COVID-19 Webcast — State of the Industry Update

 

Jim Digby has spent the last three decades producing live events and music tours across the globe for some of the world’s most celebrated talents. Working directly with the likes of Linkin Park, Enrique Iglesias, Meghan Trainor, Back Street Boys, Marilyn Manson, Phil Collins, and more, Jim's ability to meet and manage client and artist expectations is finely crafted.  

His management technique and team building expertise are essential tools in the fast-paced delivery of complex projects, and his style of inclusivity helps to create a positive, enjoyable work environment for all partners. Jim's deep understanding of major event planning and his global relationships with the many agencies that help deliver them are essential resources in the role of project-wide oversight, project management.

Jim is the co-founder and chairman of the non-profit Event Safety Alliance, a safety-in-live-events global advocacy group and has recently co-founded his second non-profit, the Show Maker Symposium, for the purpose of education, standards-development and promoting cultural growth in the live events industry. He sits on the board of the Behind The Scenes Foundation and is a sought after keynote speaker in matters relating to event safety, event production as a trade and the often-challenging human condition in live events.

Mara Isaacs is a Tony® and Grammy® Award winning producer and founder of Octopus Theatricals, an independent company dedicated fostering an expansive range of compelling theatrical works for local, national and international audiences. She has produced over 150 productions that have been seen on Broadway (Hadestown, The Inheritance, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Translations, Anna in the Tropics, Electra), off-Broadway (Hadestown, Fiasco Theater’s Into The Woods, The Brother/Sister Plays, Crowns, The Laramie Project), at theaters and performing arts centers around the US and the world (UK, Europe, Middle East, South America, South Africa, Canada). In 2019, she co-founded a record label, Sing It Again Records, and won a Grammy award with their first release, the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hadestown. Current projects include Iphigenia by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding; Dreaming Zenzile by Somi Kakoma; Bill Irwin’s On Beckett; Theatre for One; and An Iliad starring Denis O’Hare. Mara is proud to produce the work of Phantom Limb Company, Song of the Goat Theatre, and more. She is director of Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals, and Artistic Advisor to Fiasco Theater. She served as producing director at McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, NJ for 18 seasons and previously produced new play development programs and productions for Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She is currently visiting faculty for CalArts School of Theatre, The New School’s Arts and Entrepreneurship program, and Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.