Kim
Hi everyone, it’s Kim Big here with another episode of Show Me The Perks podcast. I have here with me today Nick Haslam from Performance 54. He’s the executive tournament director of Live Golf Adelaide and the managing director of Performance 54 Adelaide. I also have Tim here from Perks who’s going to provide some background into Performance 54 and Perks’s collaboration and how they’ve been working together recently. And I’m going to throw to Nick now to provide a brief summary of Nick’s career background and his role at Performance 54.
Nick
Thanks for having me, Kim. I’ve been a big fan of the podcast, so it’s good to finally be on. Thank you. So my background is I’m originally an Adelaide boy. I did commerce at Adelaide University after finishing school at St. Ignatius. I worked for a brief period at Ernst & Young and then Cross Waterhouse Coupers. So I’m also a chartered accountant for my SINs.
Kim
Fantastic, we like this.
Nick
Yep. And then, so I worked mostly at PWC in transaction services starting here in Adelaide, a little bit of audit. And then I went to London for a couple of years in 08, 09, spent five years working in Sydney. And then I had the itch to really get into sport. And I was given an opportunity at the North Melbourne Football Club where I was General Manager of Commercial there for five years. I then spent a couple of years at the Melbourne Storm and before, yeah, a few consulting roles and an opportunity popped up here at Performance 54. So it’s a great opportunity for me to be working on a global event in my hometown. And… It was a good opportunity to come home. Absolutely. Yeah. And I’ve loved every minute. So 18 months in, we’ve held two, really probably the two biggest live golf tournaments today, which Greg Norman himself said of the benchmark competitions or the benchmark tournaments in the live golf format. So yeah, it’s been great. It’s been a great journey so far.
Kim
Fantastic. And you mentioned there that you’ve performance 54, you’ve come back and you’ve been in the role for 18 months. 18 months, give me an insight into, you know, there’s been two tournaments in that time held one year apart. So that must mean performance 54 in Adelaide was very, very young when you started. So it must have been going for maybe four months before the first event.
Nick
Yeah, so I mean, I first heard about the tournament being in Adelaide when I was working on a job in Sydney and I purchased a three day ticket myself online, such as my excitement to have an international and loved tournament in Adelaide. And then, yeah, through a few connections, an opportunity came up to really get this business going here.
Kim
So, Performance 54 is the business which manages and promotes live golf Adelaide and all the live golf international events.
Nick
So, yeah, we needed an office set up here in Adelaide pretty quickly. We’ve worked in partnership with South Australian Tourism Commission, the Grange Golf Club to make the event what it is. So really, the first year was about how could we mobilize suppliers, get the team together really quickly to put on what in 2023 was awarded the world’s best golf tournament. And this year was about how we could how can we make it bigger and better. And it was quite a challenge. But, I think the team, you know, having a 12 month runway before this year’s event, which just finished two weeks ago, really showed the level of experience, the relationships we’ve been able to establish with some great local suppliers like Perks to really put on what was another world class event.
Kim
Fantastic. How do you describe the difference between 2023 and 2024 in terms of, you know, what did you learn from the first event that you made better in 2024? What were the challenges in the first year that you’ve learned from?
Nick
I think no one knew what was to expect in 2023. Not everyone. Everyone who goes to Live Golf, it hasn’t been there before, sort of blown away by the quality of the finishing and the signage and the look and the feel of a truly international event in Adelaide. So that brings with it a pretty big event budget per head. And I don’t think we probably, when we first started the tournament in November 22, we realized how big it was. With a longer runway, we’ve really been able to scope supplies carefully. We made sure that we procured the absolute best supplies nationally and internationally to work on this caliber of an event. And then we’ve also probably really, I mean, our focus has been on the fan experience. How can we make this a truly unique fan experience and one that is not just necessarily tied to the avid golf fan? We want to encourage women to attend. We want to encourage kids to attend. 30 % of our attendees in 2024, sorry, 2023 had never been to a golf tournament before. We think that percentage is higher in 2024. We’re waiting for all the data to come through as it stands. But it’s all about how can we make it a better entertainment offering for more people. And that’s certainly our indication so far, that’s what we were able to do for 2024.
Kim
So my next question was going to be around what are some of the stats for the most recent one, our attendance and otherwise. Do you have any of those stats at this stage or?
Nick
I do. You’ve written a cheat sheet of the things I’m needed to respond to, Kim. So I’ve got some responses. So 94 ,327 people came through the gates across the three days of the tournament. The Australian TV audience was a combined reach of just over 3 .5 million over the course of the weekend. Global TV audience, I don’t have the exact number, but it was broadcast into 156 countries. Some other relevant metrics, I just spoke about 40 % of attendees were either from interstate or overseas. Again, that really hits the metrics that the South Australia Tourism Commission want to hit. They want people to be encouraged to come from interstate to attend a world -class event in Adelaide. I think it was over 30 % of attendees had never been to a golf tournament before.
Historically, golf tournaments are an 80 -20 split male -female. We’d expect that would be more like 70 -30 this year. We haven’t officially got the answers to that. And then I think we aim to have 12 % of attendees being children under 12. We’re confident we got to that number again. There was a family day on the Friday, is that the one? Well, it was school holidays, so it was more likely that we’re having kids come. But we had a fan village with a special kids activation area on all three days of the tour.
Kim
Yeah, sure. Fantastic. And in terms of, I mean, obviously this podcast is around SMEs and businesses and how, and to some extent, how PERC supports businesses. But to take a slight tangent, how important is an event like this for South Australian business? Obviously the South Australian government supports it, which is just fantastic. But do you have any insight into how SMEs in the wider Adelaide market?how appreciative they are perhaps of having so many interstate and international visitors coming to town, spending their money, coming to Adelaide. Do you have any appreciation of that or is that something discussed at a performance 54 level?
Nick
It is. Look, one of our KPIs for our contract with the state government without getting way specifics is we do need to ensure that over 50 % of suppliers and spend is with South Australian Domiciled Suppliers. Yeah. And that’s a really important part of what we do and a big reason why we wanted to set up a shop here in Adelaide to ensure that we could really lean into those objectives of state government. So in terms of the importance to local suppliers, we had I think we had 66 food truck vendors across the across the site. By comparison, we had about 34 last year, so almost double. Obviously, the impact of all these people coming to the Grange Golf Club has a big impact for them. And it’s great to have them part of the journey and the ability to leverage the success of the event. And I think the other thing is that for suppliers, obviously there’s a huge amount that goes into investing in infrastructure. And there’s certain suppliers that are based interstate or overseas that you just have to use because of the level that’s required to get to. But a lot of these businesses have actually set up businesses in South Australia as a result of this event and the investment in Gather Round. So, I mean, I think it just goes to show that the South Australian public has been able to benefit from this investment for a longer term. Whilst obviously it’s focused on those three days, the impact it has on the state throughout the 12 months, I think we’ve seen that and we’re really mindful of that. Yeah, absolutely.
Kim
And a couple of minor questions to go with that. One is, did you have any trouble finding high quality businesses in Adelaide to support an event, given Adelaide wouldn’t ordinarily be associated with large scale international events. And secondly, do you see this being a catalyst to have more international events?
Because if we’ve got more businesses in South Australia who understand how to cater to large scale events like this, it’s gonna generate more business for them and be able to, as you say, extends throughout the year, really than just a short period during April. To answer your first question, Kim, we have a particular level that we need to get to in terms of the finishing of the event. So, there were instances where we had to select suppliers that were not domiciled in South Australia. The good thing, though, is that most of those suppliers have since set up a permanent office in South Australia as a result of this event and gather round and fringe. So you’ve got an event infrastructure in South Australia now that it is known for hosting large scale international events. So, whilst probably when we initially started this journey in late 2022 for this event, not all the suppliers had a base here. Most of them do. And I can comfortably say that we easily reach those KPIs of having much greater than 50 % of suppliers from South Australia. Remind me , what was the second part of your question?
Kim
I think it was around you know, do you see this helping with these businesses setting up in Adelaide and then attracting other additional world class events to Adelaide?
Nick
Yeah, I think South Australia now has well and truly got the runs on the board. We’re hosting great events and I think it will hopefully put the state in a competitive advantage the next time these sort of opportunities come up. I know the British and Irish Lions are touring here next year. You know, there’s a number of different international events that are sort of on the agenda. There’s the World Volleyball, Peach Volleyball Championships that are coming in next year. WOMAD is still a really great international event. So I think having an event like this and other ones which I mentioned will mean that businesses are more likely to stay here and have good people stay in the state to work on these big scale events.
Kim
And just to tie that to performance 54,
What is Performance 54’s role with regards to live golf? And do you now look at this in light of other large -scale events like volleyball or otherwise that are potentially coming to Adelaide? In Performance 54, do you try to pick up those roles?
Nick
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so we’re responsible for managing and promoting live golf Adelaide, but we are very much not just a golf.
We’re not just in golf, we like to do more. Yeah, so we do advisory within sport across a number of different jurisdictions. We’ve got offices in Europe, UK, Middle East, US, and we’re slowly doing more and more. Certainly golf was the roots of where our business started and we’re obviously intrinsically tied to live golf, given living Roman numerals is 54. But we’re looking to do more. We currently work in football across. some clubs in the Premier League and some clubs in the Saudi Pro League. I’ve worked on assignments in Formula E. I’ve worked with brands and right -siders. So we’re looking to do more of that in Australia, absolutely. And if there’s opportunities for us to do more outside of golf, it basically means that we’ll be able to invest more into our business, more into live golf and more into the state and Australia. And to be a bit more diversified. Exactly, yeah. Across a few different fields. Absolutely.
Kim
Now I’m going to throw this question to either Tim who’s with us as well as Nick. I just want to delve into their role that Perks has played in connection with Performance 54. So obviously Perks has been supporting you in your financial affairs, making sure that all those aspects run smoothly, but I’m unaware of the exact specifics of what that role is. Tell me about how Perks has been able to support you?
Nick
Well, I might throw to Tim for this one. He’s been the one who’s been, you know, a catalyst for really doing a lot for us and setting up our business from the get -go. And he’s been really helping us in a variety of areas. But I’ll throw to Tim to walk through the engagement.
Tim
Yeah. Well, I suppose Nick came to Perks in late 2022 with a tournament to put on in April 23 and a lot to be done in that time, obviously operationally, but also financially. So we had to be very agile. How are we going to structure this business in Australia knowing that there’s international ownership and having to move very quickly with advice around how we’re going to do that, setting up entities, assistance with bank accounts. There was really no financial support here in Australia. So, figuring all that out for them. And then through the journey with that first one, we offered up our bookkeeping service to the business. So we ran through that with the whole event and running their payroll. And obviously we’re a taxing compliance business first and foremost. We’re looking after their tax affairs so they’re not going to get tax returns. So that involvement, providing advice from an international tax perspective in terms of the most, let’s call it the most tax efficient structure to set up to make that work well. That’s right. Yeah. So, consideration of a whole lot of difficult tax issues like transfer price.
Kim
Yeah, it’s pretty good. And it’s a good insight into some of the capability of Perks. We have quite a 200 -strong staff in Perks at the moment, and we can really provide advice across bookkeeping, financial statements, tax returns, and even delving into things like international tax, which can be quite tricky to bring the whole show together. From your perspective, Nick, in terms of Tim and also Mark Roderick and the support that Perks has shown us.
Just describe for me, I guess, your sense of feeling you get from having someone sitting alongside you supporting you along the way as you navigate your way through, I imagine, lots and lots of operational issues to deal with.
Nick
Yeah. It’s been excellent. Kim, we, you know, as Tim mentioned, we had a very short amount of time to get this business to where it needed to be to be able to operate effectively and independently, even setting up a bank account for the first time.
and dealing with absolutely everything that you need to do from a financial and banking point of view, setting up tax returns and shareholders agreements, all of that stuff was really helpful. And to have a trusted advisor like Perks that was able to be with us every step of the way was incredibly important. And now, I guess, because they’ve been with us from the start, the level of IP that they’ve got means that they’re aware of other issues that pop up and knowing that they’ve dealt with a number of other businesses.
in this SME space has just made it really seamless for us. And I know that 54 from their experience in other jurisdictions, it’s been one of the smoothest entries of all that just as the business has expanded and having a really, you know, an important trust and financial advisor has been really crucial to the success of the business and the tournament. Fantastic. Great to hear.
Kim
All right, a couple of more questions. I’m gonna throw onto a few more lighthearted ones around live golf. So, start with this one. Do we think we’ll see women’s golf as part of live golf in Adelaide in the future? You probably can’t speak to all tournaments, but perhaps on the Adelaide side of things?
Nick
I’d like to think so, Kim, but again, that’s probably a decision which is a bit above my pay grade and it’s decided by those that run the whole thing. Certainly,
There’s appetite for live golf in Australia as we’ve seen with Adelaide and I am sure that we’d love to see a women’s tournament. And I’m confident to say that if there was one, it would be well supported by the public of South Australia. Historically, the Australian Women’s Open has been held in Adelaide at the Grange. But yeah, time will tell. I certainly think it would be well supported by the public. Clearly, you’ve got a connection towards that with the 70 -30 or better sort of target audience of trying to get, you know, trying to move away from 80 -20 male or female attendees. We want to, we talk about fan engagement being at the forefront of how we design this tournament and of everything that we do. And I guess making this a product which is more attractive to, you know, not just a traditional golf fan is important and having a women’s tournament would align with that.
Kim
And are you able to provide a little bit of insight perhaps into just anecdotally some fun items that might have happened on the day in either 2024 Live or 2023? I know this year Rupert Golf Club obviously had a playoff for the Teams event which was…
I was watching from home and it was fascinating to watch that actually tease out into something really fascinating to watch and the pressure that builds, it’s unlike anything else at the moment.
Nick
Yeah, that’s right. So of the 29 live golf tournaments up until Adelaide, there’d never been a team playoff before. And it’s funny, I’ve obviously watched most of the live golf events and the leaderboard for the teams format can change very rapidly when you’ve got four players scores that count. But it happened in Adelaide.
And what a way for it to happen in front of a record crowd. And the home team, Rippa GC team winning was just huge. Last year, there was the hole in one, which happened on the Sunday. And this year, the chase kept going. And this year, the team playoff was probably the hole in one moment of 2024, except the benefit was it lived on for longer because they played that eight hole twice on the final day. And.
We knew that there was great TV ratings into Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane. In fact, I was with the Premier at the time who was delighted that South Australia could be on the national TV stage for that amount of time. And it was just a great reflection on the tournament. It was challenging certainly at the time because the crowd was crowded around that 18th fairway. How many people would there have been?
hard to say. It’s a long path for and I would have thought from T to green there would have been about three and a half, four thousand people. Equally, at the same time, we we we had over I’ve got some vision of the fan village where the concert stage was, where the presentation took place. And that probably had three to five thousand people watching on the big screen in the fan village. So, you know, it was just an awesome way to finish. It was it was beautiful weather on a Sunday afternoon and.
the Aussie team won, it was, the people were talking, there was some, the crowd cheered when the South African team hit the, hit the, Aren’t you being louder with them missing their partner. That’s right. And you know, the golf traditionalists probably didn’t love that, but equally, I think if you asked the Stinger GC guys, they said they would have expected the same would happen if it was in South Africa. And it gave it a real, a real bit of theater on that final day. So that was, that was probably the most memorable thing that happened this year.
I reckon every amateur golfer saw a little part of themselves in that. Yeah. Like the ability to get out of a bunker when it counts.
Kim
Very good. I’ll move on to the final item and sort of summary questions. So thank you to both of you for your time today. Looking ahead, how well -placed is Adelaide to retain, you know, live golf going forward? I mean, this might be something a little bit outside of your…
capability to answer. Performance 54’s role with Live Australia, if you like, I’m sure will continue on. How do you plan Performance 54’s next 12 months, three years, five years in light of Live Adelaide and other events?
Nick
Like I mentioned before, Kim, we were focused on this particular event in last year’s. But there’s already been commitment from the South Australian government and the Grange Golf Club that they’re keen to keep going with this thing. It’s a four year contract. Government have already noted that they’d like this to be a long term fixture in South Australia. And the reason that I think they feel confident in saying that is because they’ve really invested in this both in resources, but also the commitment of the Premier. And I think hats off to them. It’s a great tournament and hopefully it’s here for many years to come.
There’s no doubt that when there’s success with an event like this, then the competition will come from other people that want it as well. I think the Premier’s gone on record to say that competition is a good thing, but that’s the benefit of the commitment and I guess the risk that he took to invest in this product early is that they’ve got the first mover advantage. So for me as an Adelaide boy, I certainly hope that the event will stay here for many years to come. And I think the state’s done a great job. The politics around whether there’ll be another event and whether or not Adelaide will retain it. Probably not for me to say, but I’ve certainly enjoyed being a part of the event here.
Kim
Fantastic, thank you for that. Thank you for that Nick, that’s really good. It’s been fascinating to get an insight into it. It’s been pleasing to draw the connection between Performance 54’s role with PERCS as well and how you’ve supported both PERCS and PERCS has supported you from a small business angle as well as just how positive it’s been for small business in the state of South Australia and Adelaide in particular as well. So thank you very much for coming along and really appreciate your time. And we look forward to catching up with you maybe in 12 months time with another successful live golf under your belt.
Nick
Thank you. Thanks, Kim. Appreciate you having me.
