The Awards

Jess is a Freelance Event Professional with over 9 years’ experience, gained from working across a variety of industry sectors for global clients.

Her continued passion to deliver memorable experiences for her clients and their audiences by channelling her creativity and ability to adapt to changing environments lead her to be named Access All Areas’ Freelancer of the Year 2023 and listed on the Conference News 30under 30 list in 2020.

Gill Started her music career at Capital Radio, during which time she was responsible for putting together the first 100,000 capacity Party in the Park at Hyde Park. She then went on to start her own company entertee, producing many high-profile events, with some great artists.  This included Prince’s first and only UK festival appearance at the Hop Farm Festival.  Gill also co-founded entertee hire, supplying quality fencing solutions to the industry. 
 
Gill is co-founder and Festival Director of the multi award winning Black Deer Festival.  In Gill's words, 'Black Deer encapsulates everything I learned over the many years in the industry and everything I love.'

Sam's role as Festivals Director for Edinburgh-based Watchtower Group means that he is in charge of their portfolio of events in Scotland including FLY Open Air.

In the last year, Sam has worked with loads of amazing freelancers, suppliers and partners and has attended some incredible shows. In Sam's words 'I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to champion great service and people who really care about what they do'.

Yasmin Galletti is a Director at We Are The Fair, an independently run festival and live event production agency in London delivering independent festivals across the UK including El Dorado, Gala, Eastern Electrics and Boiler Room. Yas has produced large-scale events across the UK on behalf of independent promoters.

She works closely with Safety Advisory Groups throughout the UK and specialises in creating mutually beneficial relationships between the local communities that surround festival sites and the independent festival promoters, pushing the boundaries of art and music in the ever-burgeoning festival movement. She is also the co-chair of the AIF DEI Steering Group Committee, and co-founded ‘We Are OPS’ the ops & safety agency.

Reuben started his career as an artist manager and touring drummer in both the US and UK. Since starting GigRealm in 2016 he has over seen the company grow into supporting more than 2,000 venues around the U.K.

GigRealm was created to not only help venues put on live music but to guarantee pay for artists. Since relaunching GigRealm at the end of 2021, Reuben and GigRealm have put on hundreds of gigs around Britain with plans continue expanding internationally.

Sian is Strategy Director and Partner of Mustard Media, Europe’s leading marketing agency for festivals & events. Sian has been with the agency since its inception in 2014, where she first joined as an intern, and has since played a crucial role in building and developing the agency.

Sian has built a strategy department which has become pivotal to the agency's growth. She and her team have strategised marketing campaigns for sell-out events worldwide, including Afro Nation, Ibiza Rocks, elrow, Parklife Festival, Hideout Festival and The Yacht Week. In 2022 alone, Mustard Media drove 1.5 million tickets for festivals and events, helping to drive £80 million in ticket revenue.

Caitlin is a freelance live event professional and owner of Manchester-based event promotion company, Televised. Whilst at University, Caitlin managed a nightlife venue in Manchester called XLR alongside producing and selling out her own events with Televised. By the time she graduated with a First-Class degree in Event Management, she was able to go freelance full time in festivals, events, and touring.

Caitlin tends to take on operational and logistical roles. She has since worked at festivals and events across the UK, Europe, Middle East, and Australia – awarding her the AAA Rising Star 2022, WILMA Event Manager of the Year 2022 and AAA 30u30 2023 awards. 

Samie has a background in the entertainment industry, she was awarded the AAA 30 under 30 award in 2023. Currently, she is working in the operations team at Cuffe and Taylor - one of the UKs top 10 live music and event promoters.

Samie has been involved in the organising and operating of major festivals and arena concerts across the UK. She is especially passionate about accessibility in the industry. She uses her lived experience and previous knowledge from working with disabled creatives at Bafta Award winning TripleC, to make sure the customer journey is inclusive for all customers.

Oliver has worked across events for 20 years now. Moving into tech deployments (CCTV / WiFi : broadcast links / live streams / interactive) in 2013 when he project managed Chelsea Flower Show and Bestival for Etherlive.

In 2022, Oliver was the lead project manager for PMY at Operation London Bridge (the funeral of Queen Elizabeth), covering deployments of security camera networks and live video links for Hyde Park, Windsor Castle, St James Park and Green Park. 

Oliver is now the Director / GM of temporary overlay events Europe for PMY and has begun to work on developing and deploying technology that will improve customer experience and revenue for projects across the continent, including Paris 2024 Olympics. 

Josh is Managing Director of Festivall Services, an award-winning event staffing solutions company established in 2021. He has already overseen the deployment of more than 350 high-quality staff to over 100 festivals and other nationwide events in 2023. This number is anticipated to see substantial growth during the festive season!

Josh's leadership exemplifies the core values of Festivall, emphasising both staff welfare and a commitment to sustainability. His dedication to these principles earned him the AAA 30u30 award earlier this year (while still eligible!) 

Beyond his role at the company, Josh leverages his expertise, gained through his Event Management degrees, to inspire and mentor the next generation of event professionals in university.

Gemma Newman is passionate about events. She wants to encourage the same joy she felt when attending concerts and festivals during her own childhood. Starting her events career with Newman Event Services in 2016, Gemma quickly worked her way up from Recruitment & Operations Administrator to her current role as Assistant General Manager.

She is responsible for the company's day to day running, as well as a hands-on approach to security deployments up and down the UK. You can rest assured that her expertise in coordinating world-class crowd management services will help you deliver a safe and successful event.

For the past eight years, Cat Kevern’s presence has been synonymous with the global live events scene. Her journey leaves an impactful mark on legendary events and venues worldwide. From large-scale sporting events to vibrant live events in Costa Rica, New Zealand, and even Morocco, she's embraced her nomadic spirit, leveraging her fluency in French and Spanish to travel the world.

Recently, Cat has started a new chapter of her career, focusing her attention on her business venture: Electric Cat Productions. Through this endeavour, the team offer B2B marketing strategies, specialising in planning and delivering exceptional events.

Beyond the onsite bustle, Cat passionately strives for better opportunities for women in the industry. She plays a key role as chair of NOWIE (The Network of Women in Events) putting on events, projects and programmes supporting the community and wider industry.

Sarah Greene has 25 years’ experience in event management, working with some of the world’s highest profile companies and venues to deliver trailblazing live experiences.

Her portfolio includes client-side and contract roles: Freelance projects for TBI Media & other brand agencies, ten years as Event Director at AEG and Event Manager at Festival Republic/Live Nation before that.  Sarah also led in-house teams at Co-op and UNICEF. A recent project was The National Lottery’s Big Eurovision Welcome for an outdoor audience of 25,000 in Liverpool, which was filmed for the BBC.

Sarah provides pro-bono consultancy for The Crystal Palace Park Trust and is a mentor with NOWIE (Network of Women in Events).

Jess has worked in events since university, where she started in club nights in Liverpool. Jess is currently working as Operations Director of Bongo’s Bingo where she has been since its inception, working in all areas of the business until now. At Bongo’s Bingo, she has had the pleasure of working on thousands of events with incredible people within the industry both internally and in venues across the UK and beyond. Jess is really looking forward to seeing the talent in this year’s applicants!

Rebecca is an award-winning freelance sustainability consultant for the Creative Industries specialising in large scale indoor and outdoor events, experiential advertising, branding, film and hospitality. She holds an MSc in Sustainable Development and is a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner Project Manager.

Rebecca has over 9 years experience working in the event industry and extensive experience in delivering sustainability strategies and implementation plans both on an organisational and project level internationally. Rebecca is currently the Senior Sustainability Manager at The Bulb, an award-winning sustainability consultancy that partners with leading global agencies, brands and charities to deliver sustainable solutions for events and campaigns.

In the early 90's, Nick worked summer seasons at various festivals, (including Reading, Phoenix, Homelands, Big Love) as site crew, production crew and stage crew. In 1999 Nick took the logical step into stage management, his first experience of this being the Dance/Lockup stage at Reading, which he stage managed for the next 8 years. In addition, he also took on management roles at Homelands, London Mela, Ealing Jazz festival, Glastonbury and Latitude Festivals.

This led on to Nick taking on a Production Management role at Reading Festival. From that point, he was put onto a contract with Festival Republic as a Production Manager (initially Production Coordinator), where he has had the opportunity to work on many different festivals  in the UK, America, and Europe including Reading/Leeds, Latitude, Hove, Orlando Calling and Rage Factor.

Co-founder and Director of Ginger Owl Productions, started in 2013, Nancy has over 25 years live event experience; from promoting with Harvey Goldsmith in her early career to freelancing at festivals, award shows and tours. 

Nancy is also General Manager of the National Arenas Association and currently oversees Ginger Owl’s international team who work predominantly in Saudi Arabia.  In 2022 GO provided staff for 86 different events across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Prior to joining Production Bureau, Adrian worked within the pharmaceutical industry, in various roles within in sales management, marketing excellence, compliance, brand management, advocacy development, corporate and social responsibility and event management.

Initially a Hospitality professional, Adrian moved to a new business sector, and over 20 years gained experience in managing small and large teams in a face to face, matrix and virtual setting including 8 years as AstraZeneca’s Head of Events in the UK.

In his current role Adrian has responsibility for the commercial operation within the business and business development. Adrian also in 2019 with an MSc in Executive Coaching at Hult Ashridge Business School in Hertfordshire, UK.