Jon Walsh

Jon Walsh is a co-founder and director of Kambe Events and the award winning UK festival Shambala. Kambe is a leading light in both the independent festival sector and sustainable event productions.

Jon himself has been working in the music and events industry in various forms for 25 years. From running gigs in his teenage years to setting up record shops, touring with bands, curating shows, promoting and producing large scale events, he is well positioned to provide interetsing insight. He has been involved in many successful start ups, developing several enterprises into viable multi-million pound businesses.

His career in the music industry is underpinned by further diverse entrepreneurial and philanthropic achievements. Jon’s background includes work in East Africa with non-governmental organisations, charity sector formations and trusteeships and commercial success in fields as diverse as retail and construction.

Most recently, he has established a tech start up providing blockchain based applications to events and their communities, as well as a manufacturing business with a charitable foundation, to produce the most sustainable water bottle possible and support educational activity on the plastic pollution crisis the world faces.

Jon has always been driven to explore the dynamic of the arts, business, transformation and social change. His talk will, through the medium of what it takes to become a festival organiser, explore the importance of the journey versus the destination, valuing options and opportunity, dealing with failure and disappointment, and his personal motivations for change towards a better world.

Jon has been a speaker, panelist (and DJ) at events across Europe and regularly fulfils consultancy and public speaking roles in the creative sector.