UFO Rodeo lands in Uptown
Words: Sarah Daniell
Photography: Blink
Renames, refurbs and relocates to Burleigh Street
Leon Kirkbeck isn’t quite sure when he started “people collecting”, but it’s an endearing descriptor for a managing director and a clue to Augusto’s kaupapa and why it has endured.
We’re sitting in Twenty Three Cafe, a short walk from Burleigh Street in Eden Terrace, where Augusto is about to move into an impressive new whare. Leon and his wife, Michelle Walshe, set up the company 16 years ago from their home in West Auckland. Augusto has moved as it’s grown, from Te Atatu to Pt Chevalier to the CBD. And now they’ve found a foothold in a place they’ve admired from a distance for decades.
Leon speaks with a level of conviction and enthusiasm that could power the national grid. It’s infectious and persuasive.
“We started back in 2008 at home, just the two of us, but we quickly began what we call ‘people collecting’.”
One of those people is Cass Avery, now the executive producer for the documentary arm of the business, Dark Doris. “The company was only two years old when I was talking with Cass about what we were up to, and she said, ‘Oh, I’d like to be part of that’. Michelle and I talked about it and said, ‘Do you think we could actually have a grown-up work with us? Oh my god!’ We then kept accidentally collecting amazing people until we were about 50 people strong.”
Over the years, Leon and Michelle have seen the company grow not only in staff numbers, but also in capability. “We found we needed separate brands to represent the in-house skills we had. Augusto remains the marketing side of the group; there’s Corner Store making fast content specific for social media; Dark Doris creating documentaries and TV shows; and the recently formed Ballyhoo, which takes care of event work.”
Despite all these brands, the building is actually named “UFO Rodeo” and Leon is somewhat coy when explaining what that is. “Well, we needed a new group name and personally, I loathe the collective noun ‘group’, so we decided we’re a ‘rodeo’ of companies doing brave things for the purpose of entertainment, defined by the UFO acronym that these days can really mean anything.
The unusual group name comes as no surprise when you learn that Leon is the co-host of the long-running podcast The Cryptid Factor. It's a passion project he’s worked on with his friend, comedian Rhys Darby, for 15 years. “We discuss everything strange in the world – and yes, that includes UFOs,” Leon laughs.
Then there’s the tech company Michelle co-founded, CoachMate, which is designed to help kids thrive in sports. “The major reasons kids leave sports is unskilled coaching or sport not being fun.
Volunteer coaches always bring passion, but often lack the time or knowledge to deliver consistently great experiences. CoachMate works with sports organisations to provide the resources needed to keep kids in the game,” says Leon.
Michelle was a TV director when they met and Leon was a camera operator and editor. Alongside Cass, they’ve built an impressive and diverse body of entertainment work, including Dark Coast Vanishings, a recent series on the Piha disappearances, and the Hot Potato documentary on the Wiggles, as well as the highest- grossing TV documentary ever in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Richie McCaw biopic Chasing Great, directed by Michelle herself.
On the marketing side of the business, one of their long-term clients, Adidas, has been working with Augusto for more than 14 years on its sponsorship of the All Blacks, which Leon mentions is a huge privilege and a testament to how they like to form long-term relationships with clients.
Somewhat fittingly, with that line of work, Ballyhoo and Corner Store are currently working together to pull off the world’s largest haka record attempt to reclaim it from the French, along with
raising money for Dame Hinewehi Mohi’s Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust. “There always seems to be something crazily epic going on at work,” Leon mentions. “There’s never really a dull day, which is massively rewarding.”
UFO Rodeo, which also has an office in Brooklyn, New York, has just become B Corp certified, one of about 650 companies in Australasia. The movement, started by Richard Branson in 2007, measures companies' social and environmental impact.
Becoming certified, says Leon, is an acknowledgment of what has taken care of them over the years. “Having great staff where you have a relationship based on respect is critical to fostering an environment where clients want to work with you again.
“Michelle and I are the only two people who can’t resign, so if we don't want to turn up to work on Monday morning, then there’s a real problem. Surely no one else will want to turn up to work if we don’t.” But the B Corp status is also about helping them focus on doing what’s right for the planet.
“Having a super talented bunch of people who enjoy working on projects that are purpose-led and focused on creating a better world is an important part of our internal culture.”
On the scale of human experiences, acquiring a mortgage isn’t often described as liberating or inspiring, but getting their own space in Eden Terrace was exactly that. “We’ve actually tried to move Uptown many times over the years. We were so taken with the area and loved the feeling of creativity – the live event spaces, the bars, the history. We’ve always been drawn here.”
But they’re happy they’re finally here now, and they’ve landed right next door to artist Dick Frizzell and up the road from White Studios. There is, Leon says, a sense of “coming home”.
“There was one moment when I was standing outside our building while it was getting done up, and I thought, ‘Shit, I didn’t even think about whether this place floods’. Like, you know, what happens in bad rain? And the builder said ‘it’s pretty hard to flood when you’re on top of the city’.
“And he was right; we are literally at the highest point in the city, and there’s that innate great feeling of being up high. They built forts and palisades and pà„ at the top of the hills. I think there's a deep connection to wanting to be up at the top.
“There are also the reservoirs right beside us that are feeding the city, but the greatest part is being part of a real community. We have affordable parking options for our staff. We have different food and meeting options to take clients anywhere, from a sandwich shop to Twenty Three Cafe through to the French Café. You've got an awesome level of diversity at your door. You don't get that downtown because they’re all paying so much rent.”
Augusto was launched during the 2008 financial crisis, and it’s Michelle and Leon’s “fifth child”.
“The favourite, or should I say the most needy child. Our four kids have grown up with Mum and Dad working hard at doing this together.”
Michelle is originally from Sydney and Leon grew up in Thames. “Ironically, both of us were high school dropouts and just went
straight into working in the industry.
I went into radio and Michelle went into magazines. So we both started on the ground floor.”
All these years later, they live on a small farm in Riverhead, and their family motto, Leon says, is “Adventures in chaos”.
"Our life is pretty full-on, so we might as well own it. Like, ‘How do we all get through this level of crazy together?’ It probably comes from being so lucky to have this immensely wonderful relationship with Michelle. It’s been so full of love, adventure, fun and often hardship – a lot of challenges to get through, which bonds you pretty tightly.”
The building on Burleigh Street is filled with relics of the UFO Rodeo’s past. Its interior is designed by Leon's high school friend and Academy Award-nominated art director Ra Vincent (who has worked with Taika Waititi on numerous projects) and was mostly constructed using recycled materials from their building at City Works. From the street, you will notice one of their more interesting meeting rooms: a caravan in which the Topp Twins once toured the country and Jacinda Ardern once owned as her campaign vehicle.
It’s an expansive, generously proportioned space, an industrial- scale home base, built from “people collecting” and legacy creating, from the ground up.
UFO RODEO
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