Cultivate

Jackie Antas, General Manager, Communications for Ticketmaster/Live Nation Australia and New Zealand is an esteemed PR and Communications professional with 20 years experience in the UK, Europe and Australia specialising in entertainment, technology and consumer brands.

Jackie recently returned home to Melbourne, Australia after spending the last 13 years living and working in the UK with seven of those years spent at Live Nation Entertainment in London.

Her roles at Live Nation have included Vice President, Communications for Ticketmaster/Live Nation, managing the corporate communications for 21 countries across UK, Europe and Australasia, as well as Marketing Partnerships Manager for the Academy Music Group venues – delivering some of the biggest marketing partnerships in the UK with brands such as O2 and Carlsberg.

Jackie’s background prior to this was in PR agency land. In London, she worked for five years at Borkowski PR delivering integrated public relations campaigns and media relations programs for a range of high profile brand such as Virgin Media, Virgin Megastores, V Festival, Sony and Harrods. In Australia, her first job in PR was with Clemenger Harvie Edge’s The PR Edge working with Sensis White Pages and Nando’s.

Maria Amato is the General Manager and CFO of the Australian Independent Record Labels Association has worked in the Arts and not-for-profit sector for over 25 years specialising in finance and business management through her own consultancy firm, Results Management. She is currently a director of the Australian Institute of Music, and Chair of its Creative Industry Advisory Board. Maria is also an Anchor board member for Reeperbahn and has held former positions as CEO/CFO of the Melbourne International Film Festival and board member/treasurer of Music Victoria.

Bonnie Dalton is the General Manager of the brand new Victorian Music Development Office, where she will be responsible for working with artists and the businesses that support them, to foster sustainable music industry careers and partnering with music organisations and businesses. Prior to the VMDO, Bonnie worked predominantly as an artist manager but also across events, production, and programming. A recipient of the Lighthouse Award for management, she has previously worked with Little Red, The Vasco Era and more recently Ali Barter and Oscar Dawson. She was the producer of the Melbourne St Jerome’s Laneway Festival for ten years, worked in senior management at Falls Festival and has programmed line-ups at a range of festivals and events from Low Light, Queenscliff to Melbourne’s House of Vans.

Fiona Duncan has 28 years’ experience at the forefront of music primarily as an artist manager, also having worked as a tour manager, publicist, musician mentor, tour coordinator, event coordinator Big Day Out, radio announcer 3RRR and announcer and sponsorship for 3PBS, as well as a current member of the Assessment Panel team for Creative Victoria’s Music Works program and a member of Music Victoria’s Women’s Advisory Panel. She has worked with artists such as Nirvana, Beastie Boys, Nick Cave, Beck, Cosmic Psychos and Henry Rollins. For 25 years Fiona has managed a number of different bands the primary one being Spiderbait, throughout a career that has seen them voted the first ever Australian band to win Triple J’s Hottest 100, multiple ARIA Awards, a number 1 single, multiple Multi-Platinum top 10 albums, International tours, songs licensed in Hollywood films, TV shows and advertising campaigns. Career highlight is managing a band that are still together after 27 years with their original line-up and are still playing sold out shows, can live off their music and are loving it. Fiona is currently the Arts Events Officer for the City of Greater Geelong and is a member of the Live Music Roundtable.

Dr Catherine Strong is a Senior Lecturer in the Music Industry program at RMIT University. She has done extensive work on gender in the music industry, with a particular focus on the Australian context. As part of this work, she produced a report on gender issues for screen composers in Australia for APRA AMCOS in 2017. She is also a member of the Music Victoria Women’s Advisory Board.