MEA Webinar: The Impact of COVID-19 on Australia's Major Events

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by surprise and has placed all aspects of society under great strain. Cities around the world and organisations involved in the hosting of national and international major events have been severely affected including those in Australia.

In order to understand how they have been coping with the current crises and what they expect to happen in the coming weeks and months, MEA has convened a panel of major event specialists to provide their insights.

Expertly facilitated by Peter Jones AM of Peter Jones Special Events, this session will cover topics such as:

• Key insights about current sentiment regarding the future of major events
• How COVID-19 is forcing cities to re-think their major event strategies
• How major events are a great platform to bring people back together
• How cities are finding new ways of engaging with their populations through major events

Our expert panellists are from VIVID Sydney, the Australian Football League (AFL), Victoria Racing Club (VRC) and Visit Victoria Major Events and will share first-hand their insights as they all navigate this challenging period.

MEET OUR PANEL 

Caroline Ralphsmith (Ralph)

Caroline Ralphsmith (Ralph) was appointed to the VRC executive team in October 2015. Her role oversees a number of areas of the business including Membership, Customer Service, Customer Experience, Marketing & Brand, PR, Events & Entertainment, Tourism & Government relations, Digital, Customer Strategy & Analytics and Food & Beverage.

Ralph is passionate about innovation, creativity in business and collaboration as a pathway to achieving excellence. Ralph’s current focus is ensuring Flemington grows its reputation as a world class event precinct and that the Melbourne Cup Carnival maintains, and further enhances, its status as one the world’s most successful major events.

Julie Turpie

Julie Turpie has more than 30 years’ experience in major event attraction and event management with proven expertise in brand strategy and management, tourism and destination marketing, business development, communications and design, sponsorship and commercial partnerships.

Julie joined Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency in January 2017. As Acting General Manager, Event Development, Julie leads the development and execution of the approved NSW Events Calendar signature to ensure Destination NSW maximises the return for NSW from investment in events. As Executive Producer, Vivid Sydney, Julie is also responsible for delivering the largest festival of Light, Music and Ideas in the Southern Hemisphere. Previous roles include Director Commercial and Marketing Services at Sydney Living Museums and Director Major Events & City Marketing at Brisbane Marketing.

Rowena Stokes

Rowena Stokes has been in the AFL Industry for over 14 years. After having started her career as an AFL Sportsready Trainee, Rowena now leads the AFL Events and Match Day Production department.

Across both AFL and AFLW Rowena and her team manage events throughout the country ranging from the Brownlow Medal, on-field entertainment and activations to the Draft and everything in between. This year saw Rowena relocate to the Gold Coast to run the AFL High Performance Centres before finishing the Season with the first ever Grand Final at the Gabba.

Damian de Bohun

Damien de Bohun is Director, Major Events at Visit Victoria. Since 2016, Damien has led Victoria’s work to continue claiming the biggest and best major events. Some of the highlights in Damien’s tenure include securing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Princess Theatre exclusively, the ICC Men’s and Women’s T20 World Cup Cricket Finals, USA Dream Team vs Australian Boomers basketball, and the Australian premiere of Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

Before joining Visit Victoria, he was the Head of the Hyundai A-League where he led the transformation of the competition, charged with securing its place in the mainstream of Australian sport. As the A-League’s longest serving and most successful chief, Damien was also responsible for the growth of Westfield Women’s League (W-League), and the establishment of the FFA Cup during this time.

EVENT INFORMATION

Please Note: Registrations for this webinar will close on Wednesday 9 December, 11.55pm AEDT. The link to access the webinar and any further information will be shared with all registered attendees at 9am AEDT on Thursday, 10 December. For late registrations, please contact cwatson@mea.org.au. 

Alternatively, this webinar will be recorded and available to view on-demand on MEATV. 

Pricing: FREE for MEA Members, $25* for Non-Members

*Cost per view

Please note: Upon successfully registering, you will receive a confirmation email to your nominated email address. Please wait up to 15 minutes for this to arrive before attempting to register again, or check your junk/spam inboxes.