Industry leaders announced as Event Summit 2020 speakers

Event Summit 2020 has just announced that representatives of the recently formed Live Entertainment Industry Forum (LEIF) will headline a stellar line-up of speakers who will appear at the industry conference filmed at The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden and streamed exclusively on Twitch on 14th October.

The Event Summit, a unique one-day conference for the event and experience industry, will bring together the industry’s most innovative and diligent stakeholders to share best practice experiences, insights, tips and techniques.

The panel, hosted by industry leaders James Sutherland (newly appointed Chief Executive of Golf Australia and Chair of LEIF) and leading LEIF Board members Geoff Jones (Chief Executive of TEG) and Roger Field (President of Live Nation Asia Pacific) will share the progress and key strategic direction of the Forum, which was established during the COVID crisis to provide a uniformed voice of the live entertainment industry in supporting the COVID-safe reactivation of events with live audiences across Australia.

The opening session will include a first-look presentation by Matt Colston, Associate Partner Sports, Events and Venues Consulting at EY, who has partnered with LEIF on the first ever study to assess the economic contribution of the live entertainment industry, the impact of COVID-19 on the sector and the economic outlook for recovery.

Commenting on the issue that the Summit will address, Sutherland stated “this is a critical time for our industry to unite on a roadmap to bring fans safely back to events and bring jobs quickly back to the live sector, which has been brought to its knees by the event of the last six months and is still facing an uncertain future. We are thrilled to be partnering with the Event Summit 2020 to discuss the important work we have been doing with LEIF to that end and to share the important research developed by EY that will help shape the industry’s vision for how we recover as quickly and as safely as possible.”

The full line up of speakers include:

• Stuart Ayres, NSW Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney: Event Open.
• Craig Tiley, Chief Executive, Tennis Australia: The Australian Open 2021.
• David Borean General Manager Brand and Customer Experience NEC Australia: Biometrics and AI, CX game changers for venues and events.
• Nicola Lewis, Chief Investment Officer, GroupM; Sally Spriggs, Marketing Director, KFC South Pacific; Shannan Quinn, PRISM MD: Event Sponsorships in a COVID World and beyond
• Johnny Little, Vice President, Tough Mudder: Case Study 2020 US Event, Forging Forward with a COVID Safe event.
• Luke Anear, Chief Executive, Safety Culture: Helping Organisations build immunity to risk.
• Andrew Waddel, General Manager, Tourism New Zealand; Lewis Mitchel Partnership Lead, Twitch AUNZ; Jessie James (Geekgg), Twitch content creator; Ricky Chanana Head of Sales
AUNZ Twitch: The future of live streaming and content.
• Richie O’Neill - Chief Executive, Hardware Group; John Curtin - Director, Curtin Consulting; Frank Cotela - Chief Executive and founder, OneLove Music Group; Kim Friedlaender, Business Development Director, Live Nation Australasia Festival X: Launching a new music festival brand, building and retaining new audience.

Looking forward to the presentations, Event Summit Director, Sam Jackson commented “as an event professional with over 20 years’ experience, I have personally felt the impact COVID-19 has had on our industry.

“Whilst we look forward to a time that large events take place, we are highly encouraged by the progress NSW and Australia has made in eliminating COVID cases. With this in mind, we have made the decision for Event Summit be a part of the solution and contribute to the long-term goal of bringing our industry back to life.

“We have an agenda full of engaging expert content that is completely free, provided by our streaming partner, Twitch. We'd like to thank our speakers, sponsors and contributors for their emphatic response to this year's summit. They have all provided significant resources to ensure Event Summit 2020 will go ahead, completely free, to help get our industry back on its feet.”

The Event Summit which is traditionally $990 per ticket will be completely free of charge for attendees on 14th October.

Originally intended to be a physical event, the organisers have made the decision to partner with Twitch TV to make the conference totally virtual.

On registration, attendees will have the option to make a non-compulsory donation of $50 - $150 to Support Act.

The  Event Summit will run from 7.30am to 7:00pm on Wednesday 14th October 2020.

For more information, go to www.eventsummit.com.au

LEIF is introduced in the latest issue of Australasian Leisure Management.

Images: Geoff Jones and Roger Field (top), The Calyx, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (middle) and Australian Open tennis (below).