Head of Marketing (Events)

We are Showbase, an event production agency delivering bars, hospitality builds and large-scale event infrastructure for major estates, brands and public events across the UK.

Alongside our client work, we create, produce and operate a diverse portfolio of our own events and venues across the North-West. These range from seasonal pop-up winter bar venues and 10,000 capacity food festivals to farm-based food experiences, cookery events and other ticketed concepts. We’re also responsible for marketing activity for selected event-focused clients.

We’re based near Tatton Park, Cheshire, and we’re looking for an experienced Head of Marketing to take ownership of marketing across our events, Showbase itself, and selected clients.

The role

This is not a generalist marketing position. You must have demonstrable experience marketing live events.

We’re looking for someone who understands the full cycle of an event marketing campaign: developing the strategy, defining audiences, planning the launch, building momentum, driving ticket sales or bookings, responding to sales performance and delivering the final conversion push as the event approaches.

Importantly, our events aren’t all the same. You could be marketing a high-volume seasonal bar concept, a food festival attracting thousands of visitors, or a smaller premium food experience with a very different audience, price point and booking journey.

You’ll need to understand how to adapt your strategy accordingly rather than applying the same marketing approach to every event.

You should understand that event marketing also changes throughout the campaign cycle. What is required six months before an event is very different from what is required six weeks or six days beforehand, and you’ll be expected to plan accordingly.

The role is commercially focused. Ultimately, your campaigns need to generate ticket sales, bookings, enquiries and audience growth, and you’ll need to be comfortable being accountable for those results.

Build your own marketing team

You will be the first member of a new in-house marketing function at Showbase, as we move away from agencies.

Rather than inheriting an established department, you’ll have the opportunity to shape how the function operates, establish its processes and build the team around you.

Initially, that may mean working with a small number of trusted freelancers, agencies and specialist creatives. As the function develops, there is scope to recruit and manage your own small in-house team.

We therefore need someone who is equally comfortable doing the work and leading the work.

You’ll need to identify what each campaign requires, brief the right people, coordinate contributors and ensure everything is delivered to the required standard and deadline. That might include designers, photographers, videographers, content creators, paid media specialists, PR support, web developers or other freelancers.

What you’ll be responsible for

You’ll take ownership of marketing campaigns from initial planning through to delivery and post-event reporting.

This will include developing full-cycle marketing strategies for our seasonal venues, festivals, food and hospitality experiences and other ticketed events; establishing campaign timelines, audiences, messaging, channels and budgets; and translating those strategies into clear requirements for your team and external contributors.

You’ll manage multi-channel campaigns across areas such as paid social, organic social, email/CRM, digital advertising, content, PR, partnerships, websites and ticketing platforms, selecting the right mix for each individual event rather than applying the same formula to every campaign.

You’ll be expected to understand the relationship between marketing activity and commercial performance. That means monitoring ticket sales, bookings, campaign spend, conversion and other relevant KPIs throughout a campaign and adjusting activity where necessary.

You’ll also lead marketing activity for Showbase itself, helping us communicate our capabilities, projects and services to prospective clients, alongside campaign delivery for one of our major location-based clients.

Budgeting, performance and reporting

You must be comfortable taking responsibility for a marketing budget.

You’ll be expected to build and manage campaign budgets, allocate spend across appropriate channels, monitor performance against budget and provide clear reporting on both marketing activity and commercial outcomes.

We don’t expect marketing to operate separately from the commercial performance of an event. You should be able to explain what has been spent, what it has achieved, what is working, what isn’t, and what you recommend changing as a campaign progresses.

What we’re looking for

Previous event marketing experience is essential. Applications without demonstrable experience of marketing live events will not be considered.

We’re particularly interested in candidates who have worked across different event formats, audience sizes and price points. Experience could include festivals, seasonal venues and pop-ups, food and drink events, hospitality, visitor experiences, ticketed attractions, public events, branded events or similar.

You should be able to demonstrate:

• Successful delivery of end-to-end event marketing campaigns, from initial launch through to the final sales period.
• A strong understanding of how marketing activity translates into ticket sales, bookings and revenue.
• The ability to develop different marketing approaches for events with different audiences, capacities, price points and sales cycles.
• Experience planning and managing multi-channel marketing campaigns.
• Confidence managing campaign budgets, forecasting spend and reporting on performance.
• The ability to interpret sales and marketing data and adjust campaigns accordingly.
• Experience briefing and managing designers, creatives, agencies, freelancers and other marketing specialists.
• The ability to build and manage your own workload and, increasingly, your own marketing team.
• Strong project management skills and the ability to manage multiple campaigns with overlapping deadlines.
• The confidence to clearly communicate campaign requirements, deadlines and priorities to the wider Showbase team.
• A practical understanding of the pace of live events and the ability to respond quickly as ticket sales, operational requirements or campaign priorities change.

The person

We are looking for a confident and experienced person who has held senior positions in marketing functions, and who has a clear grasp of the requirements of marketing events.

You’ll need to be commercially minded, organised and comfortable taking responsibility. Showbase is an event business, so priorities can move quickly and there will be periods when several very different campaigns are live simultaneously.

This is a hands-on role. While you’ll have the ability to bring in and ultimately build a team around you, we’re looking for someone who is prepared to get involved directly rather than simply managing agencies from a distance.

Applying

Candidates should submit a CV and covering note outlining their relevant event marketing experience.

In particular, we’d like to hear about events you have personally marketed, your role within those campaigns, approximate campaign budgets where appropriate, the channels you managed, how you measured performance and the commercial results achieved.

Please also include examples of how you have managed freelancers, agencies or internal marketing teams.

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