In 2004 I was approached by another regular from Jama in Prague and asked if I could provide transport for James Brown and so we did, a limo, armed guards in a chase van and a luggage van for the hair dryers (yes we needed two - not easy to find but we did and they had to be like these
Then the concert work just kind of took off. We sometimes provided transport for the entire show from artist limos to production runners and sometimes just crew/staff transport
Over the years we have provided band transport in Prague for small bands and big bands, some very famous people and some you never heard of. Some were lots of fun and some were not. Green Day outside in the absolute pouring rain was one I remember the most.
Bon Jovi had the best stage for a concert in Prague
My
favorite is Elton John, we worked that show 4 times in Prague. The last
show I just sat on a folding chair literally 10 feet away from him . It
was fantastic.
We were also doing Rock for People every year moving all the international bands, lots of work lots of stress but very good moneywise :-) This is located 150 km from our house and the big problem is that it was (and still is) every 4, 5 and 6 July. Our wedding anniversary is the 4th and Alice has her birthday on the 5th so I stopped doing this event.
here is actually a long long list of what we have done
Meanwhile the Prague airport transfer business continued...
In 2001 we moved to the Praha Zapad only four kilometers from Prague Airport.
Knowing the reputation of the Prague taxi drivers I thought starting a company with a fixed price and English language speaking drivers might be a good idea. I was and it really took off. After two years we had 12 drivers and were doing 80 - 90 airport transfers a day. We continued to be quite busy until word got out and more and more companies started copying us.
When I started the company I gave a lot of thought to the name and came up with Prague airport shuttle not so original I know but easy to remember - I bought literally 25 domain names to kind of protect it but other people came up with similar looking names and slowly our share of the market went down but we were still busy but only 8 - 9 drivers.
In 2012 there were at least 17 companies providing airport transfers in Prague
In 2004 we started working shows James Brown was the first big one!
One of the first places I came across when I moved here was Jama, and American owned bar and restaurant in Prague. Lots of expats and lots of good beer and I have to say lots of pretty girls too. I became a regular there and met so many good people Max and Will are my good friends to this day and Jama will actually have its 25th birthday party in a couple of weeks.
That is also where I met my wife Dana, she was a manager there so on July 4th 1997 we had our wedding on Old Town Square in Prague. I was not the only guy who found a wife there, at least seven of my friends married Jama staff or clients and we all have kids the same age :-).
Dana had two girls from a previous marriage, Dana and Martina, who were 9 and 10 and so we rented a big apartment in Prague 5. It was a bit of change going from a single guy to a dad with two kids but it was just great. In 2001 we were blessed with another daughter, Alice
Now we are all older
The same year Prague airport shuttle was born...
I had been living in London in the early 1990's and decided it was time for a lifestyle change. I wanted to travel and I figured out the only way to do it with no money was to teach English as a Foreign Language so I took a TEFL course in London.
Where to go first, that was the question. My mom was still living in Paris so I could not go too far away and I needed to get some experience. I did some research and discovered the Czech Republic. It was said to be a good place for beginners and was a bus ride away so I lined up a job and arrived in Prague to teach English in the summer of 1993
I taught for several years first for a company and then got my own trade license and went out on my own. I had planned to stay just a year but it was an amazing place, I opened up a video rental place and rented VHS cassettes to the expat community and then in 2001 I started a company for visitors looking for airport transfers in Prague
