tap choreographers in the world and has reinvented the dance genre for a contemporary audience,” McQuinn says proudly. “The football routine is a high-risk element that looks wonderful when it comes off but will look bloody awful if someone drops the ball tonight.”

1.30pm
The search for waterproof wellies, or ‘gumboots’ as Australian McQuinn calls them, is not going well. Our local driver Alberto takes us to a department store complex but the only boots to be found are two pairs in a fishing department. McQuinn is worried: “They can do the water sequence in tap boots but it’ll ruin the shoes and doesn’t create the same amount of splash.” We head to another sports store a 15-minute drive away.

2pm
The gumboots are found at the sports store and McQuinn buys five pairs. Alberto translates a Spanish women’s comment whilst we stand in the queue at the checkout. “It’s 27-degrees outside. Do you know something about the weather that I don’t?” she jokes.

4pm
Tap Dogs return to the Bernabeu to rehearse on stage but the power has failed in the stadium. Whilst the problem is rectified, Garry is going ballistic at the Spanish contractors to move the scaffold but his swearing falls on deaf ears. It’s only when he threatens to do it himself that they leap into action. With stadium power back on, the boys can rehearse.

6pm
It’s two hours into the final rehearsal and Perry is working the guys hard to perfect the routines. The intricate football sequence is still not coming together however and Perry and McQuinn discuss having people on the sides of the stage to throw on new balls should somebody drop the ball during the show.

7pm
The rehearsal is over and the success of the football sequence is now in the hands of the Gods. Tap Dogs artiste liaison Pippa Rayner-Cook has sourced the red and yellow cards and even persuaded a policeman to part with his whistle. The guys head back to the hotel and stretch out the last three hours of rehearsals from their aching limbs.

7.30pm
Over dinner Perry reflects on the day: “There’s been numerous logistical problems but we as dancers can’t let them concern us and we just need to focus on the routines,” he says. “I’m a bit worried about the football sequence but it’s like the lion and the master. If the lion doesn’t do want the master wants, then the audience will get behind the lion tamer and when the lion finally performs, it gets a much bigger cheer from the crowd. The audience will want us to get it right.”

9pm
Back at the stadium, Tap Dogs change into Real Madrid training tops and lumberjack sleeveless shirts as each dancer focuses on his role and not dropping the ball.

9.30pm
Outside the stadium guests arrive and go through the motions of the red carpet, which for tonight is lined with assistant referees waving their flags as the celebrities pass. Gallacticos David Beckham and Raul are the last to arrive and Tap Dogs head to the stage.

10pm
Tap Dogs perform the initial routines to perfection and the crowd starts to respond to this pre-film entertainment. The football sequence is drawing near and all who have spent the day with the dancers and know what’s coming cross their fingers that no one drops that ball.

10.15pm
The footballs are out and Tap Dogs work through the routine normally done with basketballs. Sweetman starts the high-risk element of the choreography by throwing the ball down the line to Ernest, who catches it and bounces it back along the line as another ball is thrown over. Rayner-Cook, McQuinn and Brett hold their breaths. The cheer that goes up as the routine is carried out to perfection spreads throughout the crowd. Tap Dogs have wowed the Spanish and Beckham. It’s a shame that the film didn’t do the same.

Look back at 2007Le Tour de France comes to London

When people question London’s ability to stage a successful Olympics in 2012, one date will now form the case for the defence and send the doubters on their bikes. On 7 July 2007, two years to the day since the terrorist atrocities on the capital’s transport system, around three million people from all over the world swarmed into the city for a weekend of events that included the Live Earth concert, the Wimbledon tennis finals and the Tower of London Music Festival. At its epicentre was the world’s biggest annual sporting event and without a doubt the biggest sporting test for the capital in advance of 2012.

Staging the Tour de France’s Grand Départ cost in the region of £6.8m, with the Mayor predicting a return on that investment of around £115m in additional tourism. It comprised a 7.9km prologue time trial that took place around Westminster, Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace on the Saturday and determined the first wearer of the race leader’s yellow jersey. The following day, the 189 cyclists departed for the first stage proper – a 126-mile route through Greenwich and into Kent.

Opening ceremony
Before each stage the tour ‘caravan’ (200 sponsors’ vehicles dispensing free gifts) drove the length of each route. Hyde Park was transformed into a ‘people’s village’ – a free event with interactive cycling displays – and every day a bicycle ballet took place outside the National Theatre. At Excel London in docklands, around 2,500 press and media registered at a hi-tech 8,000sqm media centre and in Trafalgar Square, an opening ceremony kicked off the extravaganza on 6 July.
Transport for London (TfL), the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency had been planning this weekend for four years. In August 2006, following a tender involving around 100 companies, TfL engaged agency Innovision to help turn its plans into reality. The team was lead by managing director Will Glendinning, who helped to plan the event meticulously with TfL, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation, the Tour’s owners), the Metropolitan Police, Westminster Council, the Royal Parks, the Greater London Authority, Kent County Council, Canterbury City Council and more than 250 other stakeholders for more than a year.
Glendinning says: “From the outset, I was confident we had the talent and experience in our team to deliver a truly memorable event. However, I really wanted the event to recapture the public’s excitement and imagination of what a unique location London is and the potential available in the city. To stage an event of this scale, all our contractors needed to realise how much discussion and paperwork would be involved and logistically we pulled off one of the biggest road closure schemes London has seen for a long while.”
Substantial road closures and diversions to bus routes enabled 6,000 staff, crew and personnel to build the route infrastructure, which included 19 big screen viewing areas. At Excel London the world’s media were gathering and the cycling teams were milling around the surrounding hotels.
Excel’s services director Steve Melrose helped to oversee a five-day build of the media centre that comprised around 500 work stations, 100 analogue phone lines, two 8Mb broadband connections, 20 ISDN lines and three press conference rooms that around 500 media people a day passed through during the weekend. He says: “As a venue we’re used to dealing with international show requirements so it wasn’t a problem. At first, however, we were dealing with BT as our telecommunication provider, but very late in the day it changed and we had to deal direct with France Telecom. That was really the only slight issue we had to react to and quickly.”

Security plan
TfL had even bigger concerns. As a key player in bringing the Tour to the capital, it had cancelled engineering work on the Tube in central London and provided an extra 11,000 parking spaces for bikes. But it was the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on London and a week earlier a car bombing had been foiled near Piccadilly Circus. On the Central Line, a derailed underground train sat blocking Mile End’s westbound platform.
According to TfL’s head of special projects, Mick Hickford, the infrastructure was ready to cope with anything. “Regarding the Central Line derailment, we laid on additional bus services but in fact the line was reopened by Saturday morning,” he says. “An additional security plan for London’s transport was put in place but the area that held the prologue is the most secure in the country anyhow as the cyclists were passing the House of Commons, Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street. London’s public transport moves on average more than one million people a day so we were confident it would withstand all the activity in London, but it was extremely good practice for 2012 and we have learnt a huge amount.”

Well-wishers
Throughout the planning of the Grand Départ, Innovision was contracted by TfL to coordinate and deliver the creative and technical aspects of the event while TfL oversaw the planning, marketing and PR aspects. Hickford admits that part of the marketing campaign was an attempt to prolong European visits while also promoting the benefits of cycling. “I think two million people in central London over the weekend, plus huge public interest, has shown there is a great audience for cycling in London,” he says. “And I’m sure that such a great weekend for both sport and music ensured that visitors either stayed longer or left with a fantastic impression of London’s ability to host major events.”
On Sunday 8 July, 21 teams of nine riders left the Mall at 10.25am, crossed bridges and paraded past the London Eye and St Paul’s Cathedral before heading for Greenwich via Tower Bridge. The race officially started opposite the Maritime Museum at 11am as the cyclists set off for Canterbury. From there, well-wishers and doping scandals followed them through Belgium and Spain.
After 21 stages and 2,206 miles, the world’s most gruelling sporting challenge reached its climax in Paris on 29 July – but whatever impressions it left overall, there’s no doubt that London’s handling of the opening days was a triumph that will stay in people’s memories for at least the next five years.

Profiling business leaders

One of my journalistic strengths is interviewing key personalities from the world's of business and entertainment. Here's a recent profile published by Event magazine of Graham Kemp - the newly appointed chairman of RPM.

The recently appointed chairman of the RPM Group is the proud owner of nine acres of Surrey. Married to a qualified garden designer, Graham Kemp, his wife and five children have spent the last three years developing an old farmhouse into a family estate. The project seemed an ambitious one until he confesses that he has in fact rebuilt every home he has ever lived in, including the residency he occupied in Chicago for just three years during his nine-year tenure as global CEO of The Marketing Store Worldwide.
“It’s a bit of a disease,” he admits. “I’m not interested in being a property developer, I just enjoy refurbishing properties and the fun we have throughout the process.”
Kemp is the first chairman RPM Group has ever appointed since the agency, which specializes in experiential, field marketing, staffing and branding city centers, was founded in 1993.
He brings to the role, more than 20 years experience in the marketing communications industry. And since his appointment in August he has already launched an ‘Open Road’ initiative comprising 15 measurable objectives shared out across department heads for the next three years.
Contrary to the ‘Changing Rooms’ nature of his home interiors interest however, Kemp has not joined RPM to rebuild the company from the ground up. In his words: “I am here to mentor their next levels of management and coach better performance whilst providing fresh thinking, invention and inspiration.”
Initially the chairman’s position is a non-executive role, which puts pay to the observation that Kemp has most likely been brought in to prepare the group for a sale. “Currently I don’t own equity in RPM so it would be of no benefit to me,” he states. “The RPM directors are too ambitious to build the business to consider a sale. My experience tells me that you should always have it as a thought at the back of your mind when implementing strategy but preparing RPM for possible suitors is not part of my agenda.”
RPM managing director Hugh Robertson met his new chairman whilst on the board of the Marketing Communication Consultants Association, which Kemp has chaired since 2005. Kemp says he was impressed by Robertson’s professionalism and the RPM culture of genuinely caring about its people whilst actively encouraging them to express themselves. Robertson must have been impressed with Kemp’s track record for company growth.
In 1986, Kemp launched marketing promotions agency The Marketing Store and established its position within the retail sector. Within a month of starting the business, it won a promotion across 1,000 Argyll Group Presto stores (forerunner to Safeway) that equated to 80% of The Marketing Store’s first year projected turnover. Due to the nature of the supermarket retail industry at the time, Kemp’s contacts were often acquired, merged and dispersed across different retail companies. They would then turn back to him to run their in-store promotions and re-brand outlets that had been bought and needed transforming into names such as Gateway (forerunner to Somerfield). “The landscape was constantly changing and we always seemed to be on the right side of the fence whenever a merger occurred,” recalls Kemp. “The result was that we quadrupled the business in the first three years and went from three employees to a £4.5m business employing 30.”
At its peak, The Marketing Store had offices in Birmingham, Scotland and Leeds and employed 180 staff making it one of the top three promotional marketing firms in the UK. When a sale came, it was in March 1998 to MB Sales, a division of US company, the Havi Group. Kemp says: “The two companies were pulled together and called The Marketing Store Worldwide. I signed up for three years and ended up serving nine as global CEO, opening eight offices in countries such as Brazil, Australia, Canada and France and trebling the size of the operation.”
Kemp admits that staying longer in roles than he first intended is another of his personality traits and one that currently sees him serving on three boards within a music marketing rights company, a content provision publisher and an Irish marketing firm. His three-year plan for RPM therefore looks set to be only the beginning. And with an intent to become a fully-fledged share holding, equity-holding director, it may be that the long-term future for the RPM Group will also be of his hand.

Kemp on…
RPM’s portfolio of work. For me, the Sky Festival in Manchester stands out as a magnificent piece of work due to its sheer scale and logistics. The One Love campaign for Umbro is another incredible idea that shows the power of connecting to a global passion such as football.

Acquisitions as part of the RPM strategy. I think acquisitions should be looked at so I wouldn’t rule out that possibility. We are not on an acquisition trial but if they strategically help to build the business in the most effective way then they will be considered.

The marketing landscape. Where television advertising is loosing share, experiential and digital are gaining and they will grow closer together. The shift is away from efficiency (television, print, mass communication) and towards effectiveness. The most effective ways of marketing are no longer bound up in efficient methodologies. I don’t predict the demise of television advertising, I just see it being used in different ways and combined with more effective means.