Dr. Ulrich Blahak is a Senior Scientist at the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), leading the Seamless INtegrated FOrecastiNg sYstem (SINFONY) project since 2017. He holds a PhD in Meteorology from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and has significant international experience, including a six-month stay at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the USA. His expertise spans radar-based precipitation measurement, cloud microphysics, deep convection, and numerical weather prediction (NWP) model development, with a focus on nowcasting and forecasting of severe weather phenomena.

After studying information science and German literature, Lydia Braune found a niche in digital marketing. For almost three years she has been working in the Styleheads conception team, where she develops digital strategies, formats and creative ideas that are both innovative and relevant. With a special focus on GenZ marketing, she combines her pop culture knowledge with a skillset that ranges from creative conception to implementation. Through a holistic approach to projects, she brings a 360° package of skills and know-how – even if she self-ironically admits that 180° of this is her knowledge of pop culture. Her instinct for current trends and the needs of young target groups make her an expert in developing contemporary marketing strategies.

Cindy has more than 20 years of experience in the Music Industry as Manager, Agent and Booker. She has not only developed the carreers of many artists, has been an active part of the festivals since its inception.

Mika Christoffersen is Head of DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) and behaviour at the Roskilde Festival group, working closely with safety to ensure that a more diverse group of people can participate and thrive at live events and festivals. Mika is the lead on Roskilde’s social sustainability work focused diversity leadership and equal access, as well as doing consultancy work with other festivals, venues and live-events to ensure the inclusion and well-being of young people in the cultural industries. Mika Christoffersen has a background in behavioural design, event management and teaching leadership and communications.

Kara Djurhuus is Head of Philanthropy at the Roskilde Festival Group, leading the philanthropic efforts to enhance the wellbeing, influence and engagement of young people to accelerate new ideas for a more sustainable world – from a climate, social and cultural perspective. Kara is spearheading Roskilde Festival’s current focus on UTOPIA as a theme and an approach. Before joining the Roskilde Festival Group in 2019, Kara Djurhuus’ professional career was in International Development working with the UN and the Red Cross across Africa, MENA and Europe.

A journalist for over 20 years, James is IQ Magazine’s Special Projects Editor, overseeing publications such as the European Festival Report, Global Arenas Guide, International Ticketing Report, Global Promoters Report and the Touring Entertainment Report. He is also editor of the Barbican’s monthly Guide magazine, and writes on culture for a variety of national and international publications. As a regular presenter James has appeared at conferences such as the ILMC, Canadian Music Week, MIDEM, and The Great Escape, and appeared on the BBC, France 24, ITV and more. He is former Managing Director of the UK and European Festival Awards.

As President and Chief Operating Officer of Festival Productions, Inc. of New Orleans, Eugenié Jones Encalarde works with one of the country’s most successful entertainment production companies. Her role as senior coordinating producer has gained her experience with some of the world’s foremost, one-of-a-kind, large-scale music events. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The Essence Music Festival, Bayou & Buckeye Country Superfests, NFL Kickoff in Jackson Square, Super Bowl Boulevard, and Presidential Inaugural Celebrations are but a few of the events Encalarde has accomplished. Encalarde’s festival-producing management skills have taken her nationwide and globally.

Dr Beatriz Garcia is an expert in international cultural policy and mega-events, specialising in the development of multidimensional research and evaluation frameworks and the analysis of long-term event legacies. She is Associate Director at the Centre for Cultural Value and Hon. Senior Research Fellow in Major Events & Communication (University of Liverpool); member of the Culture & Olympic Heritage Commission (International Olympic Committee), and former member of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) Selection Panel – nominated by the European Commission.
Beatriz has been at the forefront of research on the rhetoric, impact and long-term legacy of culture-led regeneration interventions since 1999, conducting fieldwork on the cultural dimension of every edition of the Olympic Games since Sydney 2000 and researching the medium to long-term legacy of every European Capital of Culture since the programme’s launch in 1985. She directed and is the author, amongst others, of Impacts 08: European Capital of Culture Research Programme (Uni. Liverpool, 2005-2010), the 30-year assessment of European Capitals of Culture Programme, Success Factors (European Parliament, 2013), the International framework of good practice in research and delivery of ECoCs (European Commission, 2010) the Evaluation of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad (Institute of Cultural Capital, 2013) and What is the Future for Festivals (2022, Salzburg Global Forum). She co-founded and led the Institute of Cultural Capital (2010-2019) and has coordinated the co-creation of the UK’s first commonly agreed Evaluation Principles for Culture (CCV, 2022) which are being tested internationally. In 2024, Beatriz is leading an international pilot study to test the capacity for city & event cultural strategies to align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Culture Next, 2023-2024).
Beatriz has published over 200 refereed papers on the impact of major cultural interventions on cities and delivered keynotes on her areas of expertise in more than forty countries to date. In 2024, she is directing the evaluation of the Paris 2024 Cultural Olympiad for the Games organising committe, is Chair of the International Expert group for the Evaluation of Bodø 2024 European Capital of Culture and Chair of Walk the Plank. See: www.beatrizgarcia.net

Tobias Grimm is Head of Climate Advisory and NatCat Data with Munich Re’s Climate Change Solutions Department. His team is responsible for developing climate related business solutions including data services and advisory within the group division Strategy & Innovation.

Tobias has a long track record as Senior Expert for natural hazards, climate change and renewable energies. From 2020 until 2023, he helped to launch a climate banking project and built up a Greentech sales pipeline for Munich Re of Australia in Sydney. Over many years, he has been Deputy Head of Chief Climate Scientist for the Munich Re Group and contributed a lot to Munich Re’s positioning on climate change.

In 2005, Tobias joined Munich Re. He holds a Master’s degree in geography and applied meteorology from the LMU – University of Munich.”

Prof. Paula Guerra, University of Porto
Paula Guerra is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Porto and Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the same University. Paula is Adjunct Associate Professor of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research in Australia. She is founder/coordinator of the Network All the Arts: Luso-Afro-Brazilian Network of the Sociology of Culture and the Arts. Paula is the founder/coordinator of the KISMIF (kismifconference.com and kismifcommunity.com). Paula is co-coordinator of the Research Network of Sociology of Art of European Sociological Association. She coordinates several research projects subordinated to the youth cultures, sociology of the arts and culture, co-creation, festivals, DIY cultures, among other subjects. She has likewise advised and supervised several Masters, PhD and Post-Doc projects in the aforementioned areas. She is a member of the editorial council of several national and international journals, as well as editor and reviewer of several articles and books on a national and international level. Paula is editor-in-chief (with Andy Bennett) of SAGE journal DIY, Alternative Cultures and Society.

Since 1993, Christof Huber is active in the Live Entertainment business. Since January 2020, Christof Huber is partner of the new formed Gadget abc Entertainment Group Switzerland, one of the biggest live entertainment companies in Switzerland. He is director festivals of the group and responsible for the OpenAir St.Gallen, one of the most important music festivals in Switzerland, Summerdays Festival, Seaside Festival and Unique Moments at the National Museum in Zurich. He also books the Stars in Town Festival. He is board member of Yourope, the European Festival Association since its founding in 1998 and from 2003-2021, he was general secretary of the association. Since 2021, he is working chairman of the association. He is a co-founder of the European initiative Take A Stand which was launched in 2017, a movement within the music industry encouraging social cohesion in our society, promoting awareness and tolerance for all cultures, genders, races, colours and religions.

Michal Kaščák is a musician, promoter, and the founder and director of Pohoda Festival. Starting as a local event with just eight bands in 1997, Pohoda has become the most prestigious festival in Slovakia annually hosting around 120 bands and DJs from more than 20 countries.
Apart from music, other forms of art such as dance, theatre, film, photography, literature and fine arts are all represented at the event, making it a multicultural family-friendly event with a broad range.

Tobias is a physicist by education who turned to the simulation of pedestrian crowds already at the end of his university studies at Karlsruhe and Duisburg-Essen Universities. Since 2007 he is with PTV working as technical product manager for the pedestrian crowds simulation software PTV Viswalk.

Michael Kunz is a meteorologist and head of the working group “Atmospheric Risk” at the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research focuses on severe convective storms, their impacts, the main causes, and potential changes due to climate change. Together with his team, he has developed several hazard and risk models for the insurance market. He also conducts field campaigns on thunderstorm development and hail formation. Michael Kunz is scientific spokesman of the Centre for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM), an interdisciplinary research facility at KIT in the fields of risk, resilience and climate change.
In his talk, he presents some results of thunderstorm and hailstorm research in Germany and Europe. He shows how and under what conditions severe convective storms and their associated phenomena such as hail, convective wind gusts and tornadoes occur – which all pose a major challenge for open-air events. He shows that the transient nature of convective storms limits the predictability of these small-scale weather events. He also provides new insights into the results provided by dedicated field campaigns and storm chasing.

Since 1997, I have been active as a musician with the band Sportfreunde Stiller. Since February 2022, I, along with my bandmates, have been involved in supporting Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s war of aggression. One example of this is our engagement through initiatives like Kultur.Konvoi, where we build networks among cultural creators – including musicians, writers, and actors. Our goal is to create simple opportunities for people to engage in supporting Ukraine. So far, with Kultur Konvoi (https://bamberg-ua.de/en/2024/02/23/hand-in-hand-culture-convoy/), we have delivered 18 ambulances, a mobile hospital, and a mobile clinic to our partners in Ukraine. These vehicles have helped more than 4,000 people to date.
In addition, I organize cultural events where we open digital windows to Ukraine, making the country’s art and culture accessible here in Germany. These events aim to showcase the beauty of Ukrainian culture and counter the dehumanization caused by war images by bringing the people behind the art and their creations to the forefront. The European Festival Summit is a great opportunity to explore new avenues for cooperation, to strengthen our free societies against the threat of fascism.
Example for such a digital window. Topic was the theatre of Mariupol.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itOw1E5Vdk4)

Mariana Macedo (BOOM Festival, PT)
Mariana was born in Lisbon and is passionate about nature, people and travel. She holds a master’s degree in Cultural Management and a degree in Permaculture. Mariana has worked in the area of event production since 2006, in the areas of financial and commercial management and executive production.
She is one of the directors of the cultural organization Good Mood Lda, producer of the Boom Festival event, a project that has proven itself in the sustainability sector and has won international awards in this area in every edition since 2008 (Greener Festival Award, European Festival Award, member of the United Nations Music & Environment Stakeholder Initiative). In addition to the festival, the organization has developed other projects that were born in this area, such as Being Gathering, a medium size festival focused on well being, nature arts and music; the consultancy Balance, which aims to support other entities in making their events more sustainable and with a positive impact, and Boom Bazaar, a marketplace for products and producers that, in order to be included in the platform, must comply with certain sustainability criteria.

After finishing his MA in political science at the Science Po institute, Arnaud decided to get into the diplomacy of music business. Starting out as an electronic music promoter at Pi-Pole, he slowly transitioned into the live music domain and went on to join Nous Productions, where he built his roster and relationships. After six years there and a short one-year stint at FIMALAC, he was tasked by AEG Presents to open their French office in 2018 in the role of managing director. Arnaud has promoted acts across all genres and domains, and has worked with the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Lana Del Rey, David Byrne, Green Day, Tyler The Creator, Taylor Swift, among others. He also books the Parisian Rock en Seine festival.

Urs is one of Europe’s youngest creative heads. He is part of Garden of Youth, a consultancy and marketing agency for & from Gen Z.

Andy Mestka has more than 20 years of experience as a Health & Safety Manager for festivals, football matches and other cultural and sporting events. As Head of Security for the OpenAir Festival St.Gallen, he is also part of the YES Group, the YOUROPE Event Safety Group. He is the appointed Safety & Security Manager for the UEFA Womens EURO 2025 in Switzerland. Having obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Crowd Safety Management at Bucks New University, he also passes on his experience and knowledge as a consultant to security companies, event organizers and authorities.

Mariana Mokrynska – Executive director of the Ukrainian Association of Music Events (UAME) – the biggest organization uniting the representatives of the music industry in Ukraine. Responsible for implementing ecological, inclusive and socially responsible practices at Ukrainian festivals. Also head of Music Saves UA – a humanitarian fundraising initiative created by UAME in order to raise awareness about the situation in Ukraine and to raise fund to provide immediate humanitarian help to Ukrainian civilians by collaborating with international music festivals, conferences organizations and artists.

Mikko Niemelä is CEO and promoter of Ruisrock which is one of the oldest and leading cultural events in Finland established in 1970. The Festival with a capacity of 35 000 daily visitors is known for its magical atmosphere and it takes place in the beautiful island of Ruissalo in Turku. Mikko has been working with Ruisrock since 2006 as a producer, production manager and at his current position as a promoter since 2011. The 45-year-old Mikko lives in Helsinki and besides leading Ruisrock he is also an active DJ and a board member of Yourope.

CEO and Co Founder of international not for profit AGF – A Greener Future (formerly A Greener Festival) and Co Founder of green energy specialists, Grid Faeries. Claire O’Neill is a pioneer in sustainability for the live sector, establishing AGF following her research in 2005. Since then she has worked with the world’s leading events and venues such as HM the Queens Platinum Jubilee Pageant, Glastonbury Festival, The O2, Wembley, BST Hyde Park, UEFA Champions League, ASM Global, AEG, HM the Queens Funeral, and artists such as Bring Me The Horizon and Massive Attack. Claire organises the Green Events & Innovations Conference (GEI) & consults as sustainability expert to industry bodies throughout Europe. Trail blazing best practice including the world’s first Greener Festival Certification, the Green Artist rider with Wasserman Agency now adopted by major artists globally and sparking the Greener Tour division, plus the Greener Arena and Venue Certification. Grid Faeries emerged in 2022 in collaboration with Dale Vince of Ecotricity, to help events to get off diesel by connecting to grid, building new renewables, and providing the world’s first 3MWh battery to be used on a festival. Claire is on the Board of charities In Place of War and Naam Festival, Kenya. Additionally, Claire is an aerialist performing globally from the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony as Mary Poppins, to Arcadia Spectacular’s iconic Spider shows worldwide.

Achim Ostertag is the CEO and one of the founders of SUMMER BREEZE Open Air in Germany.
The metal festival in the South of Germany has been around since 1997 and has grown to be the largest independent metal festival in Europe with an audience of 45.000 metalheads each year. Today, Achim’s company “Silverdust GmbH” consist of a permanent team of around 25 employees working all year round to make sure the next edition of the festival is going to be a blast.

Marta Pallarès is a music journalist from Barcelona with a masters degree in cultural journalism, who has developed a career beyond media to dive into music business. After coordinating the Primavera Sound festival livestream and managing the international comms for the event, she became Head of Press and Institutional Relations in 2023. Marta is also a member of the board of YOUROPE and won the Excellence Award (personality) in the Iberian Festivals Awards 2024.

Starting with the student-organized Lunatic Festival in production and design, Isabel Roudsarabi has never missed an opportunity to get to know the industry better. Among other things, she worked at  MS Dockville and Fuchsbau Festival or as a promoter of acts such as Gurr and The Brian Jonestown Massacre at the Berlin agency Snowhite PR. With her enthusiasm for festivals and good journalism, today, as co-founder and editor-in-chief of Höme – Für Festivals, she tries to map the festival landscape holistically and make it fairer and more innovative. As a co-founder of the fæmm initiative, she also supports women behind and on stage.

Marie Sabot is director of the WE LOVE GREEN festival and associate director of WE LOVE ART. She has been shaking up the contemporary music scene for twenty years. In 2004, Marie founded WE LOVE ART, which in the space of fifteen years has established itself as a major catalyst in the arts and cultural industries. Since 2011, with WE LOVE GREEN Paris, she has been creating a pioneering laboratory committed to eco-responsibility in France. Today, WE LOVE GREEN is recognised as a benchmark for responsible events both in France and abroad.
Marie Sabot is also Vice-Chair of the Festivals Committee of Ekhoscenes, the national union of producers, promoters, festivals and venues for music and variety shows, and a member of the board.

Holger Jan Schmidt (YOUROPE, DE)
Holger is one of Europe’s leading networkers in the music festival branch. Among various topics he has a special focus on sustainability and social responsibility for festivals and events. Holger is General Secretary of YOUROPE – the European Festival Association, the most important representation of European popular music festivals with more than 100 members from 25 European countries. He also leads the pan-European think-tank GO Group (Green Operations Europe) that focuses on sustainability related and environmental issues at events. Holger looks back at 30 years working at festivals including the legendary RhEINKULTUR and Bizarre Festival. Today Holger is a booker, consultant and part of the management teams of various major festivals among those DAS FEST in Karlsruhe and SUPERBLOOM Festival in Munich. Holger is contributing his expertise to various European funded projects such as YOUROPE’s “3F – Future-Fit Festivals” (Creative Europe). He is co-author of the book „stay SOUND & CHECK yourself“ dealing with stress and mental health in the live music, festival and event industry and co-wrote the „Sounds For Nature guidelines for environmentally friendly events“.

Lea Stöver, Head of Creative Europe Desk KULTUR (CED KULTUR) based in Bonn since 2018. Together with her team, Lea supports cultural organisations and individually in understanding and applying for EU funding. The CED KULTUR is the national contact point for the EU funding programme for Culture, Creative Europe Culture. Lea studied social anthropology and German language and literature in Münster, Göttingen and Paris. In terms of music festivals she is rather a late comer and only lately discovered the benefits of smaller festivals in the region.

York is an AI veteran with about 25 years of experience in the field from completing a PhD, working for a large software company to being a full professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). When York was much younger he made a living by working on music festivals including DAS FEST and the SWR3 New Pop Festival. Besides being a data nerd he loves playing guitar.”

Linnea Vågen Svensson (Greener Events, NO)
Linnéa is a project manager and sustainability consultant working in the event industry with cultural, social and sporting events. She project managed and wrote the Green Roadmap for Cultural Institutions for the Nordic Council of Ministers, as well as project manage the European Festival Green Roadmap 2030 and is the author/co-author of multiple practical guides in sustainability for culture, festivals and sporting events. She is one of the co-founders of Green Operations Europe and holds several board positions in the Norwegian music industry. Through non-profit foundations, and her own company, Konglomerat/Greener Events, she now works full-time to make the Norwegian culture, nightlife and event industry greener. Linnéa gives consultancy within project management and sustainability for organizers of cultural and sporting events, translating sustainability policies into concrete actions, creating tools and implementing best practices for businesses and public organizations alike.

Eric, also known as Mr. Lowlands, is an archetype festival director. He brings to the job a vast amount of experience and a familiarity with the challenges that are part of the handling of a large scale music event. At the same time he maintains an awareness of both the ups and the downs experienced by both artists and audiences. Over decades Lowlands has contributed to the modern DNA of music festivals and paved the way for other, younger festivals. Mojo Concerts promotes about 200 shows a year, about a dozen major festivals (e.g. A Campingflight to Lowlands Paradise, North Sea Jazz Festival, Pinkpop, Down The Rabbit Hole) and books about 2500 clubshows per year in the Netherlands. https://lowlands.nl/

As CTO of AppSphere AG, Daniel leads the consulting and software development divisions and is responsible for the IT service provider’s portfolio. With his passion for new technologies and innovations, he leverages his expertise in digitalization and AI to successfully guide organizations through digital transformation. Daniel developed an appreciation for festival work, both in organizing and on-site roles, at a younger age. He is a fan of Progressive Rock! 🤘

Maike Vossen is part of the Federal Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Bund) at the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). As a computer scientist who also trained as an event manager before her studies, she has been working on IT security for events for several years. For example, she supported the security planning of the G7 summit in Elmau and the UEFA Euro 2024 on behalf of the BSI and was the BSI liaison officer at the International Police Coordination Center 2024 in Neuss.

As a cabaret artist, actor, presenter, journalist and stadium announcer for Karlsruhe SC, Martin Wacker is a true Karlsruhe original. His public presence and deep connection to his home city made him the first choice for a new start in 2009, when the Karlsruhe music festival DAS FEST was about to come to an end – and it was successful. As Managing Director of DAS FEST (first DAS FEST GmbH, later KEG Karlsruhe Event GmbH, since 2018 KME Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH), Martin Wacker and his team, many of whom have also been on board for years or even decades, have turned the Karlsruhe summer highlight into the largest family festival in southern Germany – while always preserving the unique character of DAS FEST. Despite difficult situations, rising costs, strict security and technical requirements, DAS FEST is still THE festival for everyone, with its large free area, favourable ticket prices for the main stage and international stars of distinction, which it has been since its first edition in 1985.
As an excellent networker in the city and region, Martin Wacker has successfully organised numerous other festivals in Karlsruhe, including in a broader sense, and helped the city gain nationwide recognition. As project manager, he was responsible for the 2015 festival summer to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the city of Karlsruhe with around 600 events and over one million visitors. This unique, one-hundred-day spectacle gave rise to the SCHLOSSLICHTSPIELE Karlsruhe, which continues to be a summer highlight every summer with impressive media art shows that shine far beyond the region and have contributed to Karlsruhe being the first German city to hold the title of UNESCO City of Media Arts since 2019.
Martin Wacker sees the city as a stage and recognised early on the importance that small and large festivals have for the vibrancy of a city. The fact that this approach is the right one is borne out (not only) by the 250,000 or so people who celebrate DAS FEST in Karlsruhe’s Günther-Klotz-Anlage every summer. Preparations for the 2025 edition, which will take place from 24 to 27 July, are already in full swing.

Markus Wiersch is deputy CEO at the Karlsruhe Marketing and Event GmbH. In 2000 he specialized in the planning and coordination of security structures and activities at major events. Markus is an Active member since 2004 of the YES Group (Yourope Event Safety Group). Since 2007 he is responsible for the planning and implementation of the Health and Safety concepts for major events of the city of Karlsruhe. Since 2010 he is the project manager of DAS FEST Karlsruhe. 

Programming director of the biggest music festival in Ukraine – Atlas Festival (600k+ visitors in 2021). Partnership manager at the Music Saves UA initiative established by the Ukrainian Association of Music Events (UAME). Its main goal is to provide humanitarian help to civilians in Ukraine – evacuation, humanitarian supplies, heating/charging points and rebuilding. We harness the power of music and unity by collaborating with festivals, artistsand music organizations worldwide. We help book Ukrainian artists, build special locations at festivals, create fundraising campaigns and find other ways to raise money and awareness via the world of music in order to save lives.

Mikolaj Ziółkowski is founder and director of Alter Art, the promoter of Poland’s biggest festival Open’er.