My third orbit around the sun with AVA Festival Belfast. The biggest and most-diverse edition the festival has seen – with huge headliners: UK rapper Central Cee and Korean DJ Peggy Gou alongside legends Goldie & DJ EZ.

Devising the full festival campaign was a roller-coaster. We launched new stages, media, radio and telecoms partners - Resident Advisor, BBC, Boiler Room, EarthPercent, War Child, 02 Mobile, Spotify+ – alongside new apparel collaborations with Never Never and award winning Irish designer Robyn Lynch. We also organised a huge conference in partnership with Output Belfast.  

For this campaign we put an emphasis on the experience as a whole and reaching new audiences. I led the internal marketing and design teams, all media partnerships and programming talks for the the AVA x Output conference. This involved brand idendity, launch strategy, leading on press, creator strategy and and full campaign execution. AVA 2023 was the most stunning and dynamic edition the festival has ever seen.

I curated my second edition of the AVA London conference co-inciding with the final season at Printworks, London’s largest and most iconic club venue of the time. We returned for a grand-scale conference and club showcase as part of a colossal campaign. I led on programming, marketing brand and media partnerships for the large-scale industry event, attended by over 7,000 people. 

The format was a day into night Conference followed by a club event under one roof at Printworks. In partnership with the Broadwick Live team this event sold out in less than 48 hours.

This  cemented AVA as the leading conference brand in London – putting us on a level with IMS, ADE, SXSW, Mutek & beyond. Setting us up in a strong position to re-launch a fully independent, multi venue conference in 2024.

✷ Keynote Interview with heavyweight graphic designer David Rudnick (photograped)

✷ RA Exchange Live with Funktion-One audio founder and spiritual leader Tony Andrews.
listen here
✷ Sherelle & NIKs in Conversation  (photograped)

✷ Keynote Interview with Hot Chip 

✷ A Live DJ Masterclass with Courtesy

✷ Heavyweight panels from Spotify, Warchild, EarthPercent Resident Advisor and many more...

RA Exchange: Tony Andrew

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I lead on the delivery of the full AVA Festival 2022 brand and marketing campaign, launching a new festival idendity and international promotion campaign across 9 months. Managing internal and external marketing, content and design teams + media comms, partnerships, advertising and digital sales strategy – exceeding growth, content performance and overall financial goals.

We launched the new idendity during the finale of the 2021 festival, a media first which involved months of art direction to be ready for a live launch. Everything culminated in the most iconic edition of AVA yet – a huge sold-out festival of live music on a stunning new docklands site.

Our media partners were Resident Advisor, The BBC & Boiler Room. We also worked closely with Crack, DJ Mag, Trippin, Mixmag, Nialler9, District... 

There were many viral moments, the most iconic being the Skin On Skin Boiler Room debut. Watch the aftermovie + launch campaign below.

BUILDING A MUSIC & DIGITAL ARTS CONFERENCE 

Curating a music conference was a dream brief for me.  After over two years no IRL events & online panel talk fatigue during the pandemic, it was a unique challenge bringing the London music industry back together in person for the first post-covid event. The format was a day into night Conference & club event, all under one roof at Printworks with over 8,000 attendees.

Focussing on four key themes - Innovation, Diversity, Sustainablity & Post Pandemic we brough a unique mix of speakers & partners into the fold, old friends and some new ones too. It was fun injecting personality, working with old/new friends and leaning on my editorial strengths for the conference programme.

I worked across programming, leading on new sponsorship deals (Patreon, Hennessy) and media partnerships, art direction for the idendity as well as a creative marketing strategy for the full event – in partnership with the very professional Printworks team at Broadwick Live.

There was a panel on the Future of UK Nightlife hosted by DJ Mag, a hybrid interview with Carl Cox, Resident Advisor Exchange live with Elijah, talks and special events curated by Patreon & Hennessy alongside live keynotes from: Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, UK bass mainstays Mala & Kode 9, a AV lecture with Weirdcore, a production masterclass with KiNK and a panel session on The Changing Landscapes of Dance Music hosted by Black Artist Database.  

For more about AVA London:
Website
Full Timetable
Elijah - RA Exchange
Elijah - RA Exchange (video)
Patreon Presents: The New Creative Economy - live
DJ Mag Coverage

After two years hiatus on live events AVA Belfast returned in September 2021 to double in size and deliver a sold-out weekender to over 10,000 people Belfast. The festival went fully outdoor and truly international – full of surprises, guest media appearances and on a production par with some of the best in Europe.

I joined in May 2021 to deliver our first ever sell out campaign, full management of the internal marketing + design team and a fleet of freelancers. It was my debut leading on a project of this nature and scale. 

I devised a new content channel strategy around all our pre & live-event comms, a full channel growth & streaming strategy as well as overseeing all of AVA’s advertising, ticketing and media partner relationships.

This resulted in the most engaging festival campaign ever with a resoundingly positive  response in the international press, placements on BBC One TV, over 12M eyes on the festival through partner channels and AVA being nominated for best UK Festival in the DJ Mag Awards.

You can watch/listen back via Boiler Room + BBC Sounds.

Channel Launch – I planned and delivered the launch of two new channels for the festival (TikTok + Discord) acheiving viral results on our first week.

︎︎︎An Emotional Resonse - AVA in Pictures (RA)
︎︎︎AVA: A Triumphant Return