20-05-2025
What I learnt … planning an event in Saudi Arabia
Joe Ellyatt, 34, is one of the four co-founders of Komodo, a creative digital marketing agency focused on social media set up in 2017. It employs 70 people and has offices in London, Sydney and Los Angeles. One of its clients, Penhaligon's, wanted to launch its latest luxury fragrance, AlUla, in the Unesco world heritage site of the same name, in Saudi Arabia, 1,100 kilometres from Riyadh.
Komodo ran a five-day event, involving 50 influencers from around the world at the ancient Nabataean site, taking in the burial sites in Hegra, hot air balloons and Maraya, the largest mirrored building in the world. Ellyatt says he will look for more business in Saudi now, but has learnt a lot along the way.
The brief came
