Earlier this week we were delighted to announce our first 12 world-class speakers for Ticketing Technology Forum 2017… and we’re so thrilled with our line-up that we just couldn’t wait to release the next dozen.
Spanning cinema, marketing, pricing, security, beacons and much more we present to you the next 12 speakers who will be shaking things up in Dublin.
Luke Xiang, VP – International Business, Weying, China
After five years we are a truly global Forum. So, naturally, we need to embrace the biggest ticketing market in the world: China. We are delighted to welcome to the 2017 programme Luke Xiang, Vice President of Weying.
One of China’s tech unicorns, Weying has fully embedded and integrated a ticketing service for movies, shows and sports into the popular WeChat and QQ mobile platforms. It is now the Chinese leading marketing and distribution platform for film, performance, sports and other entertainment projects based on social mobile. To put this in perspective: For its cinema offers – which include a partnership with cinema systems provider Vista Group – WeYing’s daily sales peak has rocketed to 6 million tickets representing more than 35% market share and 95% cinema penetration.
In the year up to August 2016, its box office contribution for released, distributed and co-distributed movies exceeded US$3bn. Global media player Wanda Group is a strategic investor and partner in Weying. Wanda itself has acquired the AMC (USA), Odeon (UK) and Hoyts (Australia) cinema chains in recent years. With their support, Weying are going to launch their AMC ticketing service with WeChat in Americas within the coming months.
Luke will guide us through Weying’s approach to “social marketing as the key driver for leisure and entertainment consumption.” He says “we are always chasing one dream to provide the nextgen ticketing experience by connecting entertainment market with social networks.”
Carolyn Sims, Director of Marketing & Audience Engagement, English National Opera, UK
Carolyn Sims is a highly respected, hands-on, marketing strategist who has worked in a range of entertainment and retail organisations in her career including Ticketmaster, Really Useful, Live Nation Entertainment and Time Out.
Carolyn’s innate ability to be able to put the customer first means that she has forged and shared her skills across a range of customer channels in digital marketing, CRM, audience development and marketing strategies that enable organisations to become profitably customer centric. Carolyn is an experienced professional in developing and implementing innovative growth strategies through the delivery of customer focused ticketing and commercial excellence.
Her passion for new technologies that provide “a great experience for customers to be able to get to and buy the ticket they want” lies at the heart of #TTF17 programming. We’re very pleased to have Carolyn on board our Ticketing Technology Awards’ Judging Panel and in our 2017 speaker line-up.
Miguel Afán de Ribera, Director, Simon-Kucher & Partners, Spain
Pricing is by far the most important profit lever, but most ticketing businesses hugely underestimate its impact. Rightly, you wanted to know more about pricing strategies – well, we’ve landed the world’s leading pricing consultancy for our 2017 programme line-up. Simon-Kucher & Partners is a global consulting firm specialising in TopLine Power®, which encompasses strategy, marketing, pricing, and sales.
Founded in 1985, the practice – with nearly a thousand professionals in 33 offices worldwide – has been built on evidence-based, practical strategies for profit improvement via the top line. Simon-Kucher & Partners is regarded as the world’s leading pricing advisor and thought leader. Its biennially conducted Global Pricing Study: is the only one of its kind – developed through interviews with 2,000+ executives and managers from companies of 25 industries and over 40 countries revealed that each second company is involved in a price war. Increasing low-cost competition and clients’ growing negotiation power are just two of the reasons for rising price pressure. Companies can counteract through effective price management.
Miguel Afán de Ribera heads up Simon-Kucher & Partners’ Leisure, Tourism & Transportation operations in Iberia & LATAM. Simon-Kucher helped key players in their respective industries such as Roland Garros, National Express, NH Hotels and Parques Reunidos (the global theme park operator).
Stephen Statler, Principal, Statler Consulting, USA
Is your venue ready for the beacon revolution? If not, then book your seat at #TTF17 and meet Stephen Statler – world-leading expert on all things ‘beacon’. He’s flying in to Dublin from San Diego to share his insights into how the emerging beacon ecosystem will impact ticketing, access control, visitor experiences and new marketing opportunities. And here’s a chap who knows his onions – or rather his beacons.
He has, quite literally, written the book – which is called Beacon Technologies: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Beacosystem. (If you want to brush up on your beacon knowledge, you can buy a copy of Stephen’s Amazon Besteller book here). Steve is a writer, public speaker and consultant working in the beacon ecosystem.
Checkout his video intro here. He trains and advises retailers, venue owners, VCs, as well as makers of beacon software and hardware. Previously he was the Senior Director for Strategy and Solutions Management at Qualcomm’s Retail Solutions Division, helping to incubate Gimbal, one of the leading Bluetooth beacons in the market. “There has been a major disruption to the ticketing ecosystem. The digital and physical worlds are converging,” says Stephen. “Major opportunities and risks are manifesting themselves. There will be winners and losers in the race to respond.”
Kirill Slavin, General Manager, Kaspersky Lab, UK
Our delegates requested more on cybersecurity and how to protect our ticketing systems and customer data. We reached out to the world leader in the field: Kaspersky Lab, the global cybersecurity company founded in 1997. Kaspersky Lab’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialised security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users and 270,000 corporate clients are protected by Kaspersky Lab technologies.
Kirill Slavin is General Manager, Kaspersky Lab UK and Ireland, based in London. Kirill joined the company in September 2013 and is responsible for overseeing the company’s operations in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Kirill has over twenty years’ experience in finance and strategy, previously holding senior positions at inter alia, Wang Laboratories, PepsiCo Inc., Deloitte & Touche, and DiamondCluster International (now PwC’s Diamond Advisory Services). Kirill is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, holds an MBA from Cambridge University and is also an Associate Member of the Cambridge University Centre for International Business and Management (CIBAM).
He regularly speaks in Cambridge and London both academically and to business executive audiences. His areas of business expertise include retail and private banking, value and risk management and corporate governance.
Jessie Scoullar, Founding Director, Wicksteed Works, UK
Jessie Scoullar is Founding Director of Wicksteed Works, a London-based agency specialising in direct-to-fan (D2F) strategy and management for bands, labels and brands. Clients include Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, Paul Kalkbrenner, Yann Tiersen, Paul McCartney, and Neil Finn.
In 2014 Jessie wrote the first comprehensive comparison of direct-to-fan music marketing and retail services, Direct-to-Fan: Which Platform. Now in its 3rd edition, her report is seen as the definitive guide to the various D2F platforms on the market. She cut her teeth on the world of direct-to-fan with three years in the fast-paced environment of Topspin Media’s Creative Services team. Before leaving New Zealand in 2007, she worked with CRS Management in Auckland and practiced as a Commercial Solicitor in Wellington.
For #TTF17, Jessie will be co-curating and hosting our “D2F Ticketing Workshop” which – with an invited group of experts – will explore the options for music and sports organisations to take ownership and control of their ticketing, CRM and fan-relationships.
Barry Grant, Client Partnership Manager, Ambassador Theatre Group, UK
In case you need reminding, The Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) is a major international theatre organisation headquartered in the UK, with offices in London, New York, Sydney, Mannheim and Cologne. ATG’s key operations comprise three inter-related activities: theatre ownership and management; theatre producing activity; and ticketing and marketing operations. ATG runs 46 venues in Britain, the US and Australia. The company is among the most prolific theatre producers in the world with co-productions in the UK, New York and across North America. ATG Tickets issues more than 11 million tickets annually and its .com address is the UK’s most visited theatre website with 120 million page views and 20 million unique visits per annum. ATG also boasts the UK’s largest theatre membership program, ATG TheatreCard, with over 100,000 members.
Running ATG’s CRM for the past 7 years, Barry is based in ATG’s Head Office with responsibility for Affiliates, Partnerships and Third Party Contracts. He deals with major National and International clients across many industries, including Travel Trade, Lifestyle Concierge and Financial Services. He’s been with ATG for 15 years, joining from The Lowry. Barry will be joining “The Social Selling” workshop, sharing insights into the effectiveness of social marketing tools to drive attendance and loyalty.
Steve Kitcher, Head of Ticketing, Membership & Retail , Surrey County Cricket Club / The Kia Oval, UK
Based at its famous, 23,500 capacity Kia Oval home, Surrey County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs in England and Wales. Steve Kitcher looks after Surrey’s commercial portfolio around ticketing, membership and retail offers. He combines operational and sales skillsets with a proven track record in structured sales strategies that have been succesful in increasing revenue year on year. Prior to joining Surrey CCC, Steve’s sports experience extends to stints as Football Ticketing Consultant to LOCOG (London 2012) and 14 years in ticketing, hospitality and membership with West Ham FC. He certainly knows a few things about fans, their ticket-buying habits and how to ensure they receive world-class service. For our 2017 programme, Steve joins the panel on the “The Social Selling” workshop.
Einar Sævarsson, CEO, Activity Stream, Iceland
Einar is the CEO / Co-Founder of Activity Stream. He is passionate about organisational innovation including people, technology, operations and data. Prior to Activity Stream, Einar successfully created ticketing companies in four countries, including as one of the founders of Venuepoint, a leader in Scandinavian ticketing. Einar holds a degree in industrial engineering and is now combining his passion for engineering excellence with his knowledge of sports and entertainment ticketing. Unveiled at last year’s Forum, Activity Stream is bringing world-class data visualisation, insight and analytical tools to ticketing and revenue management. For 2017, he’ll be showcasing some of their recent successes in “bringing light and vision to the dark recesses of ticketing data.”
Kyle Wright, Interactive Marketing & Analytics Manager, Shubert Ticketing, USA
A hit with our 2016 audience, Kyle was at the top of our ‘must get that speaker back’ list. Shubert Ticketing is a division of The Shubert Organisation, Broadway’s largest theatre owner and operator, with additional venues in Boston and Philadelphia, and one of the leading forces in American theatre over 100 years. Last year, Shubert Ticketing’s central platform processed sales of 12 million tickets, totaling over US$1 billion, via box offices, online, by phone, and through hundreds of third-party agents. Working at the intersection of data acquisition and digital marketing for Broadway’s ticketing leader, Kyle has spent the last four years developing an integrated data marketing platform which leverages the power of the venue data to better mine audiences and increase ticketing conversion. Integrations with more traditional marketing channels – email, social, and retargeting/re-engagement – provide additional fuel and added-value to the platform. Prior to The Shubert Organisation, Kyle managed marketing for an entertainment marketing startup – Plum Benefits – which provides online access to live entertainment discounts to employees as a corporate benefit through HR departments.
Lyndsey Jackson, Head of Operations, Edinburgh Fringe Festival Society, UK
Lyndsey wowed our international audience with the scale and complexity of Edinburgh Fringe’s ticketing operation. In her hectic working life, Lyndsey oversees the Box Office, operational, financial and administrative aspects of the Charity. Lyndsey joined the Fringe Society in 2013 after six years as a producer and general manager in independent new writing theatre companies in Belfast and Lincoln, preceded by four years managing research support at the University of Manchester. She brings her considerable expertise (and energy) to chair various panels and get the debate flowing at #TTF17.
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