Who

Each year, we assemble a world-class speaker line up of those who are disrupting the industry to share, debate, discuss and decide the future of live entertainment ticketing.

VIEW ATTENDEE UPDATE

The Speaker Line Up

• 

  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.

• 

  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. 

• 

  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.

• 

  Isabelle Chevalier

  Executive VP Europe, Weezevent

  Isabelle Chevalier 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.

• 

  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.

• 

  Anne Griffin

  General Manager, World Meeting 2018

  Anne specialises in setting up and running event companies to cover planning, procuring, staffing, contracting and delivery. Anne’s latest project was the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland last year. Over 499,000 attended the events, with viewers in Ireland of 1.8 million and 75 international broadcasters streaming to millions of additional viewers worldwide. Anne was responsible for IEC2012 with over 100,000 people attending and consulting for IEC2015 with over 1 million attending, plus conferences for corporate, academic and medical associations. Anne understands the challenges of both paid and free events, staffing with professionals and volunteers and working with budgets that require fundraising, sponsorship and operational income.

• 

  Lasse Rich Henningsen

  CEO , Musikkens Hus and Chairman at Nordic Concert Halls

  Lasse Rich, CEO at Musikkens Hus and Chairman at Nordic Concert Halls, has been in various management positions throughout the entertainment business for more than 20 years. He graduated from Business Law school in 2003 and has most recently been awarded Leader of the Year 2018 in Denmark, the most prestigious leadership award of the nation, and is the first person from the entertainment business to receive this honour. Lasse is an experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working successfully and internationally in all areas of the music industry, as well as in parts of the TV, film and gaming industry.

• 

  Richard Brundle

  Chairman, STAR

  Richard has worked in all areas of ticketing for nearly 30 years. While a Director of ticket agency, Edwards and Edwards, he created the ticketing system Thebs and then set up Galathea to create ENTA. Richard has been consulted by numerous clients, including the Society of London Theatre – initiating and running their first Get Into London Theatre campaigns – ATG, Fiery Angel, The Art of the Brick exhibition and many others. A Founder of STAR in 1997 and council member until 2001, he was also a member of the INTIX Board from1997-2000. He managed ETT (Europe Talks Tickets) from 2003 to 2009 and is also a Board member of London Welsh Amateur Rugby Club.

• 

  Steve Elworthy

  Managing Director, ICC Cricket World Cup

  Steve Elworthy has a plethora of global tournament experience – both in playing and administration. A former South African international, Steve won a gold medal in the 1998 Commonwealth Games for cricket in Kuala Lumpur and played in the 1999 Cricket World Cup in England. Since retiring from the playing side of the game, Steve moved into cricket administration, playing an integral part in a number of global cricket events, including the inaugural World T20 in South Africa in 2007.
  Last Summer, he was the Tournament Director of the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC Women’s World Cup, helping to put women’s cricket well and truly on the global stage. Steve’s outstanding contribution to the game resulted in him receiving an MBE this year for his services to cricket. In 2019, the ICC Cricket World Cup will come to England and Wales for the first time in 20 years, and Steve is leading the Organising Committee charged with showcasing the world’s greatest cricket celebration.

• 

  Magdalena Hankus

  Head of Project Management and Corporate Communications,

  Born in Poland and raised in Vienna, Magdalena enjoys the benefits of bilingualism and has significant intercultural skills. After successfully finishing her economic studies and first career steps within this sector, she took on her new position as Head of the Project Management and Corporate Communications department and Deputy to the CEO at Wiener Stadthalle, Austria’s largest event venue with over 300 events and one million visitors per year. She was in charge of several big projects, such as the 60th season, which was celebrated with a wide range of festivities and events throughout 2018 as well as the Eurovision Song Contest 2015.

• 

  David Hornby

  Managing Director UK and Ireland, SecuTix

  David is currently heading up the development of a leading Global Ticketing business into the UK and Ireland market as its Managing Director. SecuTix is the ticketing partner for many leading Live Entertainment, Sporting and Cultural organisations and is growing its UK business rapidly. David is also the Founder & Managing Director of WHY NOT, a strategic consultancy business in the world of major events, entertainment, tourism and hospitality sectors. Projects have included working with Red Bull, The NFL, Live Nation, the RFU, London 2012 and its legacy company, Formula 1 and the next phase of development at The O2 with AEG Europe. He was also a Founding Director of Jamie Oliver’s event catering company, Fabulous Feasts. David left Visit London in May 2009 after seven exciting years with the company as its Commercial Director. He was responsible for the organisation’s Private Sector incomes across its sponsorship, partnership and digital platforms, London’s Convention Bureau and Events for London. Events for London is the UK capital’s official major events team. Created in 2007, it is tasked with attracting, developing and staging major sporting and cultural events and has delivered the London Restaurant Festival, Prudential Ride London and many other major sporting and cultural events.

• 

  Lyubomyr Nykyforuk

  PMP certified Project Manager , Softjourn Inc

  Lyubomyr Nykyforuk is a passionate ticketing professional, curious learner of new technologies and PMP certified project manager with more than 11 years of ticketing experience. He has overall responsibility for all project deliveries to Softjourn ticketing clients. He has worked with the architecture, design and development of a wide range of ticketing functionality, including building ticketing systems from the ground up and enhancing the functionality of proprietary solutions. Lyubomyr joined Softjourn in 2007 when our company was working with our first ticketing clients. Since then, he has engaged with dozens of other ticketing companies as a project manager and ticketing project lead. Projects he has been involved in include access control, returns/exchanges, donations, packages, CRM functionality, venue mapping/seat selection, ticket printing and patron management. Based on his extensive expertise, Lyubomyr continually explores new technology and its application to the ticketing world.

• 

  Karen Pepper

  General Manager - UK & Ireland, Amazon Pay

  Karen is responsible for leading Amazon’s payment services for third-party merchants in the UK including Amazon Pay and the associated value added services on web, mobile, voice and POS commerce. Karen is a 20-year veteran of the payments and start up industries. Most recently she was Global Head of Alliance Banks at JP Morgan and has held senior positions at American Express. Karen is also an entrepreneur, raising £3 million, and founded her own chain of health clubs for young families, Cupcake Family Club. Karen sits on the Board of Hatch, a UK incubator for social enterprises, and on the Board of Tamar, an anti-human trafficking charity. Karen also holds a MBA from the London Business School.

• 

  Natalie Senyk

  Ticketing Business Development Consultant, Softjourn Inc

  Natalie has been working with Softjourn ticketing business clients, deeply engaged in nurturing, business development activities and ticketing domain research. She joined Softjourn in 2014 and works as a marketing specialist, starting with lead generation and then adding account management and marketing strategies to achieve more personalised outreach approach. Natalie has been attending various ticketing events and bringing back some interesting takeaways, new technology trends and business challenges. A lot of those trendy areas or business issues, like Blockchain, new innovative ways of access control, RFID, video streaming, simplified thermal ticket printing process or venue mapping were implemented later by Softjourn. They were also tested at Softjourn`s R&D department to prove their value and feasibility. Her passion is for thinking about new ways how Softjourn can bring more value to ticketing vendors, box office people, event organisers, ticket buyers and everyone involved in the entertainment world.

• 

  Ákos Remetei-Filep

  Head of Sales, Sziget Cultural Management

  Ákos has been a member of the Sziget Cultural Management’s International Relations team since 2013. Currently holding the position of Head of Sales. Ákos works on selling as many tickets as possible for the 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 its seven day period in 2018.

• 

  Kevin Sauvageau

  Head of Partnerships and Business Development, Stay22

  Kevin graduated with a business degree in hospitality management and has cumulated over 10 years of experience in the tourism industry. His past positions in hotel consulting and sales allowed him to further hone his business development and team management skills.

• 

  Joanne Sinclair

  Commercial Director, England Netball

  Joanne joined England Netball in 2017 from Red Bull Racing, where she was Head of Partnerships, having previously been Global Relationship Manager for Manchester United. Prior to that, Joanne spent time with Northern Suburbs Basketball Association in Australia, and Northampton Saints.

• 

  Stephanie Schaub

  Managing Director, Chocoversum Hachez

  Stephanie has worked in the museum industry for 10 years and her passion is still making guests happy and doing so in an economic way. The Chocoversum is a chocolate museum in the heart of Hamburg, which opened in 2011, with 200,000 visitors per year. The museum started as a classical brandland owned by Hachez but is now privately owned and managed by Stephanie and two investors.
  Visitors enjoy a 90 minute tour guided by one of the 85 team members, which includes 13 sample stations and the opportunity for each guest to create their own individual chocolate bar.

• 

  Sukhinder Singh Cassidy

  President, StubHub

  Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has founded, successfully built and scaled technology companies at the intersection of media and commerce throughout her career. As SVP and President of StubHub, she is advancing global expansion and championing technology innovation to deliver a superior fan experience. Sukhinder and the StubHub team advocate for fans in search of the best choice, providing open access to live events and connecting fans with their favourite teams, shows and artists around the world. Prior to StubHub, Sukhinder was Founder of theBoardlist, a talent marketplace that matches women leaders with Board opportunities. She was also Founder and CEO of Joyus, CEO of Polyvore and co-founded Yodlee. Sukhinder also held senior leadership positions at Google, including serving as President of its Asia Pacific and Latin American business.

• 

  Rebecca Edwards-Symmons

  Head of Digital , Swansea City AFC

  Rebecca leads the digital team at Swansea City Football Club. She is responsible for the new digital platforms introduced at the club in the last two years, including a new official website and two mobile apps. Rebecca has over 15 years’ digital experience working with some of the world’s largest brands such as Amazon and Yell. She introduced in-app ticketing to the club and more recently in-app season tickets, which were both firsts for UK football. She also built a separate app focusing on athlete welfare for the players and backroom staff. The club was recently shortlisted for five awards which include the Global Sports Technology Awards for ‘Best Technology in Fan Engagement’ and ‘Best Technology in Athlete Welfare’.

• 

  Marcia Titley

  Managing Director, Eventim Norway

  Marcia Titley has worked as Managing Director for the Norwegian office of Eventim since January 2018. Originally trained as a classical musician in Canada, Marcia moved to Norway in 1996 to work as a professional musician. She has extensive experience in sales and marketing, both B2B and B2C, from the classical and popular entertainment industry. Before moving to the world of ticketing, Marcia worked for eight years as Sales and Marketing Director at Telenor Arena, Norway’s largest indoor arena, and played an integral part in its development from a local football arena to a successful, international, multipurpose venue.

• 

  Nikolas Schriefer

  CEO/Co-Founder , Stagelink

  Nikolas is the founder and CEO of Stagelink.com – providing event organizers and promoters with unique fan insights and effective digital marketing to forecast sales and maximize profit. Before starting his own company, Nikolas studied jazz composition, piano and business administration with a focus on finance and statistics in Cologne and New York and toured the world as pianist, manager and producer of several groups.

• 

  Alan Vey

  Director & Co-Founder, Aventus

  Alan Vey is a Co-Founder of Aventus, a fair, secure, and transparent blockchain-based solution for event ticketing that can eliminate fraud and unregulated touting. Prior to founding Aventus, Alan worked at the Deloitte Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre, before going on to complete a Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence at Imperial College London. His thesis focused on film rights distribution, working with Bafta and the BBC. Fast-forward to September 2017 and Alan together with Co-Founder Annika Monari, had released the alpha version of Aventus to a test network, established the Aventus Protocol Foundation to develop and market the open-source Aventus protocol, and led the most successful public ticketing Token Generation Event (TGE) whichattracted over 1,300 participants and generated over $15m at the time. The Aventus Protocol was made available on the Ethereum network in April 2018.

• 

  Nichola Spencer

  Membership Manager, Rugby Football League (The RFL)

  Nichola spent 7 years at a global fashion retailer FTSE 250 working on it’sInternational expansion. Highly focussed on acquisition within the USA and Ireland via a digital strategy. She is now Membership Manager for the RFL working to grow the membership base and create a bespoke membership campaign for fans. Nicola’s mission is to create a bespoke Membership campaign for The Rugby Football League. By understanding our fans are we are future proofing the sport for both internal strategies and commercial partnerships. With a target of 500k members by 2021 the platform must show a seamless digital experience for fans to drive up sign ups and keep continuous engagement.

   

• 

  Helen Hoban

  Head of Ticketing, Silverstone

  Head of Ticketing and Customer Service – Helen has proudly worked at Silverstone Circuit for the last 20 years. She’s experienced a multitude of changes in track activity and venue configuration, as well as Silverstone emerging into the 21st century as a world class motorsport and family leisure destination – no longer an old airfield in any shape or form! Starting at Silverstone as a Customer Service Executive in the Contact Centre, Helen has sold tickets for a diverse range of spectator events, with the current range including the World Rallycross Championship and World Endurance Championship to the pinnacles of Grand Prix – MotoGP and the Formula One Grand Prix – the biggest annual weekend ticketed sporting event in the UK. Helen is now key to developing and launching a new booking system to enhance the customer journey, providing Silverstone with vital customer detail and marketing ability due to diversification at the venue to include a new hotel and visitor attraction

• 

  Mo Jones

  Director, TheTicketSellers/Eventree

  Mo Jones’s extensive career in events began by organising sell-out raves of legendary acclaim in the mid Nineties. Painful experiences of *physical* ticket and cash collection post-event led her, with TheTicketSellers’ Co-Founder Jimmy Hewson, to devise a new way to achieve sales remotely, and so e-ticketing was born. Mo’s passion to aid event organisers has driven her to build a dedicated team; in the office developing innovative software and providing customers and clients with excellent service, to the field, where she can often be found on the front line. With Mo at the helm and over £100m processed, TheTicketSellers, combined with Eventree, represent a powerful and unique offering.

• 

  Sita McIntosh

  COO, WhatsOnStage

  Sita began her career in May 1988 working for Mentor Advertising on accounts such as the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and English National Opera. Since then she has held key roles at Ticketmaster, See Tickets and Stoll Moss Theatres amongst others, gathering over thirty years experience in sales, marketing and ticketing. Currently she is Chief Operating Officer at WhatsOnStage, the UK’s leading theatre website but also chairs the charity Tonic Theatre (which strives to achieve gender equality on and off the stage) and serves on the boards of Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, North London and Curve Theatre in Leicester.

• 

  Annika Monari

  Director and Co-Founder, Aventus

  Annika Monari is a Co-Founder of Aventus, a blockchain-based solution built to prevent ticketing issues like fraud, unregulated touting, counterfeit tickets and scalping at events. Before developing an interest in blockchain and cryptography Annika was involved with experimental particle physics, investigating Higgs Boson Particle decays to dark matter using machine learning in partnership with CERN and gaining experience at the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, before completing a Master’s Degree in Physics at Imperial College London. Having co-founded Aventus in 2016, Annika and Co-Founder Alan Vey launched the alpha version of Aventus on the Ethereum test network, established the Aventus Protocol Foundation to develop and market the open-source Aventus protocol, and led the most successful public ticketing Token Generation Event (TGE) which attracted over 1,300 participants and generated over $15m at the time. The Aventus Protocol was made available on the Ethereum network in April 2018.

• 

  Francis Casado

  Co-Founder and Head of Business Development , 3D Digital Venue

  Francis Casado is one of the founders of Mobile Media Content – 3D Digital Venue and is currently serving as Head of Business Development. Prior to founding MMC- 3D Digital Venue, that revolutionized Interactive Digital Venue Management for Sports and Entertainment Venue Industry, Francis made his career around the beneficial application of 3D Technology and Virtual Reality for various sectors. A true entrepreneur, Francis’s previous time at Barcelona Media was primarily focused as a product manager responsible for developing innovative 3D solutions for use in construction of new urban developments by Barcelona Smart City Council.

• 

  Mark Prothero

  Business Development Director, London Theatre Direct

  Mark is the Business Development Director at London Theatre Direct (LTD). LTD was founded in 1999 as one of the first ticket websites and has grown to become one of the biggest ticket companies in the UK. In addition to being an established B2C brand, LTD has developed an industry leading B2B technology solution that is used by major ticketing companies. Mark is interested in new ticketing technology and how open APIs, machine learning and big data can lead to greater distribution, collaboration and an improved customer experience.

• 

  Ian Nuttall

  Founder, TheTicketingBusiness

  Ian is the Owner and Founder of TheTicketingBusiness Forum and its news channel TheTicketingBusiness.com – both presented by his Xperiology events and marketing agency. His working life began in sports events management (including Formula 1, horse racing and Wimbledon) before pursuing an award-winning career in B2B magazine publishing. He has co-launched and edited numerous B2B publications and meetings, ranging from energy and industrial processes through to airport design and Intelligent Transportation Systems. He has also founded many of the sports sector’s most respected publications and news sources – including Stadia magazine, TheStadiumBusiness.com and TheStadiumBusiness Summit. In his downtime from family and worklife, he takes his dogs on the Downs, rides his (motor)bikes and treks up the occasional mountain.

• 

  Andreas Kienbink

  Co-Founder & CEO, Keyper

  Andreas Kienbink is the Co-Founder and CEO of Keyper, a SaaS company providing white labeled technology for the easy and secure sharing of digital tickets by integrating existing ticketing solutions with mobile user platforms. Prior to this, he co-founded Media Apparat, an award-winning media agency producing the start-up conference Pioneers Festival in Vienna, Austria. He was also Developer, Mastermind and CEO of JetTicket Software (acquired by Eventim in 2016).

• 

  Hans Nissens

  CEO & Founder, Oxynade NV

  Hans graduated as a Civil Engineer and started his career as a Consultant for an engineering company in Belgium. In 2002, the Flemish government decided to build up a global infrastructure to collect and distribute event information about the cultural and non-cultural events in Flanders. Their goal was to promote cultural participation. Hans became the Founder and Head Coordinator of this project and managed to turn the whole structure into a very effective organisation. ‘Uit in Vlaanderen’ is still a leading organisation recognised by many others in the world. In 2007, he co-founded Oxynade and gave it direction as their CEO. After being a web scraping solution for event calendar information and one of the main primary ticketing companies in Belgium, Oxynade reinvented itself as an eTicketing SaaS company (eTaaS). Under the leadership of Hans, Oxynade developed a hyper-flexible, ultra-scalable and extremely interactive 100% white label ticketing technology SaaS platform, enabling white label partners (like ticketing agencies, distributors, big venues and major event promoters) to benefit from the future proof technology and speed to market without large upfront investments.

• 

  Olivia Vergnon

  CEO, EntreeDirecte.fr

  Born in Paris, Olivia studied cinema and theatre in London and worked for 10 years as an Editor for leading British broadcasters before returning to France two years ago. Her current role as Project Manager of EntreeDirecte allows her to conjugate her interest in new technologies and her passion for theatre, exploring the capability data offers to grant wider access to culture, and help professionals and audiences to make the most of the great cultural possibilities near them. Her amazing all-female team promotes the recognition of women in the sector of data and digital development.

• 

  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.

• 

  Steve Pearce

  CEO, TickX

  Steve Pearce is the Co-Founder & CEO of TickX – the simple, hassle-free way to search for the best event, cinema and attraction tickets. Launched in September 2015 with the backing of Ministry of Sound, TickX have grown from just a handful of users to a two million-strong user base. In 2018, they launched a powerful personalised discovery platform, designed to make it easier than ever for users to find experiences that they love based on their interests and preferences. The revolutionary new service lists inventory from over 100 partners and is designed to help those ticket partners expose inventory to new audiences, ultimately growing the experience market.

• 

  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.

• 

  Paul Deason

  CEO, Motorsport Live

  Paul Deason is a graduate in Business Computing & IT. After graduating, he worked for an insurance start-up as a web technologies computer programmer.
  In his spare time, he set-up Bookf1.com, an independent ticketing reseller specialising in the motorsport ticketing market. In 2007, Paul left his employment to focus solely on Bookf1.com, which has now grown into one of the largest motorsport ticketing resellers in the UK. In 2018, Bookf1.com joined the Motorsport Network and Paul took on the role as CEO of Motorsport Live, a new division tasked with developing international ticketing, experience, and travel services.

• 

  Neetu Bhatia

  Co-founder & CEO, Kyazoonga, India

  An Investment Banker turned Entrepreneur, Neetu is credited with creating the professional entertainment and sports ticketing market in India. Under her leadership, Kyazoonga has expanded rapidly, with global operations in the US, Caribbean, Europe, UAE and Australia, and has ticketed some of the largest events, including the recently concluded FIFA U-17 World Cup. An alumnus of MIT, Neetu was a Senior Investment Banker on Wall Street, leading teams at Bank of Montreal, Lehman Brothers and McKinsey prior to co-founding Kyazoonga. A former national cricket player, Neetu serves on the Boards of several not-for-profit organisations in New York City and India.

• 

  Daniel Gidney

  CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LANCASHIRE COUNTY CRICKET CLUB, UK

  A sports industry CEO for over 12 years, Daniel launched the first ever cricket bond within £12m fundraising to build and operate a new 150 bedroom Hilton hotel. Daniel built a strong team of leaders and achievedrecord cumulative profits of over £10m ebitda (turnaround from previous cumulative £9m losses). He’s securing Ashes Tests in 2019 and 2023, ICC World Cup semi-final and four pool games in 2019. Lancs Cricket is also the host venue for the new T20 tournament in 2020. Daniel was previously CEO at the Ricoh Arena: turning a £3.2m loss to over £3m ebitda and was recognised as the 2011 Midlands Business Person of the Year, and 2014 Trafford Business Person of the Year. With an MBA from Durham, he was the youngest ever District Councillor for Stratford upon Avon at 25.

• 

  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 is for new technologies that provide a great experience for customers to be able to get to and buy the ticket they want.

   

  Carolyn is an experienced professional in developing and implementing innovative growth strategies through the delivery of customer focused ticketing and commercial excellence. Her passion is for new technologies that provide a great experience for customers to be able to get to and buy the ticket they want.

• 

  Jonathan Brown

  Chief Executive, SOCIETY OF TICKET AGENTS & RETAILERS (STAR), UK

  With a background in entertainment as a technician, stage manager, producer and administrator, Jonathan has been involved with STAR since 1997, when he was a director of the marketing agency working on its launch. Over the years, as Chief Executive of STAR, he has garnered an extensive knowledge of legislation and regulation affecting ticket sales and represents STAR, its members and the ticket industry in the press, on radio and television and as a speaker at industry events. His work for STAR includes a continuing dialogue with other industry bodies, government departments, law enforcement and regulatory bodies on ticketing matters.

• 

  Tim Chambers

  Managing Director, TJChambers Consultancy, UK

  Interrogating the industry’s latest start-ups and disruptors

  Tim Chambers is a Mentor, Advisor and Consultant. He currently works with a number of organisations seeking to enter, redefine or expand their operations within the live entertainment and ticketing sectors, advising on corporate development strategies and directing transactions. Tim also has a number of advisory posts including NED roles with various start-ups and emerging companies.

• 

  Dr Marcus Garbe

  MANAGING PARTNER & FOUNDER, TRANSACTION CONSULTING, SWITZERLAND

  Marcus has over 20 years’ experience as Managing Director, Entrepreneur and Consultant. His industry expertise in Live Entertainment and Ticketing has successfully steered the completion of numerous M&A transactions in this field. Marcus has worked for ifo-institute, Roland Berger & Partner, argonauten/Grey Global, REPLY, Ticketcorner and founded diverse start-ups.

• 

  Gareth Deakin

  Founder, Sonorous Global Consulting

  Gareth is a Business Development, Strategy Consultant and start-up mentor and advisor, helping early-stage companies. He’s the Founder of Sonorous Global a consultancy, working at the intersection of technology and innovation in the creative and entertainment industries. Prior to consulting, he was Head of Business Development for Sony Music, where he spearheaded growth in non-traditional revenue streams, including artist ticketing, direct-to- fan commerce and new distribution channels. From here he headed up strategic partnerships and international development for Canadian start-up Intellitix, focused on creating seamless digital experiences for the world’s biggest events, festivals and venues.

• 

  Martin Gammeltoft

  VP, Commercial Operations, Activity Stream, Denmark

  With a background in concert services and ticketing, Martin Gammeltoft now heads up the commercial side of Activity Stream, a company dedicated to transforming Live Entertainment and Sports organisations. By connecting data across silos and applying AI to support sales, marketing, pricing and customer experience, Activity Stream makes it easy and affordable for any organisation that wants to extract the full value from their data.

Who will be there

• Our Sponsors
• Our Partners
• Our Attendees

What are people saying?

The best networking place I've been to. I was able to get very high level leads and meet relevant partners. You did a great great job to gather such high level and exhaustive people!

Chloé Julien Founder & CEO, BandSquare, France

CIOs, CTO,s Chief Execs... all those people turn up at this event. it’s a fantastic opportunity to engage with them

Rick Jurkiewicz Head of Ticketing, The Rugby Football League, UK

This is the focal point of the ticketing industry in Europe, where the decision-makers meet and exchange ideas

Niels Henrik Sodemann Managing Partner/CEO, Queue-it, Denmark

At the Forum we made concrete progress with regards to selecting a new ticketing provider. I would be happy to recommend the Forum to other venues in the future.

Martin O'Donoghue Business Development Manager, Cork Opera House, Ireland

If you’re curious about the future, if you want to see how things are developing, if you wanna get to know your peers... you need to be at the Forum.

James Charrington CEO, Dewynters, UK

For me the most important thing was to meet with all the different companies in ticketing and I’ve managed that, and I left with many business cards!

Grégory Six Major Projects and Development Manager, AS Monaco, Monaco