1. in profile
f INTERVIEW
SEPTEMBER 2016 • WWW.LSIONLINE.CO.UK170
Known to all as Emma Barwell
for many years, thanks to an
upwardly mobile profile at SSE
Audio Group, Emma Bigg has recently
established a bespoke consultancy for
the AV industry called Octavius RE.
When pressed for an explanation of this
moniker, she provides an answer that
combines humanity and humour - two
qualities often thirsted for in the corporate
world of AV.
“The ‘RE’ stands for Reassuringly
Expensive,” she begins, with a knowing
reference to a certain beer according to
its canny advertising campaigns over
the years. “This is what I tell my clients
when they query costs . . .” Meanwhile
‘Octavius’ was simply the first choice of
Christian name for her son: “I thought
Octavius Bigg had a nice ring to it,” she
adds, before admitting that it was only
her second choice, Jenson, that made it
passed husband Dave’s paternal QC. She
married DiGiCo product specialist Dave
Bigg in 2011, although they met through
the Production Services Association while
Bigg was still freelancing.
Octavius RE was inspired by 10 years
in the thick of the installation business
at SSE’s London HQ, which Bigg had
established when SSE acquired Tarsin
Entertainment in 2006. Most of all, she
felt, too many clients were too often
tempted into expenditure that was far
from reassuring. “They spent money on
things that weren’t right for them, or were
badly implemented,” she says. “In the
world of AV installation you are dealing
with people who are very smart, but who
have little in-depth knowledge of the
technology. They’re reliant on the people
selling the technological solutions to give
them the right advice.
“At SSE we won a lot of business
just being called in by word of mouth to
‘re-engineer’ what a customer had been
sold: a colleague or contact would hear of
their complaints, and we became known
as reliable troubleshooters. Unfortunately,
by that point the budget had already been
spent so we really had to justify our input.”
These budgets weren’t small, either,
so it seemed to Bigg that there was a lot
of money floating around that needed
to be spent more wisely. Combine this
motivation with the desire for a lifestyle
change that would augur more flexibility
and self-determination, and you have the
raison d’etre of Octavius RE.
“The concept I wanted to sell was
that correct AV design was a worthwhile
investment, rather than succumbing to
the lowest bid,” she explains. “We’d have
people query our prices, but when you
looked at their other quotes they were
entirely inconsistent. They would submit
the same plans to three different tenders
and expect three similar proposals, but
it never happens like that. How each
installer interprets what the client needs
is very different.”
What you can get for your money, and
what you need for your business, are the
polar ends of a scale that can thoroughly
warp a project. The goal of Octavius RE
is to ensure that the decision-making
process is as informed as it can be,
underpinned by an honesty that should
index-link expense with genuine need.
This cuts both ways: up or down, if you
distort price to win a contract, it’s unlikely
that the tools will fit the job; if you define
exactly the right tools, the price will
justify itself. “We’d like people to consider
what they’re buying, and turn to an
independent resource to design a solution
in consultation with them before going to
an installer to get a price,” Bigg confirms.
Insight into the installation process
grew after Bigg had returned to SSE
following a period freelancing as
a production manager. She had cut her
teeth as a hire manager, but after SSE
acquired Tarsin there was a London focus
to the business with a new model akin to
long-term leasing with extended support.
“This is how many of Vince Power’s
venues operated,” continues Bigg,
“while at the same time SSE’s sales and
installation side had been growing.
I re-joined with this new attention on
system tailoring and packaging, not just
sales or hire - and also diversifying beyond
audio into lighting and video.“
Bigg’s brief to integrate this
brave new world of cosmopolitan AV
specification into SSE’s expanding
universe proved to be the perfect footing
for what would eventually mature
into Octavius RE. “Suddenly we had
projectors, screens and lighting as well
as audio to install into venues and it
taught me a lot! Under contract rental,
people wanted whole solutions and,
psychologically, video and lighting has
an immediately perceived value that
enabled us to ramp up the revenue.
I was lucky as it was at the beginning of
some really interesting developments in
the technology, including HD video and
LED lighting.”
All of this was further consolidated by
SSE’s acquisition of Green-I, Canegreen
Commercial and a more sophisticated
blend of distributed video installation,
encouraging Bigg to address a much
wider range of businesses and their
technology issues. The bars, nightclubs
and live music venues serviced by SSE
Installation were joined by restaurants,
hotels and other AV hotspots in contracts
often instigated by noise management
issues.
“In the last five years,” Bigg says,
“venues as a whole have had to generate
income and footfall in new ways. They
can’t just be one thing, but have to
offer multiple attractions. There’s a
lot of business in private events: we
did one in a restaurant in Mayfair that
spent over £100,000 on the audio and
lighting system. It’s gone from just
feeding people to a complete cabaret
infrastructure.”
With Octavius RE on board, that’s
going to be £100,000 reassuringly well
spent. Add art auctions, exhibitions,
sporting events, boardroom
communications . . . the demand for
pinpointed AV goes on rising, often
with a fibre-optic backbone and Wi-Fi in
every canapé. “There’s more and more
corporate AV, especially digital signage
and video conferencing,” reflects Bigg,
“but by virtue of my history and my
network there’s still a core business in
bars and music venues. Maybe we’ll have
separate departments, one day!”
One called Jenson RE, perhaps. I
Phil Ward talks to AV consultant Emma Bigg
“In the last five years venues as a whole have had to generate
income and footfall in new ways. They can’t just be one thing,
but have to offer multiple attractions. There’s a lot of
business in private events . . .”