MARSHALS OF MEGA EVENTS
AN EVENT workforce management company founded by two former Geelong men is hoping to win a major contract to help manage staff and volunteers at one of the world’s biggest events in the Middle East.
The bid follows a raft of new European and US deals for Event Workforce Group, which provides specialised software to manage largescale temporary workforces under the brand Rosterfy, founded by Bennett Merriman, Shannan Gove and Chris Grant.
Born and raised in Geelong, Mr Merriman said the business aimed to be leaders in the $6.4 billion global event technology market by 2025.
“While our platform can be applied to range of industries, we do have a real focus on major and mega events. We have been successful in signing a number of the world’s largest events, including the Super Bowl, Cricket World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, but we are always searching for the next big opportunity,” Mr Merriman said.
Mr Merriman would not confirm the name of the Middle East event.
But he told a FoundX forum in Geelong last Wednesday that having a specialised platform was the key to winning major contracts ahead of global technology companies that would need to build a bespoke platform.
“We have really found our niche in that space,” Mr Merriman said.
Rosterfy spun out of the Event Workforce Group’s initial business of connecting tertiary students and graduates who needed work experience and event managers who needed a temporary workforce.
“We realised that a lot of our clients that we were selling a staffing service to … needed a better system to manage their own people,” Mr Merriman said.
Rosterfy was born to streamline the end-to-end workforce management process and the product is now in 10 countries. A premium product, it includes custom registration, communication tools and branded workforce portal, a volunteer shift-matching program, real-time attendance monitoring and volunteer recognition features.
A focus on growing in Europe in the past year led Mr Gove, who also grew up in Geelong and now heads the firm’s business development, to meet with organisers from Ride London, 2019 Cricket World Cup and the Netball World Cup.
“We were successful in signing all of these clients across the past six months of 2018,” Mr Merriman said.
“This has accelerated our growth into this market. Our next step is to further develop the reach and networks we have in place.”
Rosterfy has also set up an office in San Francisco and has signed a partnership with Eventbrite in North America.
In the next year the company is aiming to capture more business in the US and Europe and plans to increase its marketing budget to build on its success. All going well, the Middle East will soon be added to this list.
It will also be building its development team in Australia to ensure the scalability of its product.
If it picks up the Middle East deal, it will top the Melbourne-based company’s impressive client list to date.