What was the first event that you attended that really made an impression on you ? I studied law at university and wanted to be a lawyer , but I always had a massive interest in music . The first event that I worked at was Live 8 in Hyde Park ; a friend ’ s dad ran the bar operation and he needed people to take money between the bars . I remember sitting on top of a container watching The Who and Pink Floyd play , which was amazing . I ’ ve worked on events in Hyde Park many times since but I ’ ll never forget that show .

What was your first position in the events industry ? I was an events coordinator at United Business Media . After university , I was interviewed for a place on an events graduate scheme and that led to a full-time position . It was a great graduate scheme because it included

rotations in operations , marketing , and sales ; all the functions in commercial events that get an event to market . It really helped people learn their specialism , what you are particularly good at , and mine proved to be operations . I knew that the nitty gritty of being the first people in and the last to leave , working with suppliers and contractors , and having a view on safety , was always the thing that I was good at .

You ’ ve worked on business events , sports events and festivals – what do you find the most rewarding and why ? My main passion is music but I love working on sporting events and working with brands . On the agency side I have worked for really big brands such as NFL , Vodafone and the NBA . What drove me initially was working on events that had really good partnerships or were unique . You get that in the agency world because you have the budgets and can be pioneering . That led me into music events because that was my main passion . I ’ ve been fortunate to work with some of the biggest music shows and festivals in the UK .

Is there anyone in the industry that has proved inspirational ? There are so many inspirational

people that I have admired from afar and I ’ m really lucky to now call a lot of those people my friends and colleagues . I worked with Paul Southby , who is now at Wasserman . He was one of the first influential people I worked with on the agency side . He definitely taught me how to take responsibility and I watched him deal with everything in a measured , calm way . That approach influenced me and has helped me work through lots of challenging times and scenarios .

Can you give an example of a particularly memorable challenge overcome ? I worked on a Premier League tour in South Africa . The main idea behind it was to get football to a grassroots audience , so we put on a big fan screening event in Johannesburg , which is quite a challenging market . We were not ticketing the event , it was a free to attend , which meant that there would be a mixture of people from different society groups . We did that against the recommendations of people in South Africa , who had not really had events where you had middle-class people alongside people from townships . I am very proud that we managed to achieve that in a really safe way , and showed that an event should be open to anyone to enjoy .

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