Jonathan Calvert, general manager at Flow Air & Power Solutions, talks us through one of the company’s most memorable portable power projects.
S&S: Tell us about a recent project that has been important or particularly memorable for Flow…
The 2015 Middle East film and comic convention by Extra cake/Alliance springs to mind. It particularly stands out not only because of the sheer size of the requirement but the nature of our involvement with the clients and exhibitors. Over the years MEFCC has grown in size and sits as one of Dubai’s major events. Every year Flow has risen to the task and has tackled the events new challenges which is why it makes an excellent benchmark to showcase Flow’s ever developing power division.
S&S: Were there any major obstacles involved in this project? If so, how did you overcome them?
Flow was tasked with being the power consultant for MEFCC, which means that we gathered the sites requirements and designed/planned the distribution network for the whole event. Internally, Flow has dedicated a specific technical power manager for this exhibition.
The largest obstacle was to make sure all requirements were communicated prior to event build and, considering that there were over 100 exhibitors, food vendors and live stage requirements, this was a real challenge. That being said, some exhibitors who came down to showcase their goods were not proficient in power and needed some guidance from our team, which in turn involved direct communication with our client to make sure that the commercial aspects were in order.
Article continues on next page…
S&S: What stands out as something that worked particularly well throughout the project?
What we feel worked very well was the communication between us, the client and the exhibitors. Flow was essentially the middle man when it came to dealing with exhibitor utility requirements which is a very unique situation for us. We had to setup our own communication process as when you are dealing with billing it is crucial to make sure that all the requested power was accounted for and invoiced correctly.
S&S: Do you think this project had any influence on the way Flow now carries out projects?
Absolutely. We always face number of different challenges on this site when providing the power solution. In a lot of circumstances, safety of some of the exhibitor’s equipment isn’t up to standard and in these situations we lend a hand to help make sure the exhibition is safe for all who attend. Since our qualified staff are always present on site there is a level of reassurance for the clients in need. This has worked in our favour as these issues on site have made us more proactive and keep us continually improving as a temporary power supplier.
Comic-Con is known worldwide, being reliable and efficient for such international shows, allows FLOW to expend our expertise within the region.
S&S: Has Flow made any investments lately in portable power, or does the company have plans to make any investments soon?
We recently have made a large investment into high specification generators from Australia, which range from smaller 60kVA up to 500kVA. All the units from 150, 325, and 500KVA have the synchronisation and remote monitoring capability to tailor to the event industry. In order to provide a quality power solution you need both a reliable product and, more importantly, the technical support and engineer resources to back it up. Therefore, over the past year, we employed a head of operations and power operations manager specifically for the power department, both with a wealth of knowledge in this market backed up with the right qualifications. We plan to continue to invest in our power distribution products and keep developing our cooling offering. I think these changes will affect the company in a positive way but most importantly we will be able to provide the customer with a full turnkey solution which in turn should benefit the client technically and financially.
