Chaos, craft and curtain calls, with Liam McDonald

Ok, Liam, let’s get to know each other. Tell us…  

What’s one piece of tech you can’t live without?

What kind of music are you into at the moment?

Ella Langely’s Dandelion is probably my favourite record of this year but I've also had Dayseekers new record on repeat since it came out.

When you’re not working on events, where are we likely to find you?

Golf Course or a Music Studio.

You’ve spent over a decade in technical production. How did you first get into events?

I always wanted to work in live music, and after spending a lot of time in that world, the stability (and constant location) that came with corporate events gave me the best of both worlds.

You’ve steppped into a Head of Production role. What’s something you’ve seen in teams that doesn’t work, and how do you approach it differently?

Ultimately, a team lives or dies by its communication and balance. By ensuring the right resources, both in gear and personnel, are in place, I give our production team the room to do what they do best: turn obsessive pre-production into a flawless reality.

Whether it’s a stadium keynote or a breakout room, we hold a non-negotiable standard of planning; we tick every box early so that when the pressure hits, we’re executing a plan, not just reacting to a crisis.

Building a high-pressure show is less like running an office and more like operating a submarine. When things go sideways at 3:00 AM, a "technically good" person might have the right answer, but a "trusted" person has the right temperament.

They have predictable, concise communication, excellent peripheral awareness and can manage their ego to get the best result.

Everyone walks away having a good time. From the driver & loaders to the end client and the stakeholders, everyone has a feeling of success after the day is done.

What’s the difference between something that’s technically impressive and something that’s creatively effective?

Technology is the vehicle, not the destination: it exists to deliver an experience. Technically impressive work is often about scale and difficulty, stacking layers of complexity just because the hardware can handle it.

Creatively effective work is about intent. Technically impressive is the "Look at Me" approach. It demands the audience acknowledge the budget and the gear. It says, look at how many pixels we have. Creatively effective is the immersion approach. It uses those pixels to guide the audience's eyes exactly where they need to be: the product, the performer, or the data, without them even realising they’re being guided.

What’s a call you’ve had to make on-site that you had to trust your gut on?

It’s always safe; if something feels sketchy, it is. If my gut says something unsafe, the work stops, and we reassess. I have an uncompromising approach to making sure people get home to their families.

What’s something you’ve changed your mind on over the years when it comes to production?

It’s easy to fall into the specs trap. As tech nerds, we’re naturally wired to get hyped over high-resolution toys and massive rigs, but there’s a massive difference between a high-end setup and a high-impact experience.

We can’t confuse scale with substance when substance lands the message.

Our clients love new ideas - what’s something you’re keen to push or experiment with right now?

I’m really pushing to move Augmented Reality beyond the phone camera gimmick and into the realm of architectural storytelling. Instead of forcing the audience to look through a six-inch screen, I want to bridge the gap between the physical stage and the digital layer using Spatial AR, combining precision projection mapping with transparent screens.

To make it a truly visceral experience, I’m integrating spatial audio to ensure the soundscape is as multidimensional as the visuals. The goal is to stop treating tech as an add-on and start using it to transform the entire environment into a living, breathing narrative.

What’s something about event delivery that only really clicks after you’ve been in the industry a long time?

The one thing that only clicks after years in the trenches is the realisation that event delivery is a game of millimetres, not miles.

On the surface, it’s all big trucks and loud speakers. But the veteran knows that it’s actually a brutal, high-stakes discipline where the difference between a "good show" and a "legendary show" lives in the tiny details that 90% of the audience won't even know are part of consideration.

When you’re new, you think the win is the curtain drop moment, the first cue or the pyro. After a decade, you realise the win happened at 10:00 AM during a cable run.

And finally… Why do you love events? 

Because nothing else feels like it.

I love that we spend months planning for a moment that only exists once. I love the high-stakes act of live production, where there’s no undo button and nowhere to hide. But mostly, I love the chaos.

There is a specific, addictive adrenaline in taking a million moving parts, the tech, the egos, the physics, and the unpredictable, and forcing them into a seamless, memorable experience.

It’s uncompromising and a difficult career to have, but nothing quite manages to fill me with the excitement that live events do.

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