Festicket hires Ed Walsh as commercial director

Music festival experience platform Festicket has announced Ed Walsh as its new strategic commercial director.

Walsh joins Festicket after more than two years as music account director at Eventbrite, where he worked closely alongside the company’s biggest clients, including the MJR Group and clubbing brand Elrow. Prior to joining Eventbrite, he worked at Broadwick Live, NVS Music Group (Outlook, Dimensions, Sunfall) and Mainstage Travel (Snowboxx, Kala).

“I think it is a really exciting time to be working with Festicket and Event Genius,” says Walsh. “Having a complete 360-degree product set is something I think is going to be a game changer in the ticketing space, and I really want to be part of helping the team fulfil that potential.”

Festicket, a marketplace for music festival travel packages, acquired ticketing and cashless payments platform Event Genius and its consumer-facing brand, Ticket Arena, in August. The combined company incorporates “end-to-end” solutions for ticketing, accommodation, travel and packages, marketing, data insights and analytics, access control, point of sale/cashless payments and fan-engagement tools.

“I really want to be part of helping the team fulfil that potential”

Yonas Blay, CCO of Festicket, comments: “We cast our net far and wide to find the absolute best candidate possible for the role. With a real focus moving forwards on our new end-to-end solution, we wanted to find someone with experience on both sides of the fence to help us deliver our unique offering to the industry.

“We were excited to hear Ed was interested by the opportunity and are thrilled to welcome him to the team.”

“The role is a natural fit for my skillset and experience,” Walsh adds. “Having previously worked on the promoter side of the industry, I feel I have a unique outlook that I can bring to the business.

“When I learned about the acquisition I thought it was a bold move. There is certainly room for disruption in the ticketing sector at the moment, and the product we have here is ready to lead that.”

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