On Tuesday, Encore announced the acquisition of global brand experience agency FIRST. Encore’s previous M&A moves were almost entirely focused on taking over audiovisual and production companies to expand geographically and gain new clients. This was the case two weeks ago when it acquired Eclipse, a UK audiovisual company with an extensive in-house footprint across some of London’s largest venues.
This is the company’s first acquisition since the Covid pandemic, and was made possible by an equity raise and debt refinancing in June of 2024. According to Encore CEO Ben Erwin, the extra capital gave the company the “ability to go back to what we were doing before the pandemic.”
But the acquisition of FIRST is different.
FIRST is an events agency — albeit a global one with more than 800 employees that supported an impressive 15,000 events in 30 countries for around 100 clients last year.
Embedded Solutions Model
Enter the “embedded solutions model.” FIRST’s approach to agency work is slightly different. In the past it relied — like most event agencies — on project work. But now that makes up only a quarter of its business. The bulk of its work (75%) comes from supporting a small roster of 15–20 clients through an “embedded solutions model.” For this set of exclusive clients, FIRST’s team members work exclusively for one client, and in many situations sit in the client’s office.
While 15–20 is a small client base, these global accounts include some of the largest companies in the world; Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Google are among this exclusive set.
It was these mainly financial and tech multinational clients with multiple offices that have really fueled FIRST’s impressive growth and account for around 75% of its revenue in stable, multi-year contracts.
FIRST CEO Maureen Ryan Fable makes it clear that her team members are “not just taskmasters”; they essentially become part of corporate teams. But FIRST doesn’t act as a staffing agency either. It handles all the legal, HR, and training for its embedded staff so they can be fully focused on supporting clients.
FIRST’s model undoubtedly contributed to interest from Encore and ultimately the acquisition. But the model also paid dividends during the Covid pandemic. With multi-year contracts comes stability and continuity, and at a time when many agencies reliant on project work were forced to lay off or furlough staff and downsize significantly, FIRST came out relatively unscathed.
The Appeal of Corporate Campuses
For Encore, the appeal of corporate campuses is not about becoming an in-house audiovisual provider at corporate campuses. “We’re not in the installation business. We’re not in the capital leasing business,” said CEO Ben Erwin.
According to Erwin, the focus will continue to be on supporting FIRST’s premium client base from a planning and production perspective, now with the additional resources that Encore provides. “The stars of the show are the talent, the technical team members, and we look at our business as a services business,” he said.
Encore is already present in 2,200 hotels and venues globally, most of these in the U.S. It is constantly bidding and working on ways to extend this, but it is now betting on the corporate campus market as a new area for growth. This means more event agencies working in this space could come on to Encore’s radar, as it looks for further inorganic growth opportunities.
The FIRST Journey
FIRST was founded in London in 1996 by Richard Waddington as First Protocol, and merged with Ryan Fable’s New York-based production company in 2004. In a podcast interview, Ryan Fable revealed that she was given $300,000 to grow the company in the U.S.
Significant growth led the company to open hubs in Los Angeles (2012), Singapore (2013), and Dublin (2018), and the company rebranded to FIRST in 2016. The acquisitions of the New York-based Barkley Kalpak Agency in 2016 and UK-based Clive Agency in 2018 allowed for further expansion while remaining privately owned.
Following Encore’s acquisition, the brand will remain standalone, with the same leadership structure to ensure minimal disruption. From Ryan Fable’s perspective, she is looking forward to having extra resources that will allow the FIRST team to require less outsourcing when supporting larger client events.
