Welcome to the Connektd Sessions, a series of interviews and panel discussions with key people in the events industry, specifically targeted at event freelancers.

There has been much lobbying and campaigning on behalf of the events industry during the pandemic, and one group that has been working to bring all this work together under one campaign has been One Industry One Voice. The campaign action group has seen an unprecedented coming together of a large and diverse representation of the industry, including ourselves at Connektd, to work together to fight for our future. Today we talk to Rick Stainton, founder of the One Industry One Voice campaign about what the campaign looks like, who is involved and what positive benefit it is likely to have on the industry going forward.

​

Rick founded One Industry One Voice in the early stages of the pandemic, which initially managed the #WeCreateExperiences campaign.  It has since gone on to be the over-arching banner for many other campaigns including:

​

#WeMakeEvents,  #LettheMusicPlay, #WhataboutWeddings, #SaveNightlife, #SaveLiveComedy & #ProjectRecovery

​

Shortly after founding the campaign, Rick was joined by Simon Hughes of BVEP and Martin Fullard of Mash Media to drive the campaign forward

​

Rick Stainton

​

Rick oversees the growth strategy of Smyle Group which owns leading creative agency Smyle, that delivers live and video projects for some of the top global brands in a range of sectors including IT, Telco and Media. It has won the UK Event Agency of the Year award a record 5 times in last 11 years - in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018.

​

Also, as a co-founder of The Global Sustainable Events Summit, its new format came from Rick's belief in engaging with the full spectrum of the events and live communication industries, as well as building on Smyle's ISO 20121 certification.