“Technology is giving me the ick… where are all the thinkers?”

– FKA twigs, AVA London 2025

Emphasising contemporary culture, visual arts and the international music community, the 2025 conference programme was our boldest to date – featuring industry forums and exciting new partnerships.

I led on conference programming, the festival campaign, brand + media partners, and the visual identity across all facets of AVA London.

This year also saw the return of two major community-led projects: AVA Forum and the AVA Creator’s Forum. AVA Forum is an international summit for independent festival organisers, designed to create a safe space to address the most pressing issues facing the industry.

The AVA Creator’s Forum is a talent development programme for young people and emerging music producers, delivered in partnership with pointblank Music School. In 2025, it returned as a week-long programme coinciding with AVA London. I directed the strategy and development of both projects, working closely with key stakeholders to ensure their impact.

Highlights

✼ FKA twigs headlining the RA Exchange Live at the British Library at the start of her global Eusexua album campaign & tour -  watch here ✼

✼ Underworld’s keynote interview.

✼ Ryoji Ikeda live A/V performance at HERE at Outernet. Global debut of Marcell Dettmann’s ‘My Own Shadow’ Live – sold out show. Erika de Casier, Mechatok + Kojaque live at EartH Hackney. 

✼ Trippin hosting a panel titled curating contemporary culture, global music and micro trends co: programmed featuring speakers from Barbican, Serpentine, ICA London and House of Dread.

✼ 'Re-Queering Dancefloors' bringing back this talk as a diverse keynote panel hosted by Munroe Bergdorf. 

✼ Bringing Lorenzo Senni’s 4-hour masterclass “The Architecture of Intensity” to The British Library. 

✼ MUBI coming on board to host a keynote about music & film with Raffertie (The Substance), Lucy Bright (Aftersun) & Naqqash Khalid (director, In Camera)

✼ No Tags Podcast live with Special Request.

✼ Lectures, Talks & Masterclasses from Jarvis Cocker, Marcell Dettmann, NONOTAK, HorsegiirL & many more.

For AVA’s 11th edition, I led the marketing and partnerships team through our biggest festival campaign to date – delivering a bold new brand identity, new stage partnerships and the most ambitious programme of community initiatives yet.

Highlights:

• Festival fully sold out.
  
• New brand identity and live visual show themed “Unity” with Pitch Studios.
  
• Launched The Dock – a filmed stage partnership with Resident Advisor.
  
• Raised £15k+ for charity via EarthPercent.
  
• Curated a community-focused conference and bespoke fashion collaboration with Pellador.
  
• Activated standout brand experiences across Belfast with new local partner

AVA London 2024 took a new format over five iconic central London venues: The British Library, The Standard, KOKO, The House of KOKO & HERE at Outernet ✼

Emphasising lectures, digital arts, culture & the international music community, the conference programme was our biggest and boldest and most independent. I curated the conference programme including lectures, masterclasses, music workshops and hot topic panels with speakers like: Brian Eno, Charli XCX, Grace Ladoja, Laurent Garnier, Resident Advisor, Trippin, TraTraTrax, XL Recordings, United Visual Artists, TikTok, It’s Nice That, Pitch Studios, XL Recordings, Sónar, Primavera, Mutek, British Council & more...

We presented two large live club events, and a live-multimedia showcase of audiovisual work from Pitch Studios alongside an amazing line up of world-class DJs at HERE at Outernet. I led on the marketing capaign, partnerships and and brand identity across all facets of AVA London. 

We also debuted two large new community-led projects this year, AVA Forum – and the AVA Creator’s Forum. AVA Forum is an international summit for independent festival organisers, with the aim of creating a safe space to discuss the most pressing issues internationally. 

The AVA Creator’s Forum is an Arts Council supported talent development programme aimed at young people and emerging music producers. This debuted as a two week progrmame coindiding with AVA London. I led on both of these projects internally, from strategy development to partnerships, hiring and management of external project managers ensuring a successful launch in Y1. This was a dream project. 

Highlights

✼ Charli XCX headlining the RA Exchange Live at the British Library.

✼ Elijah's lecture: "If you love music, you should learn how to DJ" at KOKO Theare.

✼ Brian Eno in deep conversation with Canadian guitarist Donna Grantis, about what music can do for the planet at the British Library.  Followed by Donna Grantis’ intimate live Guitar performance at KOKO, a first for AVA London. 

✼ Matt Clark from United Visual Artists presenting a visual lecture titled 'Other Spaces' guiding us through a compelling 20-year journey of UVA's art practice.

✼ Trippin hosted two panel talks that I curated, on contemporary culture, global music and micro trends Ft: DJ Lomalinda from Colombia, Romana from Belo Horizonte, Derek from Nyege Nyege festival in Uganda & the inimitable Paul-Simon Geddis from Sónar.

✼ 'Re-Queering Dancefloors' for this talk a diverse panel will discuss the ins-and-outs of organising parties–for queer people, by queer people ft. Alex Nikolov, Romana & Cass O'Grady.

PITCH STUDIOS™ and It's Nice That talking visual identities and taking an empathetic approach to art and design. I worked closely with Pitch on both of AVA's visual identities this year, they've nailed it – and to celebrate will debut a live visuals show at Outernet.

✼Laurent Garnier x Séamas O'Reilly
✼ Grace Ladoja x Tara Kumar
✼ Kenya Grace x TikTok
✼ Will Aspden (XL Recordings) x Emerald
✼ 25 years of fabric

In 2024, AVA celebrated AVA 10.

For the milestone festival edition, I led marketing & partnerships team through our biggest ever festival campaign. This included comissioning an brand identity redesign, leading the development of a new website, bringing in new media and charity partnerships alongside more community led initiatives than ever before.

Highlights ︎

︎︎︎ Exceeding our festival ticket sales targets
︎︎︎ Development of a new festival identity around the theme: “unity” with Pitch Studios
︎︎︎ Art directing all touchpoints of the #AVA10 campaign
︎︎︎ Raising over £15k in charity funds with EarthPercent
︎︎︎ Running a huge 10-year anniversary broadcast with Boiler Room
︎︎︎ Leading a six-month website dev project with Plinth Media
︎︎︎ Collaborating with Seanchoíche on a special storytelling event in Titanic Pumphouse in Belfast
︎︎︎ Curating a community conference at Titanic Museum ft: David Holmes, Special Request, Resident Advisor, BBC + DJ workshop with Bitter Babe
︎︎︎ Elevating th AVA Mix series to a monthly edition with entries from Kerri Chandler, Surusinghe, Shampain & more
︎︎︎ Collaborating with Apple Music on a new audio series
︎︎︎ Taking over Bittles Bar in Belfast with a custom display & AVA pint glasses
︎︎︎ Creating a bespoke run of limited edition t- shirts with Irish fashion designer Robyn Lynch
︎︎︎Launching AVA’s first ever AR Filter on Instagram w/ Pitch Studios

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.