Calvin Culverwell works for Parachute Music where he oversees community development and support. With a decade of experience working in a support capacity with people, Calvin is particularly passionate about seeing musicians healthy and flourishing in their profession.

A member of Soul Charge, KORA, The Heavy Metal Ninja’s, Neon Ninja and Laughton Kora & Friends, Laughton Kora with his incredible voice and immense talent, has been at the forefront of New Zealand music for over the past decade.

As the sassy and beguiling front woman for Fur Patrol at the turn of the century, the past decade has seen Julia Dean’s transition from iconic rock chick to glamorous songbird. With Taite, Silver Scroll and NZ Music Award nominations under her belt she also has vast experience touring not only with her musical prowess but also on stages in Shakespeare soliloquies, art festival shows, musicals and tribute performances.

With a rigorous international touring schedule, Tami Neilson plays sold out shows across North America, New Zealand and Europe. A true force to be reckoned with Tami has been described as “A red-hot honkey-tonker, somewhere between Patsy Cline and Wanda Jackson with perhaps just a little bit of Peggy Lee sophistication”.

Savina started organising all ages shows from the age of 16 for her band along with other local bands, all with a mission of creating more all ages events in Auckland. Since then Savina has worked in various areas of the music industry from music publishing and supervision to events, tours and festivals.

Carol has more than 30 years experience in the entertainment industry as a stage manager, producer and in production. Having worked on some of New Zealand’s largest events such as Big Day Out (20 years), WOMAD (12 years), R&V (9 years), the NZ Music Awards (22 years) her experience is vast and wide having worked with emerging artists, rock n’ roll legends to Presidents and Royalty.

A production manager, stage tech, promoter rep, live sound and recording engineer, tour and stage manager with clients such as Live Nation, Secret Sounds, Rhythm and Vines, Laneway and Homegrown, Tom has a plethora of live knowledge and experience both home and abroad.

Chris has over 20 years experience in live sound reinforcement. He has won awards for Best Live Sound Engineer and has been credited for his contribution to platinum records. International touring acts ask for him by name to mix their live shows, and he is extremely passionate about mixing sound perfectly.

Cushla Aston is the founder and C.E.O of Aston Rd, a boutique artist management company who navigates the career of full time musicians Louis Baker and national treasure Julia Deans.

As one half of Concord Dawn, Matt has toured Australasia, the USA, Chins, Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, Canada and Europe multiple times. Now managing Shapeshifer and Nick Dow, Matt brings a vast wealth of knowledge to this panel.

Anna runs Auckland based PR, publicity and marketing company Saint Lachine and passionately promotes the work from both independent kiwi artists and labels.

An award winning singer, songwriter and independent touring artist, Mel Parsons has just released her fourth record ‘Glass Heart’, recorded in LA with legendary American producer Mitchell Froom.

Harry has helped independent artists accumulate millions of streams online and go on to sell out tours across Aotearoa as well as creating a new festival NEST FEST.

Wairere Iti has been involved in New Zealand Music for over 30 years. As Co-founder of Auckland based booking agency Grafiti Entertainment he has toured bands extensively throughout Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand and has worked as tour manager for some of New Zealand top acts.

Currently, Wairere is the operations manager for the Soundsplash festival in Raglan and also runs his tech startup called Akudos, a cloud-based awards management platform which is used by the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards and the Apra Silver Scroll Awards.

Hamish is the co-founder / director of the hugely successful Rhythm and Vines New Years Eve festival. Currently based in Auckland, Hamish is passionate about the development of the music events and tourism industry in Aotearoa.

Gerry is the music programmer for Aotearoa’s largest street festival CupaDupa, the promoter for Coastella and has recently founded the first national Irish Festival “NZ Irish Fest”.

With over 20 years in the local and international music industry, Gavin is now the lead Event Organiser for Auckland Council events Music in Parks - a series of 25 free music events across the Auckland region.

Rachel is the Co-Director of Homegrown Events, the company that runs the annual Jim Beam Homegrown NZ Music Festival - now in it’s 12th year attracting over 23k attendees with over 45 bands and DJ’s performing across five stages on the Wellington waterfront.