From the wild days of Guildhall Walk to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth: Celebrating 20 years of Vespasian Security keeping us safe
Founder Ollie Gardiner looks back on two decades of success and says: 'Taking passionate people away from Portsmouth to do jobs, collect money and bring it back to the city is not going to stop'
OLLIE Gardiner always wanted to be a war correspondent’s cameraman. A love of photography and a thirst for adventure had him dreaming of a life reporting from the frontline.
But sending his portfolio of pictures off to would-be employers led him to the traditional career conundrum: nobody would take him on without experience, he couldn’t gain experience without somebody taking him on.
‘There were openings for me but I was just too young and not experienced. When I asked what I should do to improve my chances I was told to go and work the doors of the pubs as that would get my nerve up and prove I could handle the job. When I said I lived in Portsmouth I remember a BBC producer laughed and said: ‘Yeah mate, that will do it!’
The rest, as they say is history - a history which for Ollie has just meant celebrating the 20th birthday of Vespasian Security, the company which he set up in 2006 in the box bedroom of a terraced house in Southsea with an ironing board for a desk, a borrowed laptop, a mobile phone and one other key ingredient.
‘I had the art of the blag. I used to be on calls trying to get contracts and be asked ‘can you do it’? I’d instantly say yes… and then put the phone down and work out how,’ Ollie recalls.
The blag has certainly paid off, with Vespasian bringing more than £34m into the city in terms of wages since it was founded. In that time it has blanketed coverage in support of the night-time economy in Portsmouth and worked at such momentous occasions as the funerals of Queen Elizabeth’and Prince Philip and the coronation of King Charles III. It has also taken Ollie and his team around the globe providing event management in Europe, Africa and the Gulf states.
Personally Ollie has also brought his experience to bear as vice chair of the UK Crowd Management Association. At a recent international conference he was sharing the stage with parents of victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing and 2021 crowd crush at the Astroworld Festival hosted by American rapper Travis Scott in Houston, Texas.
‘Guildhall Walk was a challenging place...’
It’s all a long way from when Ollie was working the doors in Guildhall Walk six nights a week when the street was the hub of nightlife in the city - and earned the sorry reputation as one of the most violent streets in England in terms of recorded crimes.
Ollie certainly learnt a great deal in those early days and in 2004 was one of the first two people in the country to be granted a door supervisor’s licence under the tough new Security Industry Authority checks, a story covered by The News at the time.
But it was also a time when Ollie realised the job of ‘minding doors’ needed shaking up and the relationship between ‘bouncers’ and the venues, clubbers and the police required overhauling.
‘Guildhall Walk was a challenging place and I just thought, there's got to be a better way of doing this - there were so many gaps in what we, as an industry, was doing.
‘We weren't looking after our customers in terms of the venue. And by extension there was no care about what was going on with the actual consumer - the attendee. I worked with some people who were the worst people in the room at times. There were some people you knew had already engineered the evening to be bad.
‘There was so much stuff that wasn’t right and so much good stuff that you could do. So I saw this as an opportunity to be better and just basically be nice and try to bring that approach to everything.’
Putting ‘being nice’ into practice Ollie founded Vespasian in February 2006 - starting with a hand up from the team behind another of the city’s soaraway success stories, Victorious Festival.
At that time James Ralls, Andy Marsh and Ben Miles were getting their own ventures off the ground by transforming the Lord John Russell pub in Albert Road into Little Johnny Russells and Ollie spotted an opportunity to offer his supervision services.
‘There was scaffolding outside and so I just walked in. Ben, Andy and James were knocking bits together and the floor was still being put down and I asked for a meeting. I went back the next day and sat upstairs on beer crates and they went: "Alright, let's do it." And we’ve maintained that business relationship since then through various guises, whether with Victorious or their other venues.’
The art of the blag and blue envelopes
Business snowballed from there thanks to the positive impression Ollie had made while on the doors, the contacts he had made and the willingness to take on new work. Before long he was providing security at Heathrow Airport at a time when tensions were heightened over the threat posed by explosives in toiletries in hand luggage. He secured other work by sending a letter in a blue envelope to every large crowd management organisation in the UK. The colour of the envelope was very important.
‘Nobody ignores a blue envelope because it might be a Christmas card or a birthday card. And so, my letter basically said, thanks for opening my blue envelope and now I've got your attention…’
Through relationships he had worked hard to build during nights at Guildhall Walk, offers came in for security assistance at the QA Hospital and Portsmouth FC leading to work with other NHS trusts and football clubs (even, say it quietly, at St Mary's Stadium for Southampton). From here it grew to high-profile events in Portsmouth to those royal security details and the New Year’s Eve fireworks in London - which at one stage saw Ollie’s teams processing 127,000 people through a queue system in 90 minutes, a monumental task Ollie underplays as ‘quite interesting’.
Throughout the growth of the firm - which employs 300 permanent staff out of a headcount of 1,100, 95% from PO post codes - Ollie has focused on two key areas: the technical side of crowd safety and staff training.
‘The job was turning into a science when I started off - things like fire safety procedures and crowd flow rates. These might be boring, dry stuff, but unless you understand it you can’t tell people they are safe. So early on I realised this was one of the ways we could set ourselves apart.
‘I didn't want to be responsible for something that went wrong and so I went off and did a foundation degree and it gave me confidence that, when I was walking into safety advisory meetings at a national level as a 23 year speaking to Chief Superintendents, it didn’t matter what they asked because I knew I would have the answers.’
The need for training and knowledge was not just for Ollie and his senior team it had to flow down to all staff and so in 2020 he set up his own training company.
Ollie is proud of the reputation he has built for Vespasian and the people the firm attracts to the ranks, largely through word of mouth and their visibility around the city. Vespasian is one of the largest employers of University of Portsmouth students but is also keen to bring in young people who have had a harder start to life.
For them it might be shifts just to pay the phone bill or to fit work around life as single parents. And there can’t be many jobs in the city where you could have the chance to work around the world and cover events where the person standing next to you might be Prince Harry, Tom Cruise or Mick Jagger.
‘So many people come to us and they have never passed an exam. They come to us with what I call ‘eyebrows down’ - looking at the floor and with no confidence. One person told us his mum never had a job and his grandparents never had a job and they questioned him on why he wanted to come to us? But he now absolutely loves it. He’s a young family man and he’s now got his driving licence and is literally just motoring.
‘People come to us and they find friends, they find a new family element. Then they are just different characters. It’s brilliant.’
Playing a part in the nation’s history
Vespasian was named after a highly capable Roman emperor who brought peace and stability to the Empire following civil war and the chaotic reign of Nero. This link to history - and the role his company is now playing in significant national events - is important to Ollie.
‘Things like the Queen’s funeral, the coronation or even Remembrance Day at Guildhall Square are what we are really proud of doing. My grandfather was at D Day and so I attended the 50th anniversary commemorations with him when I was 10. Then we had the opportunity as a business of doing D Day 75 when Trump turned up and then we covered D Day 80. I like the historical aspect of it and the fact what we are doing is being a part of that history.
‘We even did the Brexit party at Parliament Square the night of the yes vote. It was a point of history and it was good to be there. Although the foreign press were quite scared - it was like a Wetherspoons on a Bank Holiday Sunday.’
At the end of the day Vespasian is only as good as the people it employs and Ollie has a simple mantra for that: ‘I don't want anyone to represent us who I wouldn’t be prepared to have a drink with. Although it’s quite a difficult thing to quantify in an interview…’ he muses.
But having staff recognised as real people just doing their job is key. One prime example is the 2000 Trees music festival in Gloucestershire where Ollie feels the Vespasian team is part of the culture of the event. Last year’s fancy dress theme was ‘heroes’ and three separate groups dressed as Vespasian staff complete with branded hi viz jackets and inflatable crowd surfers. It meant a lot to Ollie.
‘In my days on the door, people referred to us as bouncers and I always say our industry is a very, very easy one to have a bad experience of. Your mother gets followed round Tescos. Someone at university you know gets thrown out of the pub or there is something you've seen on social media where something goes wrong and it never looks good.
‘But we have a point of trying to remind the world that actually people who are standing there keeping them safe from harm are someone's brother, someone's dad. someone's sister, someone’s partner. Because 99% of the time they're just trying to get on with doing a really good job.’
It’s a long way from wanting to follow in the footsteps of his boyhood idol - war photojournalist Don McCullin - and a ‘really enjoyable’ stint on work experience with the picture desk at The News.
‘How do you not be a dick?’
But there's no letting up for Ollie and Vespasian despite 20 successful years
‘Our next 10 years include plans for further international expansion, supporting clients in many different territories. But we will always remain a Pompey company through and through. The capability to take passionate people away from Portsmouth to do jobs, collect money and bring it back to the city is not going to stop.
’I was in Africa once with a client in a bar and he asked me: ‘How do you do it?’ When I asked him to explain he said: ‘How do you not be a dick? All other security teams are dicks? But your lot are just nice aren’t they.
‘And so we're kind of this beacon, and our plan is to take Pompey people with us and keep that going.’
Running for the family
Ollie Gardiner grew up with his brother Simon in Southsea. They both attended Swanmore Secondary School as places in city schools were oversubscribed and so they had to endure an hour journey to and from lessons each day.
His mum Angie and dad Keith - founding directors of Vespasian - were in education and they instilled a strong work ethic in their boys. It obviously paid off with not only Ollie celebrating 20 years at the helm of Vespasian but Simon being a co-founder of the equally successful and multi-award-winning Carrington West recruitment firm.
‘Every time we’d sit down at the dinner table my dad would say: ‘I’ve got a good idea for a business, lads’. Even right up to the start of last year, with Simon and I running our own businesses and being very busy. He was relentless!’
With a family of three children of his own at home, Ollie has also recently been fitting in a tough fitness regime ahead of running the London Marathon last month for the Rowans Hospice, who looked after Keith before he passed away in March 2025.
‘I’ve always been a rugby-playing lad in terms of my size. I’ve never been obsessed with fitness and did struggle to fit in training round work. But I’ve got a wide stubborn streak and I don’t give up easily.’
Ollie set himself a £3,500 target for his run for Rowans and hit more than £3,800. Speaking after finishing he said: ‘The London Marathon is about normal people, trying to do something hard, for some extraordinary causes.’