One day in the summer of 1989 Peter Mackley went for a walk along the seafront at Brighton to think about his future. “I’d just got my degree in geography and French at the University of Sussex and I had to decide what to do with it. Teaching? No thanks. I’d already thought of perhaps going into town planning but I realised that would likely mean sitting in an office in a provincial town hall. Again no thanks. But there was another option – to cross the Channel and just see what would happen. I’d been brought up partly in Brussels where my father worked and I liked the idea of being a European.

“We know the field”
“A few days later I left my home in Watford, went down to Victoria and got on a train to France. Less than twenty-four hours later I was in Antibes. I had to look for work immediately and it wasn’t easy. I ended up doing odd jobs around a campsite and then a spot of deejaying for the holiday crowd. I’d come across Riviera Radio on my tranny and as I’d been on the campus station at Sussex I tried for a job. I was lucky. Richard Yonge took me on for the graveyard shift and then switched me to drive time. That got me known locally. I started to get disco work and in 1991, along with Mark Duncan who’d been at university with me, I set up Riviera Entertainments, now Riviera Organisation.”

In fifteen years Peter’s come a long way. “I’d say so. I started basically deejaying for parties – weddings, birthdays, that sort of thing. People seemed to like my style and word got round. One of my first celebrity bookings was for Adnan Khashoggi’s birthday. What I understood quite early on was many of my clients didn’t realise that events need careful planning and management. Otherwise you can end up with a flop. I gradually built up a network of local suppliers and began to offer a total package, not just the entertainment. Organising a wedding, for example, is a complicated business. My company will look after the whole thing from A to Z. The advantage is that we know the field and we can keep the scam artists and cowboys at bay – and there are lots of them out there. We can make sure you get an honest caterer, a competent photographer, a creative florist.”

“We’re trusted”
Across the past decade Peter’s business has expanded both in terms of its range of activities and its geographical scope. “We’ve got used to dealing with really high profile events. The Cannes Film Festival is always a busy time. Last year, for instance, I did the launch party for Star Wars III. And we’re working internationally, too. That means we get clients from all over who want to stage an event on the Riviera – it’s a marvellous brand to have – and we sometimes get invited to foreign locations to put on an event, Miami, Marrakech, Athens, for example, and that’s fun.” How does Peter explain his company’s success? “We’re a small team very hardworking, and we’ve a huge fund of local knowledge – and a very sharp nose for the dodgy. We’re trusted, and that’s what I’m really proud of.”

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