Melbourne firm Incognitus led by Craig Lovett cleaning up in Paris

It’s unglamorous work, but Craig Lovett’s risky move to fluke a cleaning contract for the Sydney Olympics led to a deal of a lifetime that his family firm is still reaping the rewards from now.

Incognitus boss Craig Lovett, with the Paris Olympics mascot.

There would be few Australians who have attended 12 Olympic Games, let alone undertaken the sort of work Craig Lovett has at each.

Lovett is the principal of Melbourne advisory firm Incognitus, which provides advice and services to big events like the Olympics, ranging from event flooring to cleaning and maintenance, and plenty more.

In almost 30 years, Lovett’s businesses - he previously owned Cleanevent Global - have worked at just about every summer and winter Olympics, at least 60 grand slam tennis tournaments, Nascar and Indycar races in the US, Super Bowls, FA Cup finals in English soccer and countless conferences, festivals and other large events.

In Paris, Incognitus has worked at 13 Olympic venues across the city, including helping lay more than 65,000sq m of event flooring - much of it away from the sporting action.

“So that had to be installed and the majority of that floor will be removed. Then there’s also bus compounds that we’ve sorted out, trailer parking at the rowing venues, pedestrian walkways at the golf, walkways to restaurants, concessions stands and retail, and all sorts of other things behind the scenes,” Lovett tells The Australian in Paris.

It may not be glamorous, but Lovett’s company helps the venues function every day, getting staff, media, cleaners, and other workers in and out, and able to move around and do their job.

Nick and Craig Lovett on site at the Paris Olympics.

Among the venues Lovett has worked at in the past two weeks are La Defense Arena for the swimming, the gymnastics and basketball at Bercy Arena, the Le Golf National course, The Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium for rowing, Le Bourget Climbing venue and the Stade BMX de St-Quentin-en-Yvelines

“We’re like chameleons. We’ve done cleaning, waste, linen, laundry, housekeeping, concierge, installing [structures] for event flow. That’s a bit of a speciality. Show us a problem and we’ll design the solution, and typically it’s got labour attached to it,” Lovett says.

It is a continuation of the sort of work Lovett has done at Olympics since Atlanta 1996, where through a mixture of sheer audacity and perfect timing he managed to cut the deal of a lifetime.

Lovett was having a beer with a mate on the Saturday night of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, only months out from the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, trying to come up with a plan to get a cleaning deal at the 2000 Olympics.

It was 2am and he decided it was a good idea to book flights to Atlanta and try to talk his way into some contracts there, as a precursor to the Games four years later in Australia. His friend agreed, and the next day the flights were paid for with a credit card.

When he got there Lovett strolled into the organising committee’s headquarters and told the receptionist he was there to speak to someone about the venue cleaning contracts. She pointed him to a conference room where soon dozens of people had gathered.

Unbeknownst to Lovett, it was a meeting to congratulate all the contractors awarded venue cleaning deals across the Games.

Craig Lovett as then Cleanevent CEO at the company's Kensington headquarters in North Melbourne in March 2000.

During break, Lovett spoke to the person in charge, who was somehow convinced that the Australian had years of international cleaning experience.

After the intermission, he invited Lovett to address the room to offer his advice to the winning contractors.

“So I went up to the front and said ‘I want you to imagine you’re at a Super Bowl and you’ve got 80,000 people walking out happy, and there’s another 80,000 standing outside waiting to come in. Now, how do you get that stadium clean?’

“And you’ve got the aquatic centre or basketball stadium, and that’ll happen three times a day. How are you going to do that?’.”

Lovett’s impromptu speech struck a chord with the Atlanta organisers, and after retiring to his hotel room he was called down to the bar later in the day and offered a job managing all the cleaning contracts for the Games.

He said yes.

That led to a big cleaning contract for his firm for Sydney 2000, which ended up more than doubling in value as other contractors fell by the wayside. So big was Cleanevent’s staffing, which Lovett had cannily recruited from regional areas across Australia, 2400 staff had to be housed at Eastern Creek Raceway.

Lovett in 1998 after his Atlanta trip led to him being awarded a contract for the Sydney Olympic Games.

He repeated that for London 2012 with more than 4000 staff staying in accommodation with internet cafes, cheap beer, decent food and other amenities.

Incognitus was formed in 2008 with brother Paul and his son Nick, and Lovett has been working on big events in some way ever since, with operations in Australia, the UK and the US.

As for what Lovett says has changed in venues since his early days, he says: “I think it started in London with that willingness to do something different with venues. Let’s have archery at Lords, beach volleyball at Horse Guards Parade. Let’s dare to be different. And you’ve seen that in Paris. That presents its challenges for a venue but it has been amazing.”

Now Lovett says wants to stick it out for eight more years to get to another home Olympics.

“I’ve got a son in the business now…so let’s keep this rolling. I still really enjoy doing what I do and I’m not a guy who could go play golf three times a week.

“I certainly want to see myself through to Brisbane 2032.”