IMPACT INTERNATIONAL: UK/EURO

Tim McWilliams

SVP of Talent and Touring

Live Nation International

With tours absent, Tim McWilliams focused on creating a network for exchanging ideas and knowledge around best practices and up-to-date information regarding coronavirus, working alongside Tony Duncan, senior director of international for Live Nation Global Security under the direction of Live Nation Europe President John Reid.

“We realized that, due to the nature of our pre-COVID business structure, we were uniquely positioned to connect our teams around the EMEA region. We took a multilayered engagement approach and started things like an online library with over 3,000 documents, biweekly round table discussions with experts in various fields, one-on-one consulting with the market leads as well as running tabletop exercises,” McWilliams said.

Getting the teams working together and sharing information meant “we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel 30 times as we moved through the process of returning to live. Now we’re getting back to booking shows again, this experience has been really useful. The information sharing will continue to inform how we ramp up through the end of the year, standing us in good stead for the brilliant 2022 that we’re all looking forward to,” he said.

McWilliams understood from the beginning of the crisis that there’s no use working in silos that aren’t inclusive and don’t communicate with one another. “Booking and promoting in normal times is a competitive space — battling a global pandemic isn’t. We knew it before, and the process of traveling along this journey has only emphasized it,” he said.

As a vulnerable human being himself, having gone through a heart transplant in 2017, McWilliams said, “It’s been great to see the positive in the world — so many examples of positive human behavior throughout the pandemic.” He’s a “firm believer in taking the negative moments in life and using them to motivate you to do positive things. The last year and a half has certainly had plenty of negatives but I would rather focus on the good things it’s allowed us to do, communicate with and care for each other just a little bit more than we did before the pandemic.”