Mega Events founder Nathan Reed says his firm has reaped the rewards of its innovative approach to market after generating more than £24 million (€28.5m) in revenue last year.

The experiential events company, which has created touring concepts such as The Rock Orchestra, Illuminated Orchestra and Silent Discos in Incredible Places, as well as staging city-wide festivals and 24-hour raves, sold 536,000 tickets in 2024. It has also moved into Europe, the US and Australia, with plans to expand into Japan.

Reed talks through his methods of developing new ideas and scaling them up globally, if successful, through trial and error.

“I think that we take a slightly different approach to the market,” he tells IQ. “As a policy, we are not defined by any genre in the broadest sense, so we’re interested in everything from completely experiential events, through to classical, through to raves. We start with an ultra open-minded approach to come up with ideas that we really love, which we then quantify with a constellation of data touch points to help us identify compelling demand.”

Mega has trialled hundreds of different concepts with the intention of identifying a handful capable of becoming touring attractions – the Foreverland party brand, which it sold in 2022, being one such example.

“We’ve tested hundreds of ideas and we’re looking for things within the top 1%, which then leads our sense on what to dig deeper on, and eventually what we produce and turn into a show,” he says. “The Rock Orchestra is our biggest event and it followed that business model – deeply diving into data before going, ‘Okay, there’s a great demand for this.’ We don’t like to use guesswork at all, and we don’t go to a few countries in Europe because the data says, ‘Don’t do it.’

“We’ve tried to build the best version of a crystal ball we possibly can. And it’s not perfect, but it’s decent. It’s now about how quickly and accurately can we identify these great concepts and roll them out. The next phase for the company is a structure that allows us to do that at a greater speed.”

Reed, who was one of just five UK event organisers to make Eventbrite’s inaugural Brite25 list of industry trailblazers, began promoting in his teens and has now run Mega for more than a decade. The company is forecast to reach revenues of £31m by the end of the year.

“We try to identify niche interests which are slightly below radar but have strong communities, and then help popularise them”

“I just really enjoyed putting on live events,” he says. “I had a real passion for it and a natural inclination to want to do it. it started very small, very hit and miss, and we just tried to make sure that we grabbed hold of every mistake that we made, improved and moved on.

“I was influenced by a desire not to lose money. We’ve never had any investment, loans or support, so there’s always been a necessity to make sure that we’re doing business for which there is great demand, safely. We’ve built this system over the course of 10 years, and it’s helping to guide us and to create the right things.”

Reeds surmises that “good event management is good risk management, both in terms of economics and in making sure the events themselves are safe”.

“Identifying demand enables you to invest in your product correctly and realise the right vision, rather than creating something you really like, but that there isn’t demand for, and then end up having to compromise on it anyway,” he adds.

Moreover, Reed advises against following trends as the market tends to quickly becomes saturated.

“I don’t think jumping on trends is a good idea, because you instantly have a lot of competition and you’re not able to ride a wave,” he says. “I see people being informed by what’s popular at that moment in time, but that means that you’re actually diving in on something that is maturing. We try to identify niche interests which are slightly below radar but have strong communities, and then help popularise them and create that huge swell that turns into a wave.”

In closing, Reed explains that the current state of the market opens up intriguing possibilities for would-be entrepreneurs.

“The industry is in flux. And actually, there’s not enough acknowledgement of the opportunity being created by this flux,” he concludes. “The market isn’t disappearing, it’s changing, and so I would recommend taking an open-minded view.”

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It has been reported that global ticketing company Eventbrite has confidentially filed an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, in a bid to go public later on in the year. The venture will be led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Wall Street Journal reports.

Since its inception in 2006, Eventbrite has raised $332.3 million and it is currently valued by investors at well over $1 billion. Details about the ticketing company’s IPO will become available to the public in the weeks leading up to its listing on the stock market.

The news is the latest in what has been a busy twelve months for the ticketing giant. The last year has seen the company acquire Dutch ticketers Ticketscript, US-based Ticketfly and Spanish platform Ticketea.

Just this summer, Eventbrite has racked up a number of partnerships. In May, the ticketing company teamed up with Instagram to integrate and streamline ticket buying through the app. In June, the company announced it would be entering into a multi-year partnership with Barcelona-based event and party series Elrow Family. July has also seen the company sign a deal with British promoter MJR.

The news of Eventbrite’s intentions to go public come after a ticketing partnership announcement with UK-based experiential brand Mega Events. The brand, which is behind popular events including the Pizza & Prosecco Festival and The Great British Gin Festival, will place all its ticketing and touring needs with Eventbrite.

“At Mega we use the latest technology and marketing techniques to promote our events and it is reassuring to know that with Eventbrite alongside us, our efforts are supported by matching cutting edge tools,” says Nathan Reed, managing director.

“A ticketing partnership with Eventbrite felt like the right move to support our growth”

“Our festivals and brands cover music, clubbing, food, drink and culture, and draw people in from across the UK and Europe; a ticketing partnership with Eventbrite felt like the right move to support our growth.”

Experiential events have seen a marked increased in popularity over the past few years and those with touring potential are particularly attractive to consumers and businesses alike. In 2017, Mega Events sold over 200,000 tickets across its portfolio of events in the UK and Europe.

Sally Pigott, head of festivals at Eventbrite, says this rise in popularity is part of a new generation of events and event organisers: “Developing new, participative and long lasting festivals that tour across the UK and beyond requires great creativity, skill, and hard work,”

“I’m that confident adding Eventbrite’s  Instagram and Facebook integrations can help Mega even better connect and engage with their audience, and ultimately sell more tickets.”

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