The Foot & Ankle Show has become one of the most anticipated events in the podiatry calendar, and if you’ve ever been, you’ll understand why. I first attended as a speaker in 2019, and even then, it stood out. It wasn’t just a conference; it was a community. It was energising, collaborative, and unlike anything I’d experienced in podiatry. Fast forward to 2026, and everything I loved about it has grown: the energy, the content, the innovation, and the international interest.
In this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast, I sat down with Tony Gavin, the driving force behind the Foot & Ankle Show. What I love about Tony is that he doesn’t pretend to do it all, but he absolutely owns the vision. And that vision continues to elevate the profession year after year.
Check My Upcoming Events
Adapting, Innovating, and Growing, Even in Chaos
Tony shared the fascinating story of how the show pivoted during COVID. While many conferences went into hibernation, Tony’s team built their own digital platform, a bold move that kept podiatrists connected and learning during the global shutdown. They didn’t wait for solutions. They created them. That mindset has clearly shaped the show’s ongoing evolution.
The takeaway?
When you bend and flex, you create opportunities that weren’t there before.
Every podiatry business owner can relate to that lesson.
A Conference Designed for Real-World Podiatrists
One of the genius decisions Tony made was to ensure that the entire event, lectures, trade, networking, and social connections happened in one massive space. No running between rooms. No dead trade halls. No silos.
Everyone shares the same environment.
Everyone experiences the same energy.
And everyone learns from each other — even the trade reps.
The exhibitors love it because they stay busy the entire time. Delegates love it because they can dip in and out of lectures while still connecting with the trade. Speakers love it because it feels like a true professional community, not a “talk and disappear” setup.
It creates a vibe you don’t get elsewhere.
Why 2026 Is Set to Be the Biggest Yet
Tony was intentionally vague about the exact numbers, didn’t want to jinx it, but the signs are clear:
-
Record ticket sales already
-
The trade display is almost sold out five months ahead of time
-
More speakers than ever
-
A stronger international presence every year
There are already attendees booked from Australia, Iceland, the United States, and across Europe. And yes, podiatrists are coordinating their UK holidays around the Foot & Ankle Show. That’s the reputation it now carries.
Continuous Improvement, the Secret Behind the Show
One of the strongest themes Tony raised was that every year, after the event, his team does a thorough review:
-
What worked?
-
What didn’t?
-
What can be improved?
-
What did the numbers show?
-
How did the delegates behave?
They’re not guessing. They’re watching the room, literally.
This is a lesson for every podiatry practice owner:
Your systems will degrade unless you consciously and consistently maintain them.
The best events, just like the best clinics, are built on deliberate iteration.
Speakers Who Stay, Learn, and Connect
One of the things I love most about the Foot & Ankle Show is how the speakers behave. They don’t sprint out the back door once their session ends. They hang around. They join the audience for other sessions. They talk to delegates. They learn. They contribute.
This sense of community is rare. And it’s a significant reason podiatrists keep returning.
See It For Yourself in 2026
If you’ve been considering a professional development trip overseas, this is the one to build your UK holiday around. And while you’re at it, get to Liverpool a day early and join my Podiatry Marketing Masterclass, which runs the day before the show.
For further details, visit www.footandankleshow.com
Dates: 3–4 March 2026 – Location: Exhibition Centre, Liverpool
This episode with Tony was a great reminder that when you focus on community, innovation, and continuous improvement, you don’t just build an event, you build momentum for a profession.
If you’re looking for a speaker for an upcoming event or a facilitator to run a pre-conference workshop, please visit my Speaker Page to see the range of topics I cover.
Looking for A Little Business Guidance?
A podiatrist I spoke with in early 2024 earned an additional $40,000 by following my advice from a 30-minute free Zoom call. This was probably the best 30-minute investment of their lives. Think about it: you have everything to gain and nothing to lose, and it’s not a TRAP. I’m not out to get you; I’m here to help you.
Please follow the link below to my calendar and schedule a free 30-minute Zoom call.
I guarantee that after we talk, you will have far more clarity on what is best for you, your business and your career. ONLINE CALENDAR
Business Coaching & Mentoring
I offer three simple coaching options:
- Regular Monthly Coaching Sessions (one or two calls per month).
- Hourly Sessions – Book them as you need them. (Most Popular)
- On-Site Clinic Training (Full-Day Event) – Your team will love it.
But let’s have a chat first to see what best suits you. ONLINE CALENDAR
Facebook Group: Podiatry Business Owners Club
Have you grabbed a copy of one of my books yet?
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Tyson E Franklin: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast. The podcast design, help me feel, see, and think differently about the Podiatry profession. With me today is Tony Gavin. He is the brains behind the foot and ankle show, and I said Tony before, he might not do all the work, but he is the brain.
So Tony, how are you doing today?
Tony Gavin: I’m really well, thanks. It’s good to be on again. I can’t quite believe it’s another year. Where’s it going?
Tyson E Franklin: I know. How many years has it been going for now?
Tony Gavin: This is a challenging question ’cause we had the COVID break, didn’t we? So, the we did all the first OSGO LIVE in let me see, it’ll be 2016.
We did the first SGO live, so that’s nine years ago. But we’ve actually done five Foot & Ankle Shows because we had a bit of a break, didn’t we, with COVID. So,
Tyson E Franklin: but you did do digital versions when COVID was on.
Tony Gavin: Yeah. Yeah, we did, we’ve done a number of digital versions. I’ve actually lost count of how many of those we normally do two year of those.
This last year we did one of those as we’re, as the [00:01:00] the attendances are getting really high now at the actual live show. So, yeah the pivot to the for and ankle show digital is that, that was an interesting escapade. ’cause when COVID hit. Everything went digital, didn’t it? Yeah, I’m sure.
Me you was invited to all these online teams, quizzes and zooms quizzes. We like keeping in touch with family, friends, so many things. A bit of a novelty at first, and it grew old really fast. And yeah we were left in this situation where obviously we had to cancel a conference even though it was, it was like we, we were going into lockdown.
So it was told it was a couple of weeks and then it was being extended and it was, we were being pushed really late on decisions as to whether or not we would have to cancel a conference, which obviously we did. And we really wanted to stay in contact with both delegates and also the exhibitors as well and just stay there.
So, we decided we wanted to do a digital conference. Problem was back then though, no one had really worked out how to do a digital conference. I’m still not sure anyone has [00:02:00] come up with the best solution for it. There’s a number of software packages available so you can license software to host a digital conference.
And we had a look at these things and they were incredibly expensive, so it would’ve meant. Charging like high ticket prices for it. Yeah. And we weren’t really impressed with the tech, so we ended up building our own with our our in-house tech people. And we built that platform which we still use to this day, which is one of the best moves we ever did, developing our own technology in that space.
And we ran it for free for a number of years, free access for everyone during the the COVID times. And it was a really good vehicle for staying in touch with the delegates. Keeping the CPD going and keeping the brand of the foot and ankle show going. So I think that was a real key thing for us at the time.
’cause it’s like anything in life, isn’t it? When these obstacles come it, it could see you off, but I think if you bend and flex, you can turn it to your advantage, can’t you? And use it to as an accelerator, which is what it does now. So it’s really good. Yeah.
Tyson E Franklin: I actually think that was, even though all the devastation, death businesses closing down, [00:03:00] that happened during COVID.
I think some of the positives that came out of it, it made people pivot and think differently about how they were doing certain things, how they were delivering products, services. A lot of innovation came out of the backend of COVID, just like you end up developing your own software and now you’re still using it, which you probably wouldn’t have even thought about doing if COVID had never happened.
Tony Gavin: No. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. , You don’t know what you don’t know do you? And it’s or they say, yeah, necessity is the the creator of invention, isn’t it? And it genuinely is. It’s because we’re in the situation of what do we do? We really needed to keep some momentum going at this point.
’cause we’d only run one foot and ankle show, which was for a launch event. I think he was actually at the launch event, wasn’t he? It was 2019. Yeah, it was a fantastic event for a launch event. It really was. And then to to come up against COVID immediately after that, certainly wasn’t in the business plan, so,
Tyson E Franklin: No, because that was the best selfie I’ve ever [00:04:00] taken.
Was it 2019 on stage? I don’t know. Was it 700 people behind me? See how there was, yeah. And I remember standing up there on stage, turning around, and I said, oh, can you just lean in a little bit? And the laughter that happened when I did that. But the, I think there’s Dave James and a few other people, regular faces that were behind me.
Yeah. And it’s one of my favorite photos. That was back when I had hair too. So that was a while ago.
Tony Gavin: Yeah. Yeah. Was that six years ago now, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it’s that pivot point and you are right. During that time, I mean, as I’ve got other business interests as well, and we we distribute tics and we used to be out on the road delivering training courses all the time and.
We managed to change that often to be able to deliver sessions through teams and doing it online. And it just, and even to today, it means that one minute you can be in Plymouth and then half an hour later you can be in Glasgow. You’re not limited by geography anymore in, in being able to get your training and services across to people.
So, , I think the acceptance that people [00:05:00] have now are doing stuff online is definitely an advantage. But nothing replace as being in a room with someone. Ah. And I agree. As I was joking with my friends that we’ve renamed ourselves now, we the last of the analogs is is how I think my generation feel they are.
’cause we just love the in-person stuff and the real stuff.
Tyson E Franklin: I know when I went to the 2019 one and it was like. Probably the best Podiatry conference I’d ever been to by far. It was just the way it was set up, even though I know in 2025 it was set up differently to 2019, but still one of the most, probably the best Podiatry conference I’ve been to, only because everybody that was there it was there were no knobhead.
It was just everyone that was there wanted to be there. It wasn’t like, oh I’m going just to get some CBD points. They were there ’cause they genuinely wanted to listen to some of the lectures and because you had two or three talks going on at any one time, they could really choose what they wanted more, like research.[00:06:00]
There was research if they wanted business, there was business, there was mindset. There was so much variety. Yeah. And everyone just got on. I keep telling everyone I’ve got, I know a couple of Australians are coming over in 2026. Oh, okay. Because one in particular is coming to my Marketing Master class.
She was gonna come do it on the Gold Coast this year, and she went, but aren’t you gonna do it again in Liverpool the day before the foot and ankle show? I said, yes, I am. She said, I’m gonna book him for that one. And she’s already booked in for it.
Tony Gavin: Oh, fantastic.
Tyson E Franklin: And she’s having a bit of a trip and then she’s coming to the Foot and Ankle show, and I think there’ll be a few other people from Australia who.
If they’ve been listening to this podcast, no. Have a holiday in the UK and go the foot and ankle show.
Tony Gavin: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re right. I think it’s, I think it comes from what we believe. The foot and ankle show was certainly what my first belief was about what the foot and ankle show should do because, run a private practice for years and it’s yes, we are clinicians and the clinical education’s really important, but.
We have a number of other [00:07:00] hats on at the same time, which are equally important for making a practice work. Whether that’s business skills, whether it is mindset, and and also all the different nuances of how stuff works in private practice. And also trying to break down these barriers that which, which don’t really exist anymore, but they certainly did a decade ago between private practitioners this understand that, we’re not each other’s competition.
There’s so many. Around practices all have their own different flavor and brand and it’s the rising tide. It , it lifts all ships, doesn’t it? So, and you feel that when you’re at the foot and ankle show, it is one of. Optimism, collaboration, sharing of ideas and watching other people grow is inspirational.
It genuinely is inspirational. It certainly isn’t any kind of there’s no atmosphere or vibes of people not wanting people to do well or trying to take other people down a Pega two. It’s an open forum where it’s really, the subjects are really diverse. The people are really diverse.
It, it covers. A [00:08:00] multitude of different viewpoints on what practice should be like, and that’s people can then self-select so people aren’t being regimented down a specific route of, of how they should think. It’s letting people have a look at people who perhaps have thought differently, done things differently, whether that’s through academia and research or clinical practice or their business practices or how they use social media or whatever it may be.
Yeah. And it’s those genuine, novel ideas in the room together in a format where you’re not being carted off to a different room to do one session and then you’re sloping off ’cause you wanna miss the next session. Everyone’s together in the same room all the time. And that really does change the atmosphere, doesn’t it?
Tyson E Franklin: Oh, that was the one thing, even when I went 2019, different setup to 2025. But what I like is everything that is happening is actually happening in this massive big room. So you’ll have three lectures going on at any one time. The way you’ve got it set up is you can still be looking at trade to space.
You can [00:09:00] still be listening to a lecture that was of interest to you. That’s if you can get a seat, depending on who’s talking. But the talks don’t interfere with each other as well. But then even people that just wanna socially get together, there’s the coffee station where they can be having a coffee, but at the same time listening in, they can be having a conversation whereas.
Say a national conference over here, I ducked in there. To catch up with some people, and you’ll see people all wandering off to a lecture hall, but the trade display isn’t a completely different room. Yeah. So all the people in the trade display are all sitting there just twiddling their thumbs, bored, waiting.
Yeah. Until all of a sudden this big influx of people again. But then all the people who weren’t interested in the lecture, some of them were still in that hall. There were so many people that were outside, both of them, just outside socially, just catching up, not hearing a lecture, not talking to a trade person, so it everything becomes segregated.
Whereas at the foot and ankle show, it’s all under one big roof. [00:10:00] It just makes an entertaining.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. And , for a number of years I’ve exhibited at trade shows, I’ve been the exhibitor. I know how painful it is to be stood in the hall for 90 minutes waiting for ’em to come out the talks.
And then you get some people in the break, you’ve got 30 minutes, then they all disappear again. And that trade space is really expensive, number one. Yeah. Number two, you feel really devalued. And number three, I, the biggest thing I think is I looked at the way conferences were and I was like.
These are all missing a massive trick. There is so much knowledge and experience from the people who work in the trade. They’re part of, they’re part of this industry. They really need integrating much more. They need to be up on the stage talking about their products and services, their own expertise.
They need to be in the mix with the people because they know the delegates, they know the clinicians. They go around and see them in their practice. They really need it to be a much more integral part of the show because. If you think about [00:11:00] the value propositions of the way most conferences work is most of it is funded by the trade exhibition.
’cause they pay thousands to be at these trade shows because that’s their value to do business. The delegates, then they pay quite a large sum of money as well for their tickets. But you have to have a look at. Is the value being equally distributed? ’cause I always felt it was a bit upside down.
The trade in most conferences are a bit of an afterthought. There’s a plea. Please go and see our sponsors and exhibitors in the break, rather than why do that? Because are you just gonna make people go and talk to ’em because they feel they should? And that’s not a great motivation from my perspective.
It’s like, make them part of the show, make them part of it. But it’s like anything. If everything’s been done a certain way for a very long period of time, then. People are re resistant to change. And I remember when we first set up the foot and ankle show, most of the commentary from people leading up to it was, oh, this isn’t gonna work.
It’s a really bad idea. You can’t have lectures in the same hall as the trade [00:12:00] exhibition. People can’t concentrate, but. People don’t want to sit and listen for 90 minutes, two hours to something, which isn’t gonna change their practice if they’re a private practitioner. That’s a really hard sell.
And after 90 minutes of that myself, I don’t particularly want to go and walk around a trade hall. I probably wanna go and get a coffee or a drink somewhere. Yeah. And a room for a bit. So keeping that energy is a big part of it as well.
Tyson E Franklin: One of the positives that I heard back from the trade people who actually have done it for a few years, they said they actually, they love it.
That from the time it starts to the time it finishes, they’re always talking to somebody. There’s always someone walking around that, that they’re chatting to, but at the same time, they can actually listen into some of the talks if they want ’em themselves.
Because sometimes it may not be, and they might wanna listen to something technical, or they might want something that’s motivational or mindset.
And so they can actually be listening if they don’t have anyone there, they can just take a few steps, listen into [00:13:00] one of the lectures, and when they see someone at the stand, just walk back over there again. So the feedback from the trade people as well has been super positive. Yeah.
Tony Gavin: Yeah that’s brilliant.
And this year it’s growing at a much faster rate than I ever anticipated. Our numbers this year are looking phenomenal. I think the trade spaces all but sold out and we’re still five months out from the event, which is, that’s good. Which is, and ticket sales are up an enormous amount.
I think there’s already more tickets sold than we sold last year. So it’s, yeah, it’s, how many people are you expecting this year? I am not gonna say it out loud ’cause I might jinx it, but it’s gonna be the biggest one yet. It really is gonna be the biggest one yet by a significant amount. So that gives us new operational challenges in how we manage the flow of people and how we manage the talks and all the rest of it.
But yet that’s all well in hand. So there will be some changes this year which you’ll see when you get there.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, and I’ll let people know my talk, the title of my talk is Skill Transference and How to Learn Everything Faster. [00:14:00] Okay. I’m actually doing a, I’m doing a practice run this weekend coming up to a dental group.
I’m seeing what sort of feedback you got from then I’m gonna modify it and make it even better for the foot and ankle show.
Tony Gavin: Oh, fantastic.
Tyson E Franklin: , So from 2025 each year that you do the foot and ankle show.
You would then sit down with your team and when you go, what worked, what didn’t work, which is what I think most Podiatry clinics should be doing as well when they’re doing something. But do you do this on a regular basis? What went really well? What was the feedback? What didn’t go as well? What do we need to change or what will improve for say 2026?
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. Absolutely. So when, if I think back to the very first foot and ankle show we had, I had a theory about how I thought the show should be. In reality it’s a bit like writing a business plan for a new business. You are making a guess. You are making an absolute guess, and you try and base that as much as you can on your own experience.
You try and verify it, but there’s a few leaps of [00:15:00] that faith in there as to something you believe will be well received by the world. And then you put it out to the world, to the market, and ultimately the market decides. If it’s rubbish, people aren’t gonna come. That’s true. Or they’re gonna complain they’re not gonna come back.
So at this point you are making stuff up. You can continue to make stuff up and delude yourself and have something that shrinks in size or doesn’t do what you expected it to do or is really badly received. Or you take the feedback you watch as well. Because the thing with feedback, it’s a bit like when my daughter brings pictures home from school.
She’s a half decent artist, but she probably thinks she’s amazing because the feedback she always gets from me is how amazing it’s that goes on.
Tyson E Franklin: We lie to our children all the time when they do a drawing. We go, that is fantastic. You could be an artist one day and then you think, geez, I hope they don’t become an artist ’cause they’re not very good.
Absolutely. So yes,
Tony Gavin: feed feedback is really [00:16:00] important, but equally important is being able to weight that feedback because some people are just terribly kind and will always say the nicest things to you. So you have to have a system where you’re able to objectively look at what’s happening.
Numbers tell those stories, numbers of people go into talks, numbers of people in the hall at a certain time, number of tickets that you sell, number of people who rebook the event, how soon they rebook the event. All of these things give you of quite a lot of information About for all thing.
And then if you see it, the foot and ankle show, probably what you’ll see most of the time from me is me wandering around and watching, trying to objectively capture what’s happening. Because I think that’s, that is a really accurate way to be able to understand what is happening, what are the conversations that are happening where are the cues?
Where are people happy? Where are people smiling? Where are they not smiling? So it’s going through with absolute detail and looking at these things and then making those. I thought you’ve hit the theory before. I’m sure a million times of 1% a day. [00:17:00] And it doesn’t matter how small something is, but for the entire year between the two events, we are each day trying to make the thing at least 1% better through some something that we do.
And try not do stuff that doesn’t work or stuff that doesn’t make sense and constantly question, okay, we keep doing this. Is there a reason we keep doing it? Is it adding to the show? Is it taken away from the show? So. The actual process now is. It’s really quite different than it was at first. ’cause at first, like I said, you are making it up.
You’ve got a blank canvas and it is all, it’s all full of excitements and motivation and away you go. And the process then does change and it becomes much more forensic. You, we do still have those sessions, which are the creative ones when we’re doing kind of new things and when, when we’re coming up with new concepts and new things we want to do.
But it does become one of those things of. Being forensic about what is actually happening there and also making sure you absolutely systemize those things which are [00:18:00] working very well and make sure you capture them so that they don’t degrade over time because things do degrade over time.
Everything does in life, doesn’t it? Without maintenance? It’s easy.
Tyson E Franklin: It’s easy to have something working so well, you think we don’t need to write this down ’cause it’s just working so well. It’s so obvious on what to do. But all it takes is one key team member to leave for whatever reason, a new person takes that role and they may not understand the meaning behind why you’re doing it, so then they make a slight change ’cause they don’t understand and then another person makes a slight change I think some of the most obvious systems or things you do need to be written down, so it just keeps everybody on track.
And if there’s any doubt, they can always go back and go, oh yeah, this is why we’re doing it.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. And , there’s a discipline to it as well. It’s it’s a little bit like brand guidelines. Now I’m sure lots of your listeners, if they run their own practices or businesses, they’ll they will have experienced this as you come up with an idea of what your brand is and you have your logo, [00:19:00] your tone of voice, your colors your, whatever it is.
And then get a few years down the line and think about how different all of your material looks from how you first set out Without really strong brand guidelines, this, you end up with this creep over time. And you do, you really do need to on a very regular basis, just have a look at what you’re doing and pull stuff back to where it originally was.
And again, this is just a natural process that happens, but it happens with. With everything in every business is the original standard operating procedure for how you want stuff to be dependent who’s working on it and doing it. They will end up with their own way of doing it and they may often miss the single most important thing of the reason why you are doing it.
So yeah, that’s. That’s a huge part of it is constantly monitoring the systems, looking what needs updating and looking, what can be improved as well. ’cause the world changes, new technology keeps coming along. So there’s things that we can , oh, you gonna keep
Tyson E Franklin: up? [00:20:00] So the other thing too, I’ll point out that I like when I’ve been at the show, and I know, this has been your idea, is you don’t walk around with, like an entourage of bodyguards going, oh, look at me, I’m Tony Gavin. This is, this has all come outta my mind. Look what I have created. You just blend in. Like if people didn’t know who you were, they would not know that you were the brains behind the thing. You’re not walking around with a T-shirt on going, that’s completely different color.
Everybody else with arrows pointing at it going, look, mate, I’m Tony Gavin, which you could get away.
Tony Gavin: No, I don’t think I think some people may disagree. I’m not sure I blend in either.
Tyson E Franklin: Oh, no. Except at the end. Except right when it’s all finished and you’re relaxed and you’re at, we’re at the bar afterwards.
You’re like,
Tony Gavin: yeah,
Tyson E Franklin: I’m Tony Gavin. How you doing?
Tony Gavin: It comes out. No, I mean, I do, it’s. Again, one of the motivations for creating the Foot and Ankle show was for me, ’cause I wanted the show. Yeah. I want to go and, I want to go and see some of these talks. I wanna go and talk to the trade. I wanna go and talk to all the other practitioners.
[00:21:00] I I want to enjoy the the evening activities and I want to soak up the atmosphere of it. So I think probably that’s. I do try as much as possible to keep myself off any of the schedule of stuff that’s happening. Because as I said the important thing is that I really do get to watch what’s going on and understand, what could be better?
What is working really well, and there’s no better way to get a feel, yourself, any conference you go to you hear it from the other delegates. What people are thinking of it, what they’re enjoying. Yeah. What they’re not enjoying. And I think if you. I think this is true of all of my team.
I don’t think any of my team are withdrawn outta the actual conference. They’re all in the thick of it and very much in touch with what’s going on. We don’t go and hide in an organizer’s office for the entire conference. We, we wanna be. In there amongst it to, to use all of our senses to see exactly what is going on.
Tyson E Franklin: Oh, that definitely helps. And I’ve seen your team out amongst the crowd, talking to people, standing there watching certain lectures, listening to other people talking about [00:22:00] the talk that they just saw. And I can see ’em because I’m watching them, watching other people. ’cause I, I’m, yeah, I just love watching people.
It’s actually quite fun.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. Me too. And I’ve got to say, I’m so blessed, I’ve got the most incredible team. They’ve all been there from the start, from the beginning of it. And it is blood, sweat, and tears to deliver that show. Yeah. Because delivering conferences is it’s a crazy business really.
Because it’s, when you think about the actual. Effort and level of risk that goes into creating it. And a sane person wouldn’t, certainly wouldn’t create one from zero and do it to overcome the initial inertia and get one going. It takes an enormous amount of energy and work and you need a, an enormous amount of resilience to do it.
And, they’ve been along for that ride. And, hats off to them. They are phenomenal at what they do. And, they don’t necessarily need the systems. They know what they are doing. Yeah they’ve done a phenomenal job with it. They really have, and they’ve all brought their own flavors to it as [00:23:00] well.
Because they’re all, each one of them, they’re all people. People, they, they get it. They get where we’re going with this.
Tyson E Franklin: I I think you’re brave because like I do my workshops and, the marketing masterclass just for a small group, 20, 25 people. And even that, just the pressure of putting that together and people think, oh, it’s only 20 or 25 people, but they still don’t realize it’s the financial commitment that you go, okay, I’m gonna do this.
See, if I only had five people turn up and I was gonna make a loss, I still do it. I don’t back out.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely.
Tyson E Franklin: Absolutely. I just think if I’m committing to it and I’ve already had five, six, or seven other people say that they’re going to do it, I’m like, it’s going ahead. If I lose money and I lose money, I don’t care.
It’s just happening. But you learn from it and you think, okay, what went wrong? And then you work on it from there.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. And you’re dead. Right? And without that mindset, I don’t believe you could make a conference work. It has to be, no matter what happens, this event is happening. Yeah. Because if you don’t have that [00:24:00] belief yourself that you are going to see it through then.
You have no business getting involved in it, and you do have to look out. It’s like any business venture, you’ve got to protect the downside and make it as small as possible, but you’ve got to be prepared to stomach it, otherwise don’t get involved with it. Ah,
Tyson E Franklin: I I’ve been, I’ve registered for events when all of a sudden a month out from it, they have canceled the event.
Oh, we’re canceling the event. We didn’t get the numbers that were required. And I’ve gone, you don’t realize I’ve already paid for airfares accommodation.
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Tyson E Franklin: and now you’re just pulling the pin and there’s no, you’re not gonna set it for another date that I can and that I will never book again for that event or for those people because they screw you over the first time, so you’re gonna, if they’re gonna run another one, you go are you, if you don’t get the numbers, you’re gonna pull the pin again.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. And there has to be some kind of reciprocity about this, doesn’t there? So if someone is not going fully in themselves, then what, what happens [00:25:00] on the other side of that? Like you said, that you’re not gonna do a future event with them, but then if the inve the event is, incredibly successful do they give anything back because of that or are they just gonna take it all?
So it exposes I think, quite a lot about. About someone’s mindset of where they are, because all we’ve done for this last decade is reinvest, reinvest and keep putting back into the show every, everything that we can. But funda, fundamentally it comes down to are you passionate about doing it?
Is that the biggest motivator? Because if you are anyone out, there’s thinking of putting on an event and as a business kind of proposition. Their finances cannot be the primary motivator for the beginning because events are they’re renowned for it. I think they’ve got a much worse reputation than opening a restaurant.
And everyone tells you not to open a restaurant. That’s true. Yeah. You think you have to, you have thousands of moving parts. You’ve got, an incredible number of individuals and you have to make a certain thing happen within a certain set of brand [00:26:00] guidelines within a specific time period in one place in the world, and you’ve got to hope that the that we don’t go into COVID, that we don’t have any travel strikes, and you don’t have any of it’s crazy. When you look at the, when you look at it objectively you look at it and you think, okay that’s not God move. You’ve got to be absolutely passionate about the reason that.
That you want to do it to do an event. And everything’s on different scales, isn’t it? But running a conference, the stakes are high. It’s a large event. These venues that we, they’re world class it’s an enormous investment to, to use that space and and all the AV equipment and the carpeting and the shell schemes and all the rest of it.
So yeah, it’s crazy as a business model, but it’s also, an enormous amount of fun. It’s enormously rewarding and I genuinely think we do have an impact on the profession. I think it’s genuinely changed. I think so what private practice is like in, in the world of Podiatry and that is that’s the point.
That’s why we do it. And I think it’s certainly having that [00:27:00] impact, which is brilliant.
Tyson E Franklin: So this, or the 2026 foot and ankle show is the third and 4th of March. Liverpool. It’s exhibition center. Liverpool.
Tony Gavin: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So the same venue again on the docks and in the beautiful city of Liverpool.
My, it’s a great
Tyson E Franklin: spot. Everyone keeps complaining that it rains there every time I’m there. It doesn’t, rain doesn’t, and I’m going, what are
Tony Gavin: you,
Tyson E Franklin: what do you all complain about?
Tony Gavin: It never rains in Liverpool. The sun always shines in Liverpool. It
Tyson E Franklin: doesn’t rain in the UK when I’m there.
Tony Gavin: I live in Manchester at the moment and I couldn’t quite say that.
I think it’s dancing down outside at the moment. Yeah. So third and 4th of March we will be back there with a bigger lineup than we’ve ever had before, which is which Brilliant. With more trade stands than we’ve ever had before, which is brilliant and more delegates than we’ve ever had before.
So it’s, yeah, it’s set to be absolutely jam packed and
Tyson E Franklin: I’ve been encouraging people. From Australia. So I reckon anyone in Australia who’s listening to this now, if you’ve been thinking [00:28:00] about you wanna have a holiday in the uk, you might wanna go to Ireland afterwards or Scotland or just run around England.
Plan the foot and ankle show in either before or afterwards. Have a bit of a holiday, make it tax deductible. Always say, if you can’t write it off, don’t do it. But I know I’ve been talking to some people in Canada who are thinking of coming over for it. There’s probably people from the United States that only listen to this podcast.
Let’s make the foot and ankle show an international event where people are coming from everywhere and yeah, dang. And make it, and just make it bigger and better each and every year.
Tony Gavin: Yeah we get a really large international contingent, so, and it does grow each year. We, every year we’ve had some people from Australia.
We get people from the states. We get people from Iceland, Malta, Italy. Yeah. Yeah we really do have like that, that international pool, which is fantastic. And their feedback is always the same. They’re always blown away by the the optimism, the buzz, the atmosphere just how much is going on.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, I had that even at my marketing [00:29:00] masterclass this year. Some, someone from Iceland, I think it might have been someone from Finland. And I’m going, this is cool. First, I’ve heard so many people from so many different countries at my workshop.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the the world gets a bit smaller, doesn’t it?
When we do these things, it’s yeah, that’s, that to me, that’s always one of the most exciting things when you see a ticket booking coming in and when it’s some from some far-flung place and and you just think, oh, that’s, it’s just really exciting. I just find that really exciting.
And also, so humbled really, that someone’s, booking a ticket to fly halfway round the world and their accommodation, all the rest of it to come and see this show. It’s wonderful. It really is.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. The rumors are getting out there on how good it is. That’s why they’re flying to go to it.
So what’s the website if people want to go and check it out, get more information or, get online, get themselves a ticket, where should they go?
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. So if they get themselves onto footandankleshow.com and on there, on that website, it’ll take you through to the conference. You can buy your tickets.
All your frequently asked questions [00:30:00] will be on there. You can find about travel accommodation or you can drop us a line at an email at our offices, at inquiries@osgo.co.uk. And we’ll look after any kind of queries that, that you may have. So in a couple of weeks time we’ll be releasing the the full speaker program of exactly what’s happening, who’s on what stage and what all these talks are gonna be about.
But there’s over 30 speakers, so a huge amount of sessions going on. And as we mentioned earlier, they’re broke down into. Business education, clinical, including dermatology, MSK we’ve got a load of consultants in there speaking as well. We’ve got stuff on kind of mindset. We’ve got stuff on technology and some of the products which are new to markets as well.
So there’s, there genuinely is something for everyone in that program. But if you go onto the website, you’ll be able to see exactly what’s going on there and any specific questions. Just drop us an email or contact us through our, we’re all over social media. Facebook and Instagram seems to be our [00:31:00] mainstay.
If you look for the foot and ankle show you’ll come across us and you’ll get all the releases about what’s happening on there as well.
Tyson E Franklin: One thing I wanna say before I finish up is, the one thing I noticed when I was there this year is most of the speakers nearly all the speakers after they, they finished, they didn’t leave, they stayed in the room, they were talking to people, they were answering questions.
I’d also see those speakers then sneaking into somebody else’s talk and they’d be sitting there at the back of the room watching somebody else talk. And I was doing the same thing ’cause I would go through the speakers list and I was circling what I’m going to go and see and, which is great ’cause I’ve been to other events with a speaker come in, they’d do the dog and pony show and then they, as soon as they finish, they’re gone.
They bolt, they don’t hang around. Whereas nearly all the speakers actually stay and participate over the couple of days.
Tony Gavin: Absolutely. And I think that’s, I think it’s a mixture of the [00:32:00] atmosphere, the friendliness, the networking, but also the speaker lineup and the sessions. It’s so strong. The biggest problem we have is people genuinely can’t choose what to do.
’cause there’s like three things happening at the same time, which I think personally that’s a good problem, for people to leave. It is like, you’ve been to a massive theme park there, amazing day, but I didn’t do this, and this. And that’s a great feeling to have. The worst feeling is yeah.
I did everything and it wasn’t for me. I think overdelivering is something that we, we strive to do each year so that everyone has a different experience while they’re there and there’s a feeling that, yeah I’ve not completed it and ticked it. And we don’t necessarily repeat the talks each year, but I think that feeling of having to make a choice, that puts a lot of value on all of the talks.
Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. I must admit, when I was doing my talk this year, which was happiness and achievement are independent variables, knowing the other two other talks are going at the same time, I was like, really nervous. Is anyone gonna turn up? They did both. They did, and they did. It was a full house, so that was fantastic.[00:33:00]
So I’m expecting the same. In 2026, I’m expecting ab at least 10 people, at least Jonathan Small will be there. I’m sure he will. Yeah, he
Tony Gavin: will. Absolutely. Normally we’ll have a full again, I’m sure.
Tyson E Franklin: Okay. Tony, I want to thank you for coming back on the Podiatry Legends Podcast, giving us an update and a bit more thinking behind the foot and ankle show.
And like I said, I encourage everybody to go and check out the website. If you are overseas, think about attending and if you’re gonna attend the foot and ankle shake, get there a day early and consider doing the Podiatry Marketing Masterclass. All the details are on my website, tysonfranklin.com. So Tony, thank you very much
Tony Gavin: and thank you so much for having me.
It’s been a pleasure again, and I will see you in March.
Tyson E Franklin: You will definitely.