Mastering Events: An Audience Republic Podcast

Josh Walker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sports Innovation Lab.

Sports Innovation Lab is a data company that is revolutionizing how sports leagues, teams and brands use data to understand their customers and acquire their future fan. The company analyzes fan behavior at scale, and then uses that intelligence to help organizations drive live viewership, increase conversion rates and build more meaningful sponsorships.

Not surprisingly, we talk a lot about data in this interview, and the most impactful ways that brands and leagues can use it. We also look at some of the parallels between the music and sports industries in terms of ticket buying behavior, the increasing importance of OTT platforms in the sporting space, the concept of the fluid fan, and much more.

Erin Nourijanian is the Vice President of Marketing at UBS Arena.

When Erin started the role in February 2021, she was in the unique position of marketing a venue that was still being built.

From establishing its brand and marketing events for a venue that wasn't yet open, to winning over fans of the New York Islanders ice hockey team who were moving to UBS from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, it was all ahead of her.

Erin, however, was no rookie, having previously worked at New York's Webster Hall as the Director of Marketing and at the Nassau Coliseum as the Senior Director of Marketing. So UBS Arena was a challenge she was well and truly up for.

We talk about Erin's journey in this interview, the challenges of launching a new venue and the marketing techniques to ensure its success, capturing fan and artist attention in a crowded market, and much more!

Paul Newman is the Director of Ticketing at AXS UK.

When it comes to event ticketing, there's not much Paul hasn't seen. Not only will he celebrate 10 years as the Director of Ticketing at AXS UK in 2024, but prior to that he worked at Live Nation and AEG, where his roles included Director of Ticketing at London's O2 Arena.

He worked on Michael Jackson's record-breaking, if ill-fated, run of 50 shows at the O2 in 2009 and 2010, and at AXS routinely oversees the ticketing for some of the UK's biggest concerts, including Taylor Swift, and festivals like British Summer Time Hyde Park.

We talk about it all in this interview, from managing the onsale for high-demand events to the key things organizers need to prioritize with their ticketing strategy, and much more!

Morgan Margolis is the CEO and President of Knitting Factory Entertainment.

The very first Knitting Factory opened in New York in 1987, but since then the company's operations have expanded far and wide, to the point where they now own and manage venues ranging from small clubs to outdoor amphitheatres, and produce events and festivals such as Desert Daze. Knitting Factory is also involved in touring and artist management, and via Partisan Records, music production and distribution of artists like Fontaines DC, PJ Harvey and Idles.

Morgan oversees it all, and as he explains in this interview, he pretty much learned on the job. His career could have gone in a few different directions – his parents were both actors, and his dad Mark found fame acting in films such as Scarface and on TV shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, where he played one of the ultimate screen villains, Hector Salamanca. After briefly following in his parents' footsteps, Morgan settled on a career in events, venues and hospitality.

From his background and upbringing to the intricacies and logistical realities of running independent venues in 2024, we cover a lot of ground in this interview!

Callie Lardas is the Senior Director of Tour Marketing at mtheory LLC.

Callie began her career as a booking assistant at Madison House, before realizing being an agent wasn't for her.

She set her sights on event marketing and embarked on a journey that has taken her through organizations like Live Nation and AEG Live, before landing at mtheory LLC, where she works across the tour marketing for acts playing anywhere from 250 cap rooms all the way up to amphitheatres and arenas.

Needless to say, Callie has many wonderful insights into marketing a wide spectrum of live events, all of which we cover in this interview.

Steve Oberman is the Executive Vice President and Head of Music at See Tickets North America.

He and his team oversee the ticketing for hundreds of festivals and events every year, making him the perfect person to talk to about trends and best practices in the ticketing space.

He actually began his music industry career in management, working alongside artists like Velvet Revolver, which we also dig into during the conversation.

Stephen Budd is a British music industry executive and artist/record producer manager.

It's impossible to capture all of his accomplishments in this brief space, so here are just a few of them: In 2010 he co-founded the NH7 Weekender festival in India, the first of its type ever in the country; in 2006 he co-founded Africa Express with Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and journalist Ian Birrell, a non-profit organization facilitating collaboration between African, Middle Eastern and Western artists; other festivals he co-founded include the DMZ Peace Train Festival in Korea, and he is a director of the award-winning OneFest festival.

He also created the Passport Back To The Bars/BRITs Week concert series, in which major artists such as The Cure and Coldplay perform in small clubs across the UK to raise money for WarChild.

Add to all that an ongoing role with the Music Managers Forum, which he's been involved with since 1994 as both a Chairman and Board Member, and the fact that the first producer he ever managed was the legendary Tony Visconti, and you start to get an idea of the width and breadth of Stephen's career.

We try and cover as much as we can in this interview!

Dustin Sugar-Moore is the Director of Marketing at I.M.P., the independent concert promotion and production company that operates venues ranging from the legendary 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. all the way up to the 20,000-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.

We cover a lot of ground in this interview, from how Dustin manages a mailing list of around one million people to the marketing strategy behind launching I.M.P.'s latest venue, The Atlantis, in Washington D.C. in May 2023.

Ben Allen is the Marketing Director at LNE Presents, a full-service entertainment company that delivers events across Utah, Florida, Nevada and Maryland.

In 2023 alone they will produce around 400 events, including festivals such as Reggae Rise Up and Gasparilla Music Festival, while also operating multiple venues such as Soundwell and Granary Live.

Ben's path into event marketing was anything but a straight line, and at one point he was even focused on becoming a war correspondent.

We talk about that journey in this interview, as well as Ben's strategies for selling tickets during a cost of living crisis, how he markets more than 400 events and makes sure he hits the right audience for each, effective ways of capturing and using data, and much more.

Steve Levy is the CEO of Clanger Digital and Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer for Imagine Music Festival.

It's difficult to sum up the depth and breadth of Steve's career, but here are a few dot points: in the late-'80s Steve was one of the pioneers of the underground rave scene in LA, promoting shows and holding raves in abandoned warehouses all the while evading the reach of the local police.

He went on to co-found Moonshine Music in 1992, the label that effectively introduced electronic music to mainstream America, and later launched Moonshine Over America, at that point the only annual, national electronic music tour in the US.

In the years since he's occupied roles such as Head of Marketing and Digital at Insomniac Events, Chief Marketing Officer at Virgin Fests, North American General Manager at Festicket – and that's just for starters.

Steve offers a feast of event marketing insights drawn from his decades of experience – not to mention some great stories about dealing with the police during the birth of the underground rave scene in LA!