Olympia (London) - The Birth of EC&O

The Birth of EC&O

In the early 1970s, property tycoon Jeffrey Sterling’s Sterling Guarantee Trust (SGT) had made a bid for Earls Court. His objectives were made clearer a week later when he bought a huge stake in Olympia. The Earls Court bid was accepted on 23 March. SGT then successfully bid £11.4 million for Olympia in March 1973. Sterling had plans to redevelop Earls Court into a more modern mixed use exhibition hall and eventually planned to redevelop Olympia for other purposes. Large events such as the Motor Show and the Tournament were expected to move to Birmingham’s NEC while others could occupy Olympia pending completion of the new Earls Court.

This plan was ready to go when the oil crisis broke. The economy crashed and property values went down with it; Jeffrey Sterling’s scheme was expensively stalled.

Jeffrey (now Lord) Sterling managed to keep the two halls open through the Black winter of 1973/4. He could have ridden out the crashed property market by closing the heavily loss making Earls Court, but it was a live national asset and such action was unthinkable. A property upturn was probably several years distant. Sterling could only move forward by making a go of the halls as show centres. He merged them into Earls Court and Olympia Ltd (EC&O), removed the rigidities that accumulate over time in a sellers’ market, and began to rebuild the business. And so EC&O Venues was born!

The Festival of Mind and Body at Olympia was launched in 1976 and ran on into the 1980s (the Mind Body & Soul exhibition still runs today) The National Cat Show was the largest show of its kind for years with attendances reaching the capacity of the National Hall. The British Designer Shows were in vogue for over ten years from 1976.

Olympia handled the 1978/9 ‘Winter of Discontent’ well by juggling large shows and fitting in smaller ones and generally keeping its head above water.

The National Federation of the WI took over the Grand Hall to present a vast exhibition demonstrating the broadening of interests of members as well as health and leisure opportunities and, they promised ‘half a mild of jam’.

The Arabian Desert came to Olympia in 1986 – tons of it! Saudi Arabia shipped sand over to cover part of the Grand Hall for a Bedouin encampment complete with date palms, camels, goat’s and sheik’s tent filled with rugs, silver and dark furniture.

A cycle of grand opera began at Earls Court in 1988 with Aida. Harvey Goldsmith’s courageous and visionary gamble caused The Times to reflect that it made the Royal Albert Hall look like a studio theatre. The audience loved it and Goldsmith returned the following year with a production of Carmen and the Aida again in 1998.

Thanks to the oil crisis and to Jeffrey Sterling’s determined reaction, London’s landmark halls have been more than turned around since 1972. A transformation united the old rivals, brought the halls to continental standards of service and performance, increased letting space to 100,000 sq. metres and achieved annual occupancy levels at record highs. Above all, the shows in their infinite variety from so many contributors continue to please and profit the millions of people that visit them each year.

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