We round up the latest movements from the ticketing sector and associated industries…
Edinburgh International Festival has announced its first Scottish and first female festival director in its 75-year history.
Nicola Benedetti (pictured) is a violinist and educator, and will be the director designate of the festival until fully assuming the role of festival director on October 1 this year.
Benedetti said: “I am deeply honoured to contribute to the long and rich history of the Edinburgh International Festival and the cultural landscape of Scotland.
“This festival was founded on principles of reconciliation and the ideals of art transcending political and cultural fracture. Following in the footsteps of the wonderful achievements of Fergus Linehan and his predecessors, I will uphold these values and greatly look forward to serving this festival, its mission of cultural exchanges, and the people of Scotland.”
Benedetti is a Grammy and Brit Award-winning violinist and has also been awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2017. In 2019, she also set up The Benedetti Foundation, which has since worked with out 29,000 participants between the ages of two and 92 from 103 different countries.
Benedetti follows on from Linehan, who has had an eight-year tenure as the festival director.
Joe McNeice is set to leave his role as visitor services manager at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
He wrote on LinkedIn: “Something pretty exciting is on the horizon, so I’ve made the difficult decision to leave my role at the Open Air Theatre at the start of what would have been my fourth summer season.”
Wasserman Music has hired two new agents and has promoted a number of staff to the role of agent.
Matt Elam and Sahil Mehta have been appointed by the Los Angeles-headquarted booking agency, while Stephanie Aristakesian, Zach Berkowitz, Alex Guaraldi, Daniel Lee, Leigh Millhauser and Jeff Molek have been promoted to agent.
Elam has joined Wasserman after a decade at WME, where he represented numerous artists including D Smoke, Allen Stone and Hobo Johnson.
Mehta had made the move from Madison House, where he has mostly worked with electronic music artists.
Premier League football club Liverpool has brought in Ben Latty as its new commercial director.
Latty has rejoined the club from Bristol Sport, where he held a board position of group commercial director. Prior to his role in Bristol, Latty had spent eight years at Liverpool where he held a number of positions across the commercial team.
Do you have news of an appointment that we should know about? Get in touch by emailing [email protected] and we’ll include it in our next round-up.
Image: Franz Galo