Marc Allenby
Chief Executive Officer, Trafalgar Releasing
Marc has over 20 years’ experience in the cinema industry, spanning across exhibition and distribution as well as all of the leading arts organisations working in the cinema space.
In February 2017, Marc helped facilitate the management buy-out of Picturehouse Entertainment, re-establishing the company as Trafalgar Releasing. Trafalgar are now firmly established as the global market leader in event cinema.
Bobbie Andrews
Vice President of Marketing & Commercial EMEAR, RealD 3D
Bobbie has been working in the cinema business for the last 15 years. Working for exhibition, distribution as well as industry partners, including time in the marketing departments of both Cineworld and 20th Century Fox EMEA.
Since joining RealD in 2016 as Marketing Director, Bobbie has occupied a number of roles and is now on the senior management team in the position of Vice President of Marketing & Commercial EMEAR.
Liz Bales
Chief Executive Officer, Industry Trust for IP Awareness and BASE
Liz, who has a background as a commercial lawyer specialising in intellectual property, drives the industry Trust’s focus of consumer engagement around the exploitation and protection of IP.
Through her work for the Trust, Liz has forged powerful partnerships and spearheaded innovative, insight-led campaigns that consistently demonstrate high engagement and positive influence on audience behaviours. Liz is passionate about realising sustainability goals and is a champion of workplace inclusion and diversity.
Richard Barton
Managing Director, RED C Research
A researcher for over 20 years, Richard heads up RED C’s relationship with a range of global broadcasters and content owners, helping brands launch, grow and sustain audience engagement. He has strong expertise in modelling and forecasting to provide data-driven stories and give clients the confidence to make audience-centric decisions.
Richard is a member of the MRS Sustainability Council, helping to transition the research industry to net zero by 2026.
Mia Bays
Director of National Lottery Film Fund, BFI
Mia celebrates 31 years in film this year, having worked on over 150 films as a producer, sales agent and distributor of both documentary and fiction. She has produced an Oscar winner and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Debut for her work on cult music film Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. She is also renowned champion of new and emerging talent, a cultural activist and equality agitator (through Birds’ Eye View and Reclaim the Frame.)
As of October 2021, Mia has been the Director of the BFI Film Fund, at £30 million a year the largest public fund in the UK for film.
Claire Beswick
Founder, The Living Room Cinema
Claire has 20 years’ experience in the cinema sector, spanning multiplex and independent operators including ODEON and Curzon Cinemas, where she headed up the Film Programming team. As an independent consultant she has project managed cinema developments, teaches cinema as a business at the National Film and Television School and led the “Back to Cinema” campaign for the British Independent Film Awards.
Claire founded The Living Room Cinema to address the need to provide smaller provincial locations with no cinema with a quality independent offer. The first of these – Liphook – opens in mid-April 2022 followed shortly by another site in Chipping Norton. Claire is a regular contributor to industry publication Celluloid Junkie and has featured in their Top 50 Women in Global Cinema.
Mike Bradbury
Head of Cinema Technology, ODEON Cinemas Group
Having started as a projectionist in 1990 with UCI cinemas, Mike is first and foremost an avid cineaste, something that has driven him to strive for exacting standards of sound and projection. A common-sense approach to cinema support and maintenance saw Mike achieve promotion to national management where he oversaw a large team of engineers.
Mike has been in his current role with ODEON Cinemas Group for the past 16 years. With an ever-changing technical environment Mike works with exhibition, distribution and creative voices, his primary goal being to preserve the cinema going experience and ensure the cinema is the best place to watch a movie, as the film-maker intended. Mike is a member of the Cinema Technology Community (CTC).
Dan Braithwaite
Client Director, MetrixLab
Dan has worked in entertainment-based research for over 5 years, supporting a broad range of studios directly with audience, content and media insights to optimise movie releases.
Most recently, Dan has been focusing on cross-party research to learn about how the pandemic has impacted people’s entertainment consumption and consult on how both exhibitors and distributers can be better-placed to overcome the crisis and stimulate recovery.