Some experiences don’t just stay with you — they change you. This is a series of personal stories from our colleagues about the moments that shifted how they think, lead, and work. Hear from our Client Director, Chris Fischer.
The events industry is built on partnership. But partnership is easy to talk about and harder to practise – especially when agency and client are each carrying pressures the other can’t fully see. Early in my agency career, I built a picture of “the client” like most people do. The ones with the budget. The ones who send late feedback. The ones who change the brief. And underneath all of it, a quiet assumption: that their job was easier than mine.
I held that assumption for a while. Then I crossed the floor, and it dissolved quickly.
What I didn’t see from the agency side
Spending time client-side changed how I understood pressure, not because clients have it harder, but because the pressure is different in ways that matter.
Agency-side, your accountability is to the brief, the budget, the deadline. Client-side, your accountability is to your organisation, your stakeholders, your reputation, and often your career. The agency delivers the event. The client owns the outcome. That’s not a small distinction.
What I also hadn’t appreciated until I lived it: how much a client depends on their agency to think with them, not just for them. When you’re in a room with fifteen internal stakeholders pulling in different directions, and your agency comes back with something that makes sense of the chaos, that’s not just execution. That’s someone genuinely invested in your success.
What I didn’t see from the client side
Going back agency-side after time as a client, I noticed things I’d stopped registering. The decisions made before 9am. The invisible problem-solving that never reaches the client. The way a strong team carries an event across the line even when things go wrong, because they’ve built the trust to absorb it quietly.
Client-side, you see the agency when it’s ready for you. You rarely see everything it took to get there.
What both sides share
Neither side is easier. Neither is more important. Both are carrying real weight toward the same goal. When they don’t recognise that in each other, the work suffers.
The best projects I’ve been part of weren’t defined by budget or a clean brief. They were the ones where client and agency operated as a single unit – problems shared early, information moving freely, both sides accountable to the outcome, not just their role within it.
That only happens when there’s trust. And trust doesn’t come from a relationship review or a kick-off meeting. It comes from showing up consistently, being honest when things are difficult, and genuinely caring whether the other side succeeds.
What I learned
I wouldn’t be the Client Director I am today without having sat on both sides. Not because it gave me all the answers – it didn’t. But it gave me a much clearer sense of what the other person in the room is actually carrying.
When a client goes quiet, I have a better idea of what that might mean. When an agency comes back with a solution that reframes the problem, I know how much that matters to the person receiving it. That context doesn’t make you infallible. It just makes you more useful.
Twenty years across both sides didn’t give me a formula. It gave me a perspective. And the perspective is simply this: none of it works without each other.
Experience changes everything. Including, eventually, the assumptions you didn’t know you were carrying.
