Nick Tuppen

CEO, Threshold Sports

Opportunities and Challenges: Nick leads the team at multi-award-winning events agency Threshold Sports. Threshold Sports are responsible for delivering some of the UK's most popular endurance challenges. Whether it be the UK's largest Ultra, Race to the Stones, or the iconic 9-day, 970-mile Ride Across Britain the team prides itself on making seemingly inaccessible challenges accessible to anyone with the courage to sign up. Nick discussed the many opportunities and challenges facing events in a post-COVID world as well as sharing some of the lessons he has learned from a job that can see him pitching to CEOs in the City one day and re-stocking loo rolls in a windswept field the next.

Alexander Novicov

CEO, Author, Ultra Runner, Way Boutique

How to inspire runners to sign up to your races: Alexander Novicov is an ultra-runner, CEO at Way Boutique Agency and author of Not Another Pair of Shoes. Drawing on his marketing and running experience, in his presentation, Alex described three strategies that can increase race registration numbers by using creative content and emotional storytelling. These enabled you to execute and create new content that will differentiate your race from others by standing out. The goal is to understand two different audiences and how you can inspire them to sign up for your race by focusing on the end result and not the product.

Martin Stone

Managing Director, SiEntries and SPORTident

Entries, Data and Trends: Martin is a mountain and fell running legend. He also organised the famous Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon for twenty-five years until 2018. SPORTident is the leading timing solution for orienteering, fellrunning, MTB Enduro and challenge events. However, his unique insights come from his parallel business SiEntries, which is one of the UK's biggest online entry platforms supporting thousands of events and a vast data set on entry behaviour and patterns. Using anonymised data from SiEntries, Martin is uniquely placed to comment on wider trends in the industry. During times when some events are finding it a challenge to maintain numbers, how do you keep your customers loyal? Martin will offer some personal thoughts and anecdotes on this topic, which don’t put the entire responsibility on social media! This promises to be a fascinating presentation.

James Thurlow

Managing Director, Open Tracking

After the Incident: James Thurlow has 16 years of experience putting on Adventure Sports events, the Event Director for well over 100 events.  He has also run Event Control for Thresholds London Revolution and Ride Across Britain sportives over 5 years. James now runs Open Tracking which supports over 100 event organisers here in the UK and overseas with live tracking and incident management tools. In this session, James will cover his own personal experience of his own events following life-changing accidents. Less about the immediate response and more about managing an ongoing event, working with the police, media, participant’s family, and event staff, and how he personally coped with these very difficult situations.

Bana Gora

CEO, Muslim Women's Council

Mel Steventon

Director,  Due North Events

Connecting with Communities: Bana Gora and Mel Steventon have together been exploring the barriers faced by minority groups when they wish to take part in adventure sports activities. Mel & Bana will describe the importance of outdoor activity for ethnic minority groups such as South Asian communities, and how event organisers may be able to help increase event participation. Bana founded the Muslim Women's Council in 2009 and Mel Steventon is the owner of Due North Events organising trail running events such as The Yorkshire Trod, as well as leading community/charity groups on introduction to outdoor activity programs.

Craig Jones

Chair, Welsh Fell Runners Association

Industry Update: Protect Duty: Craig is a lifelong fellrunner, along with some occasional cycling and caving; with a general interest in the outdoors and ecology.  He has been Chairman of the WFRA since 2015, and is a broadly experienced organiser of not-for-profit races for 20+ years, including organising the British Fell Relay.  He has a diploma in Event Safety Management. Professionally, Craig has 30 years of experience as a Police Officer, with 12 years specialising in operational planning, major incident planning, multi-agency response coordination, Disaster Victim investigations and all matters that fall under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. He currently serves as a Counter Terrorism Security Advisor. Craig will give an overview of the planned new Protect Duty legislation known as Martyn's Law, and what the implications might be for event organisers.

Steve Ashworth

Freelance Event Photography and Film, LINK

The Perfect Picture: Steve Ashworth is a renowned photographer and videographer based in the Lake District. He has captured eye-popping action and breathtaking vistas from events around the world. Working with many different event organisers he has helped them to capture the atmosphere and emotion of their events in photography and film. An expert in both film and still mediums, Steve brings a multimedia approach to his work documenting events, capturing athletes in action and creating personality for brands in the outdoors. If you’d like an insight into bringing your event to life, Steve has years of experience to share with the conference.