We recently connected with Nils Davey and have shared our conversation below.

Nils, appreciate you joining us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

There’s a huge problem in the experiential industry as a whole in the form of a disconnect between creative and execution. We’ve built our entire business model around solving that problem. Often times a project is creatively pitched without being properly vetted for practical execution. Life moves pretty fast in experiential with clients and partners requiring very quick turn-arounds on proposals, concepts and solutions. A lot of agencies will pitch amazing creative work that will win them the project and then run aground when trying to practically execute the vision. This could come from the creative just being impossible to make so requires watering down to find a viable solution or creative that is so fantastical that it would blow the clients budget out of the water to fully achieve leading to disappointment with the final product. When we started PBZ we wanted to solve this problem so we combined both creative and fabrication in-house so we can pitch executable creative knowing the final budget parameters, how to make it work, and any issues that need resolving straight from our initial pitch. It’s a small but unique niche area that we pride ourselves on filling.

Nils, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Nils Davey, the creative director and one of three founding partners of experiential creative and fabrication agency PBZ. We started our agency during the pandemic. My work for another agency was furloughed and I lucked into working with production agency Verb on the only client that ramped up during the pandemic: Airbnb who were executing unique branded experiential guest stays during COVID. From this basis we started PBZ with an aim to present creative and practical solutions to the client briefs and from there we grew our client list. One of my favorite characteristics of the experiential industry is that every project is different with unique and difficult problems to solve. This is true whether you’re creating an immersive experience for Bad Bunny, a film and media festival for Vulture, or a branded nail polish bar at Coachella (just some of my favorite projects over the years).

We’re a small agency with a big heart and big ideas. We love a challenge and we love solving problems creatively and then bringing the execution to life on site.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We have a running joke in house that there’s always one nightmare project each year. This isnt a reflection on the client or the brief, just a project that runs out of control whether that’s from a timeline perspective, budget, pivots, weather, permitting or anything else. What I actually LOVE about these projects is that we always manage to overcome the problem through hard work, determination, project management or creative solutions.

A good example of this is a project we completed for Instagram a few years ago. The request came in to build an art maze showcasing and artists work within a 8000 sq ft gallery space. Seems simple on paper but to create a maze you need a lot of walls, Each painted, each connecting, and each needed within a 2 week timeline. We ended up building 200+ wall sets and renting a warehouse near the site for two weeks to execute the work. We hired friends, family, and our trusted labor crews to work in shifts so we could build the maze out. Four trucks, a 12 hours install, and a happy client later we took a few days off to recover. Sometimes the solution is just people-power and resilience.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I worked at my former agency the founding partner had a principle of saying yes to everything and then delegating a massive amount of projects to the team below him. He was an excellent sales-man but lacked practical and creative knowledge on feasibility and timelines so it really caused issues among the staff leading to low moral and a ‘factory’ vibe with the team. When I founded PBZ with my partners our main aim was to eliminate this effect so we learned one of the most important lessons in the creative industry… how to say ‘No’. We’re a small team that can tackle big projects but we also make sure that we have downtime, dont overload with projects, and maintain our love of the work. At the end of the day, you have to love what you do for it to show in your work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.peebeezee.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pbz.llc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peebeezee/