Event Sales & Business Development Manager - Village Underground & EartH

Type: Full time position, 42.5 hours per week, with some early morning/late evening work.

Salary: From £36,000 dependant upon experience

Start: ASAP

We are looking for an experienced Event Sales & Business Development Manager to increase income generation and develop new business opportunities to maximise Village Underground & EartH’s commercial possibilities, which are critical to financially supporting our artistic vision.

The right candidate will have a creative and entrepreneurial approach to income generation and a track record of proactively targeting new and repeat business, selling venues, production and events, and maximising income from those activities. Additionally they will have successful ‘start up’ experience launching new venues or commercial events departments.

Lastly, the right candidate will have experience in setting up commercial partnerships, an understanding of the world of sponsorship and experience in creating commercial packages.

Roles and Responsibilities:

EartH Commercial Development – ”start up” phase

• Having been open for a few months only, the development and implementation of a commercial events arm, including a sales strategy, systems and processes, for our new venue EartH will be a priority for the post–holder.

Strategy and Development – VU and EartH

• The development of creative and ambitious yearly strategies to achieve and exceed budget figures for each financial year. They’ll focus on increasing the quantity of quality events, partnerships and sponsorship deals and improving the profit margin in events across both businesses.

Venue Sales and Event Management – VU and EartH  

• The post-holder will handle the whole events sales process – from the initial enquiry to the hire confirmation, site visits, up-selling, negotiation, etc.

Financial Strategy and Administration – VU and EartH

• To produce regular sales reports of past and future activities, set budgets and look at ways to improve the overall financial performance of private and branded events.

Required Experience, Abilities and Personal Characteristics

• Experience encompassing event management, venue sales, commercial partnerships, sponsorship and administration.

• Experience of starting up a new venue or commercial events arm, including the strategic and practical on-the-ground sides, as well as financial, technical, legal etc.

• A consistent track record of actively generating new business leads with a strong conversion rate on bookings.

• An ability to shape the events calendar to ensure the optimal balance of commercial gain and artistic programming, handling varied partner’s interests.

• A strong commercial appreciation with effective selling and negotiation skills, including an ability to up-sell.

• Experience of creating and successfully maintaining budgets, with excellent organisational and administrative skills.

• Ability to make continuous improvements to administrative processes.

• Understanding of the many and varied needs of clients and production teams as they work on complicated large scale events.

• Excited about the possibilities of an independent arts organisation and the vital role that the commercial arm plays in delivering high quality arts.

• A creative thinker, able to find solutions to complex problems.

• Willing to work in an unstructured, at times chaotic environment while maintaining a supportive approach.

• A flexible and open communication style with excellent interpersonal skills.

• Dedication to fostering diversity and representation, with a shown ability to work with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

• IT Literacy – MS Office, inc Excel, Word etc.

Desirable Experience, Abilities and Personal Characteristics

• Knowledge of and experience in fundraising from private/philanthropic foundations.

• Knowledge of and experience in dealing with corporate social responsibility contacts.

• Experience working with Photoshop/InDesign.

A Bit About Village Underground & EartH – villageunderground.co.uk | earthackney.co.uk

Village Underground is a multidisciplinary venue presenting live concerts and electronic music events alongside theatre, performing arts and visual arts. Each year, VU has an attendance of over 150,000 people, stages more than 500 performances and works with more than 1500 artists.

EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney) is a multi–arts space for the 21st Century. Programming is broad, global, open and rooted in the highest quality artistic pursuit. We seek to bring together both the leading, rising and other important talents of varied artistic fields under one roof to provide a vital new home for the arts  in London.EartH looks to become a leading light in the city for audiences of all ages and walks of life to meet, listen, watch, dance and enjoy all that artistic endeavour and creativity has to offer.

Both venues play host to commercial events, the revenue of which is put back into the artistic and education programmes.