Ben Akroyd

Lead Consultant Arena Consultancy

An award-winning event director specializing in the strategic planning and execution of large format events to engage and excite an audience. With a strong reputation and industry knowledge to identify and select the best partners to enhance the planning process, mitigate risk and exceed audience expectations whilst managing multiple projects simultaneously and leading multidisciplinary teams.

Beyond his 17 years’ experience of live event management, Ben has spent the past three years delivering international esports tournament as offline live finals with pre event online qualifiers. He is responsible for leading the financial planning, concept development, supplier selection and procurement and event execution. With strong experience of leading teams at all stages of a live event project including development of project planning and resource identification and selection. Ben has experience working with technical broadcast directors to ensure that site venue selection provides the technical infrastructure to allow for esports event hosting including network connectivity within the chosen venue.

Speaker Sessions

Day 1: Tuesday 20th July	Opening Session: Esports Business Behind the Scenes for Venues & Destinations (LIVE panel) SESSION SPONSORED BY From an esports lead sales to loading in the production, pro player expectations and receiving thousands of fans to your venue operations, unravel the mystery of what the world of esports events looks like from an expert insider's perspective through this highly informative panel discussion. Kim Meltzer , Floris Looij , Neil Johnson , Jean Butler , Ellen Dekker , Ben Akroyd : 14:00-15:00 Session 3: Understanding the expectations of the Esports Buyer (LIVE Q&A) SESSION SPONSORED BY Esports Buyers are not who you think they are...welcome to video gaming leads coming from production coordinators, publishing event directors and brand marketing executives along with tournament organizers looking to bring their game, or community together under one roof. Learn from expert "Esports Buyers," who organize global events for professional level esports tournaments. They will tell their side of the story as to what they are looking for in a destination and venue. Christoffer Melin , Devin Murphy , Kim Meltzer , Ben Akroyd : 16:30-17:30
Day 3: Thursday 22nd July	Session 8: Building your esports Broadcasting and Production Infrastructure– the do’s and the don’ts! (LIVE panel) SESSION SPONSORED BY Esports offers a unique opportunity to reach a much larger audience than for your traditional events and with the right content you can quickly build your reputation and legitimacy with your local gaming community. This in-depth discussion will discuss the essential steps needed (and mistakes to avoid!) to ensure you can deliver the highest production values when creating and sharing live esports content, including how connectivity is key! Ben Akroyd , Mark Hempel , Andrew Haworth , Jonathan Lyth , Daan van der Wiele : 15:45-16:45 Session 9: Fireside Chat-True Confessions-Venues share it all! (LIVE panel) SESSION SPONSORED BY Listen in to current and former hospitality and venue sales/operations executives who tell all in their experience when they hosted their first esports event! True stories of their first impression, crazy interactions and what they learned after it was all said and done. Not to be missed! Ben Akroyd , Kim Meltzer , Matt Wilson , Floris Looij , Jean Butler , Ellen Dekker , Brian Mirakian (Guest Moderator) : 17:00-18:00