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.

Ralf Kitzberger is attorney and partner of the German law firm Schickhardt Rechtsanwälte. He studied Law at the University of Konstanz (Germany), Lausanne (Switzerland) and did his Masters in 1994/95 at the Temple University in Philadelphia (USA). Ralf Kitzberger is specialized in entertainment Law and acts on behalf of promoters of music and sport events in fields like negotiation of contract, copyright, trademark etc

Kevin Leider is working at Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH as a project assistant. He started working at DAS FEST in 2015. From 2017 to 2020 he studied event, trade fair and congress management in Heidelberg. Since 2020 he is assistant to the production manager of DAS FEST and is responsible for the production office at DAS FEST.

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.

Tanja Nježićis Secretary General of EXIT, responsible for public affairs, social activities and cooperation with key stakeholders of EXIT Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia), Sea Dance Festival (Budva, Montenegro), Sea Star Festival (Umag, Croatia) and other projects of EXIT team being held worldwide. Tanja has been part of EXIT since 2014. Within the EXIT foundation team, which in the last 10 years has implemented over 100 different projects, campaigns, events and other activities, Tanja worked on projects in the field of youth development, promotion of peace, mental health and wellbeing, creative industries, destination branding and humanitarian work. Some of which are: Aces for kids – humanitarian project for building hospital for kids in Nis, Youth Heroes – which is awarding and promoting the best youth achievers, Share Love – regional campaign for the promotion of tolerance and unity in the Balkans, Conscious R:Evolution committed to evolving collective and individual consciousness, and the latest Life is Live – youth mental health campaign.

Tanja has over 17 years of experience in the field of social responsibility, social activism, relations with institutions and key stakeholders, event management, state administration, corporate activities, consular work, diaspora issues, etc.

Tanja graduated from the Department of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade and defended her master’s degree in International Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade. Tanja is also certified Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Greg Parmley is Managing Director of the International Live Music Conference (ILMC). ILMC is the leading annual conference for the international touring and festival businesses, and the organisation also organises the International Festival Forum (IFF) and other events. Additionally, ILMC publishes IQ, the leading source of news and content for the business read by 100,000 professionals each month. Greg is a co-founder and former CEO of the UK’s umbrella trade association LIVE, and due to one too many pub conversations, he also holds the Guinness World Record for Most Music Festivals Visited in 30 Days.

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.

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“.

Katharina is part of the YOUROPE office in Bonn and can help you with all questions relating to YOUROPE’s various projects.

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.