Brompton Technology celebrates its ten year anniversary.

BROMPTON TECHNOLOGY

CEO, Richard Mead reflects on Brompton Technology’s 10-year history and explains how the company has maintained its core values while branching into new markets.

Words: Stew Hume Photos: Ralph Larmann (Ed Sheeran) & Brompton

Founded in 2012, Brompton’s roots are embedded within live events. One of the core goals of the company was to address the challenges of using LED video for live events, ensuring not only that the image quality was to the highest possible standard, but also that its products could withstand the rigours of touring and be set up quickly. Since then, while still being the go-to LED processing solution for many productions, the company has seen significant growth into the film and TV industry – something that increased yet further during the pandemic. A decade on, the company now has two core markets – live events and in-camera visual effects – which it holds in equal importance.

“There have certainly been many changes over the past 10 years,” began CEO, Richard Mead as he spoke to TPi about how the changing demands of the live market are what saw Brompton start to look at new avenues outside traditional live events. “Many big live events are also televised – such as the Oscars, which we first did in 2013 – and from the outset, the priority was that the LED looked just as good to the camera as to the eye.”

This turned out to be critical to the future of the business as when the film and TV worlds started experimenting with LED in replacement of a green screen, the industry was searching for rental houses to provide LED that looked great on camera, which in turn meant Brompton kit being used on more jobs. “We were there at the start of the virtual studio journey before anyone knew quite how big it was going to get.”

Having been at the forefront of this adoption of LED for in-camera effects, Brompton was in a strong position when the pandemic put live events on hold. “We have been very lucky as the pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual production techniques as TV producers tried to respond to the spike in demand for content from streaming services,” stated Mead.

“People were willing to experiment with new techniques who might otherwise have waited, and this fast growth allowed us to pivot away from live events and grow the business through the pandemic.”

Due to this trend, Brompton ended up having similar turnover in 2021 as it did in 2019, despite COVID-19. “In 2019, almost all sales were from live events, whereas in 2021, they came almost entirely from TV and film,” enthused the CEO. “Now, we are seeing live events coming back alongside continued growth in TV and film. We need to expand our capabilities to ensure we can continue to provide excellent support to all our customers and deliver the products they want.”

This need to increase its footprint both in terms of real estate and staff was the reason for the company seeking investment – something they found with Connection Capital, which completed a £5.1m growth capital investment in Brompton earlier this year.

As part of the growth plan, Brompton has just moved into a new HQ in the UK. “Our new building is in Chiswick,” explained Mead. “It’s much larger, with a dedicated demo and testing space on the ground floor. A lot of our capabilities can only be appreciated with inperson demos and it’s going to be great to have a facility where we can bring customers in to show what Brompton is capable of.”

Brompton also has outposts in Shenzhen, Taipei and Los Angeles and through the pandemic these all went through somewhat of a change. “They all had to operate far more independently as no-one from the UK could travel there,” explained Mead. “This meant that lots of people were thrown in the deep end, but everyone rose to the challenge magnificently and the way we operate those offices has changed as a result.”

Like many in the industry, Brompton is currently on the hunt for new staff to keep up with the growth of the company. The CEO

(L-R:) Connection Capital Investment Director, Miles Otway; Brompton Technology Non-Executive Chairman, Neil Gaydon; Brompton Technology Chief Financial Officer, Chris Hunt; Brompton Technology Chief Technical Officer, Chris Deighton; Brompton Technology CEO, Richard Mead; Connection Capital Investment Manager, Lucy Merson; Connection Capital Portfolio Director, Scott Barham; Brompton Technology CEO, Richard Mead.

explained: “We are looking to grow the team significantly in the coming months and are on the lookout for people who share our passion. It’s quite a challenging environment to recruit for business in general, post-pandemic, but we are focused on quality over quantity. As a real industry leader, we want the right people who will relish the opportunity to join our excellent team.” On the note of new people, the CEO highlighted how the pandemic has drastically altered how the company approaches training. “User training has always been very important to us, and we have always provided free in-person training where possible – but how do you do that amid a global pandemic?” The solution came from the Brompton team led by Training Manager, Steve Harris, who built an advanced multicamera setup complete with screen sharing that allows fully interactive training to be delivered remotely. “Although we’ve restarted in-person training, we will continue to offer this online version due to its convenience, which enables us to train people all over the world,” stated Mead. With the ever-expanding footprint in live events, TV and film worlds, it’s surely only a matter of time until there are also new product or software announcements on the horizon, although Mead remained tight-lipped about any upcoming releases for the time being. “We don’t tend to talk about what is coming out until it’s quite well fleshed out. We are constantly adjusting the details of the roadmap in response to customer feedback. Also, as this is a very competitive market, it doesn’t make sense to give more visibility than necessary to those trying to match us.” That said, with many customers keen to see the latest updates, Mead referred to Brompton’s long track record of delivering major features as free software upgrades. “This means that all existing customers benefit from any new updates,” he stated. “We see this as part of the value of investing in Brompton and hopefully it gives some additional confidence to anyone buying our products.” With the anniversary of Brompton’s first sale fast approaching, Mead closed by summarising Brompton’s tenth year in business. “Between closing our investment deal and moving into the new building, it has been a very busy summer,” he stated. “We’re certainly planning to mark our tenth anniversary appropriately and we’ll be sure to have a big celebration in the new office later this year.” www.bromptontech.com