Connecting the global ticketing ecosystem together

The Speaker Line Up

• 

  Rick Jurkiewicz

  Head of Ticketing & Data Protection Officer, Rugby Football League

  Starting in 1997 at Way Ahead (now ‘SEE’) in Nottingham, Rick moved to lead Ticketmaster’s Client Services team in Manchester in 2004. 2012 saw Rick move to Ticketmaster’s International Sports division providing technical support for Euro2012, London Olympics, Rugby League and Rugby Union World Cups, before being presented with a rare opportunity to join Ticketmaster’s Business Development Team, reconnecting once again with music and theatre. Head of Ticketing at a National Governing Body was an obvious next step in his career spent focused on acquiring experience, and his subsequent appointment as Data Protection Officer was a natural extension to Rick’s work in ticketing.

• 

  Dawn Farrow

  Founder and CEO, Boom Ents / Boom Sport

  Dawn Farrow is a Performance Marketing Specialist for some of the best known entertainment brands, live events and experiences in the UK. She founded Boom in 2012 to become the first female agency CEO servicing not just theatre but also outdoor events and festivals, family theatre, immersive entertainment, consumer exhibitions, venues, visitor attractions and celebrity social media. Dawn’s success has been recognised by a series of high profile organisations. The business was awarded ‘Best New Business’, in the Top 100 UK Start-Up Awards in 2015 and was shortlisted in the top six ‘Best Small Agencies’ in the 2016 UK Agency Awards. Boom’s success has driven audiences of millions to more than 170 live events as diverse as The Luna Cinema, Grand Designs Live, BBC Countryfile Live, Dinner at The Twits, Thunderbirds, Monty Python’s Spamalot and Disney’s Fantasia, to name a few.

• 

  Nick Dodds

  Director, FEI (Festival & Events International)

  Nick is a leading UK expert on cultural venues, festivals and events and cultural development with 30 years’ experience as a Consultant, Chief Executive, COO and leader in both the commercial and public sectors. His company, FEI, specialises in strategic planning, governance, cultural programming, and business planning for venues, festivals and events internationally. Nick is currently advising the Georgian Government on developing festivals along the Black Sea coast; recently authored the major study Thundering Hooves 2.0: a ten year strategy to sustain the success of Edinburgh’s Festivals; and has advised governments and organisations worldwide. He was seconded to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, as Chief Operating Officer of the London 2012 Festival; was Chief Executive of Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival for eight years; and Administrative Director of the Edinburgh International Festival for ten years. In 2015 he was given a life-time achievement award by the International Festivals and Events Association, USA, the industry’s highest honour.

• 

  Isabelle Chevallier

  Executive VP Europe, Weezevent

  Isabelle Chevallier is leading the internationalisation of Weezevent, with a focus in Europe. She started her career at Sony Music Entertainment where she quickly progressed from Business Affairs Manager to Executive VP Business Development. Then she followed a change of career abroad with projects in Brazil and Spain to return to music and events at Intellitix for four years.

• 

  Áron Farkas

  International Relations , Sziget Cultural Management

  Áron is a member of the Sziget Cultural Management’s international relations team since 2014. Working on selling as many tickets as possible for Sziget Festival, Balaton Sound and VOLT Festival all over the world. Sziget Festival is one of the, if not the most international festival there is, with visitors coming from over 100 different countries and a total attendance of 565.000 over it’s 7 day period in 2018. 

• 

  Paul Williamson

  Managing Director, Sports Ink Associates

  Paul has worked on ticketing projects for many major sports events, including Olympic Games, FIFA World Cups, Rugby World Cups, Cricket World Cups and Commonwealth Games. He was Director of Ticketing at London 2012, which sold 10.99 million tickets, valued at $1 billion. He now leads a consultancy, focusing on reducing ticketing risk and improving revenues at major events.

• 

  Mike Bohndiek

  Director/Consultant, PTI Consulting

  Mike formed PTI Consulting with the aim of enabling clubs and venues to access industry specific technology leaders. In the current climate PTI address the considerable digital transformation and strategic technology needs in the sports and entertainment industry. Having worked across 23 venues in football, rugby, cricket, golf and venues in general over his 14-year career in the sector to date, Mike brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the ticketing, data and insight space from a provider and customer perspective, having built, deployed and operated the platforms behind several club operations and procured industry recognised systems.

• 

  Gajus Kuizinas

  CEO and Founder, Go2Cinema

  Gajus is a hands-on technology leader known for his good understanding of the entertainment, advertising and Wi-Fi industries, with over 10 years’ experience of delivering scalable end-to-end solutions for starts-ups and large corporations. He co-founded Applaudience, an entertainment intelligence company combining data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during the theatrical movie release processes. They own real-time showtime, occupancy, ticket price and film marketing performance data for all major exhibitors in Europe and North America. The goal is to increase attendance of the existing audiences by enabling data-rich collaboration between exhibitors and distributors.