Victorian Festival Professional Directory

Selected experience:

– Falls Festival / Operations Manager, Staff & Volunteer Coordinator, Event Consultant
– Nightjar Festival / Operations Manager
– Melbourne Food & Wine Festival / Staff & Volunteer Coordinator
– Sustainable Living Festival / Stage Manager

Architects of Entertainment (AoE) is an event production agency, delivering festival brands and artists to audiences, event plans and operations to internal stakeholders and unique, safe and accessible spaces to patrons.

For 25 years AoE founders Haydn Johnston and Nathaniel Holmes have lived and breathed live music, touring, production and events.

In 2015 they decided to consolidate their combined experience, IP and client base to form a company.

Five years later and now with over 200 shows delivered under the AoE banner, AoE are a team of five full-time staff, 200 contractors and more than 1,000 suppliers, all working in concert to deliver in excess of 30 show days a year.

Operating domestically and internationally, AoE has the capacity to manage, staff and deliver multiple festival departments simultaneously, delivering shows to spec and on-budget, no matter how tight the deadline.

Selected experience:

– Splendour In The Grass / Production Management
– Triple J’s One Night Stand / Production Management
– St Jerome’s Laneway Festival / Production Management
– Lost Paradise / Event Management, Site Management, Production Management, Event and Set Design
– Fairgrounds Festival / Event Management, Site Management, Production Management, Event and Set Design

BKA Events specialise in delivering engaging live events. While this is what we are best known for, we are passionate about delivering services that are flexible, innovative and customer centric. As such we are pleased to include virtual and hybrid events in our service offering.

Managing the total event experience, our team are hand picked for your event to deliver a tailored, seamless and interconnected experience for both in-person and virtual attendees.

We service various clients from a range of industries.

www.bkaevents.com.au

10+ years experience in creative production, performance art, media, writing, organising, administration, arts management ++. Recent projects include:
– Directing and producing world’s first Fringe Festival in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
– Producing multiple shows for LGBTQIA disabled artist collective Quippings
– Producing Secret Society themed Alternate Reality Game (ARG) for The Village Festival
– Producing, performing, writing stage magic + storytelling + social justice show Queer Lady Magician
– Volunteer management for Freeplay Independent Games Festival
– and more!

Skills: Advocacy, diversity & inclusion & equity (gender, race, sexuality, cultural diversity, immigration status, disability), digital media, producing, stage management, production management, media writing, community engagement, research, artistic direction, administration, bookkeeping

IMAG SERVICES – LED SCREENS – BROADCASTING & STREAMING SERVICES – PROJECTION – PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

Experienced stage manager, stage technician, artist liaison and first aider.

Event Producer with over a decade of experience working in festivals, events and advertising.
Major roles/produced projects with: Dark Mofo, London 2012 Olympics (for Coca-Cola), Melbourne Writer’s Festival, BBC, Renault, AGP, PUMA, Adidas, The Times London Film Festival, Lake of Stars Festival and various roles across a wide variety of brand events, corporate conferences/dinners and festivals.
I also run a performer booking agency for on and off stage spectacle with clients including The Pleasure Garden, Dark Mofo, Lost Lands festival, various councils, Chi Wow Wah Town amongst others.

Selected experience:

– Fringe Festival / Online performances with ‘The Real Hot Bitches’, ‘The Dollar Bin Darlings’ and ‘Gumboot Theatre’ October 2020
– Seven Sisters Festival / Accommodation Assistant March 2020
– Unify Gathering / Wristband Attendant January 2020
– Moomba Festival / Assistant Stage Manager for Parade (Sectional) and Staff services March 2014-2020 (no parade in 2021)

Experienced senior festival professional.

Selected past experience:
– Secret Garden Festival / Artist Liaison Manager + General Manager
– Falls Festival / Sponsor build (worked for an agency)
– Big Day Out / Commercial Rights Manager
– Ponderosa Stomp / Festival Manager
– SXSW / Stage Manager

Elizabeth Dawson-smith is a director, choreographer, performer, song/script writer and event producer, specialising in unique audience experiences that are both immersive and memorable. With a First Class Honours accreditation in nineteenth century burlesque traditions (2014), Elizabeth has made her mark on the vaudeville, cabaret and burlesque circuit, with two Green Room Award nominations (2012/15), ‘Best Dance’/‘Best Cabaret’ weekly awards (Adelaide Fringe 2020/21), a Fields Award nomination for her ‘Contribution to Australian Vaudeville’ (2015) and act direction for the winning entries of Miss Burlesque Australia 2014 (Zelia Rose) and Mr Boylesque Australia 2015 (Egson Ham).

Currently Elizabeth works with artists as a director, choreographer and dramaturg for live works across a range of genres, and produces seasoned works, films and boutique entertainment for the avante-showgirl company, Miss Friby (www.missfriby.com.au).

Miss Friby’s shows and acts have been highly regarded amongst numerous festivals including Woodford Folk Festival (2014), Splendour in the Grass (2014/15) and Falls Festival (2013-16) as well as high end theatre venues such as the National Gallery of Victoria (2012) and the World Famous Spiegeltent (2009). the company has received high acclaim amongst the dance community (featured in the ‘Immersed Dance Industry Gala’ 2013/14), invited to present alongside top international clowns at ‘So You Think You Can Clown’ (Comedy Festival Hub 2012), awarded a ‘Best Cabaret’ weekly award at Adelaide Fringe (2021) and was even featured as a finalist on Channel Nine’s ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ (2013).

Elizabeth is a creative producer that can seamlessly integrate her multifarious creative skills with her impeccable track record as a project manager and producer. For more information visit www.elizabethdawsonsmith.com.au.

Experienced Artist Liaison, Stage Manager, Tour Manager, Driver/Runner, and Event Operations, DJ (DJ Relaxative), Programmer/Curator and talent agent (Rancho Relaxo).