The World Ticket Conference

Gary Adler is the Executive Director and Counsel for the National Association of Ticket Brokers ("NATB"). He has represented the NATB for 25 years, overseeing its operations and helping to establish the NATB. Mr. Adler is the Founder of Adler Law PLC located in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. In addition to representing the NATB, Mr. Adler advises numerous business entities and trade associations on a wide range of issues. His legal practice also focuses on civil litigation in trial and appellate courts. Mr. Adler also has represented professional athletes and sports management in negotiations, corporate matters, and litigation.

Maureen has over four decades of experience encompassing not-for-profit, commercial arts, Broadway, regional ticketing, performing arts and colleges. Her experience spans the ticket office, call centers, season tickets, group sales, marketing, fundraising, strategic planning, and executive leadership. Prior to joining INTIX Maureen had a rich career including VP of Arts & Entertainment at AudienceView, Senior Business Consultant at Paciolan and spent 23 years with The Denver Center for the Performing Arts as Director of Ticketing Services. Maureen and is a frequent speaker at Industry conferences, seminars, and workshops. She is the recipient of several high-profile awards from VenuesNow, INTIX, FutureTix, and Northeastern Junior College.

Brian Berry is a Founder and Managing Partner of Vision360 Partners, a Washington, DC-based strategic communications and public affairs consultancy. He has advised a wide range of clients over the past 20 years, including the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB), and others in the ticketing and live events industry. Brian and his team worked with NATB in creating the Protect Ticket Rights initiative, which advocates at the federal and state levels for the rights of ticketholders and a fairer, more transparent, and more competitive market for ticket sales.

Cystal Clinton has 38 years of experience with ticketing, from home-grown systems to off-the-shelf ticketing solutions. As a programmer/analyst early in her career, Crystal was on the development team for the first in-house ticketing system for Opryland USA Theme Park. Throughout the years, the park’s parent company expanded its entertainment offerings to include hotels, concerts, theatrical productions, riverboats, museums, restaurants, and transportation, along with Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, the world-famous Grand Ole Opry, and most recently, ACL Live at Moody Theater in Austin, Texas.

Today, Crystal is the company’s Director of Entertainment Ticketing, overseeing all configuration operations, and providing clear direction in establishing consistency in processes and timely cross-departmental communications. so our frontline staff can best service our guests who attended any of our over 15,000 separate events and purchased over 1.5 million tickets in 2022.

Laura Dooley joined StubHub full time in 2018 as Head of Global Government Relations. She came to this role after three-years of working with StubHub’s then parent company, eBay, on e-commerce issues in the Eastern United States, as well as StubHub and ticket-related issues across the U.S. and Canada. Laura’s background includes working in state government relations for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, as well as in communications and member outreach for the National Association of Home Builders. Laura has a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Richmond. Originally from Long Island, Laura currently resides in Arlington, VA.

A former college basketball head coach, dynamic public speaker, a doctorate holder in Leadership and a record-holding SEC athlete, Brittney Ezell comes to the next steps in her professional journey of impact via the worlds of ticketing and real estate following nearly three decades in leadership positions at the highest levels of collegiate sport.

With a track record of developing talent and a deep understanding of events, client privacy and management strategies, Brittney has developed a reputation around professional circles as someone that invests greatly in her people, communicates at a high level and who has the ability to instantaneously connect with anyone.

Constant growth in this space over her time in athletics led Brittney to be named Executive Vice President for Elite Entertainment Experiences, a membership based ticketing concierge service, shortly after the conclusion of her coaching career and just months later to the role of CEO & Team Leader at Keller Williams – Johnson City and the Private Housing Network’s Director of Relationships for KW Sports & Entertainment . In alignment with the Keller Williams’ belief system, Brittney brings a mindset of winning, continuous improvement, commitment, collaboration and connection to all that she does. As such, Brittney is constantly seeking to assist clients and agents in finding win-win scenarios through transformational relationships, attention to detail, and an infectious, joyous intensity in all that she does.

Drew Gainor is a visionary, 18-year ticket industry veteran, currently developing industry-leading pricing tools that increase resellers ROI and improve overall markets as the Chief Product Officer of Automatiq.

Before his time at Automatiq, Drew was a frounder of Seat Scouts. Gainor also spent five years as a founder and Vice President of Ticket Evolution where he led the development of the industries most widely used B2B tools and API's.

A performance-driven, 28-year veteran in the event entertainment and corporate hospitality industry, Dr. Corey M. Gibbs is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Elite Entertainment Experiences, a highly revered, entertainment and hospitality brokerage firm. Built on the foundation of relationships and client centricity, Elite Entertainment Experiences serves a niche retail clientele, while also providing a highly exclusive membership-based opportunity for a carefully curated, select group of elite clients, allowing them to optimize their entertainment spend and maximize the return on inventory holdings.

Featured in Forbes in July 2021 for his visionary approach and cultivation of the "E3 Analytics Suite," Dr. Gibbs is a proven business success with a rigorous work ethic, a dynamic entrepreneurial mind, a belief in analytics and data-driven decision making, and dedication to providing elite client service through customer centricity. Some of his professional affiliations include serving as past President &Board Member of the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB), a member of the NY-NJ Super Bowl XLVIII Host Committee, a StubHub Advisory Board of Director, and a long standing member of the prestigious New York Athletic Club.

A native of Eutaw, Alabama, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Psychology (1998) and a Master of Arts in Sport Business Management (2007) from the University of Alabama, while earning his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. Dr. Gibbs resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife Caroline and twin 14-year-old boys, Will and Ben, while daughter, Victoria (18) lives in Hoover, Alabama.

Brett received a BS in Finance from Lehigh University. Upon graduation, Brett went to work in Barclays' Investment Banking Division in the Industrial Group. Following Barclays, Brett joined Sixpoint Partners, a boutique investment bank in New York City.

In 2011, Brett turned his business skills to the ticketing industry and co-founded TickPick. Brett is now the Co-CEO of TickPick, overseeing operations, finance and marketing.

After nearly missing a San Francisco Giants NLCS game because he didn’t have access to print his tickets, Brad Griffith reimagined a simpler process for buying tickets on the go. Focusing completely on the mobile experience, Brad wrote v1.0 of the Gametime iOS application in 2012 and now leads a passionate team focused on mobilizing the ticket buying process for fans. He’s fascinated with fan experience - answering the question: How can we make it faster and easier to attend games?

Brad is a Santa Cruz native and huge S.F. Giants, Golden State Warriors and 49ers fan. After earning an Engineering degree from Stanford, he followed his dreams to work in sports by helping the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox (2005 World Series Champs!) build statistical infrastructure to analyze player value.

In 2010, he helped launch Zappedy, which delivered customer analytics for local businesses (sold to Groupon in 2011). From our founding in 2012 to launching in over 50 cities today, Gametime continues to put fan experience above all else to unite communities.

Brian Hess is the Vice President of the Goodfriend Group and Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. Named as one of DC's "Top Lobbyists" by the Hill in 2021 and 2022, Brian is an expert advocate who passionately fights for the interests of sports fans. SFC is a fan-advocacy organization that makes sure fans always have a seat at the table wherever public policy impacts the games we love. He oversees his clients' state and federal advocacy and this year has been crisscrossing the nation advocating for the Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights in several state legislatures and before federal lawmakers.

Director of Inventory Strategy at SeatGeek, where Ben oversees all supply on the SeatGeek marketplace including B2C, C2C, and B2B. Ben leads the SeatGeek team managing the relationships with broker partners. Prior to that, Ben was the Senior Manager of Supply at StubHub.

Jon Katz is the COO of Logitix, formerly Dynasty Sports & Entertainment and AutoProcessor. Jon started his career outside of the live event and ticketing space, having first worked at Deloitte in their consulting practice. From there, Jon made the move to the ticketing industry, where he joined the Charm City Tickets team of two. Jon has over ten years of experience in live events and ticketing and helped transform Charm City Tickets into the industry-leading Dynasty Sports & Entertainment, now known as Logitix.

During his tenure, Jon was instrumental in scaling the business from three employees to more than 90 to support, and proved to be invaluable in his ability to implement operational efficiencies through both processes and technologies. Today, Jon leads the Logitix team through its revenue stream operations and oversees the List (formerly AutoProcessor). Jon’s goal has always been to create a “one-stop-shop” for all your ticketing needs, from the Primary to the Secondary market, and everything in between.

Kevin Lemke recently joined TicketNetwork as the SVP of Strategy and Planning where he has responsibility for sales, business development, product and helping chart the strategic growth path for the company. Prior to TicketNetwork, Kevin worked at Stanley Black and Decker where he launched and ran, Stanley X, a new business incubator in Silicon Valley, building marketplace and SaaS software companies.

Early in his career, Kevin served as an officer and Blackhawk pilot in the US Army. He’s a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Deric Margolis joined Events BSB (Anytickets.com) as a partner in 2009. Over the years he has implemented and developed multiple profit centers for the firm. He has also been integral in providing strategy and guidance for the company's logistics and operations.

When the company created its Affiliate Partner Program in 2017, Deric had been part of initially strategizing and offering partner consultation support and has also been a key member for implementing the plans for scaling the program to where it is today.

With an eye on the future, Deric remains focused on scaling opportunities and keeping up with the growing needs to remain on top of continuous year after year growth.

Derek Palmer serves as Chief Revenue Officer at Project Admission responsible for all commercial and business operations of the company. An almost 30 year veteran of the ticketing industry including 25 years in senior roles at Tickets.com Derek has a passion for innovation and has extensive experience creating and streamlining organizational structures, process improvement, and bringing products to market.

Derek is a 20 year member of INTIX and served as Board Chair in 2019.

Tom Patania is President and CEO of Select-A-Ticket, a Ticket re-sale company located in New Jersey. He founded the company in 1978 while he was in High School in the Business program. After graduating from High School he opened his first retail store. In the years that followed Tom built the business by challenging the status quo and taking what was a hush business and bringing it front and center opening retail stores in 4 regional malls and an office in Florida. The business model proved itself to the point that a ticket re-seller had to put limits on tickets in order to service the lines at its stores.

With the advent of the Internet Tom had to change the business model. Today his company supplies the various different marketplaces with tickets as well as having their own successful website and retail operations. Recognizing the market going through another change Tom launched TicketInsight.com which helps teams and artist manage their inventory better with the proprietary analytical tools that the company built and Tom’s 43 years as an expert in dynamic pricing. He aspires to change consumer buying habits through proper pricing models.

From a client request Tom started another company PregameParty.com, which is an event party service that does Corporate parties and tailgates. Recently that company merged with TAPT – Tailgate and Party services to be able to accommodate more parties.

During the pandemic, while his other businesses were shut down, Tom started a 3rd company Pop-ItPromitions.com which is a promotional marketing company that provides innovative ideas that drive value for their clients.

Outside of work Tom enjoys volunteering his time to help others. He has a thirst for learning and is also a member and currently sits on the board of the Entrepreneurs Organization of New Jersey. One of his best experiences was having the opportunity to be invited to Necker Island and spend a week with Richard Branson. That experience left Tom wanting to inspire others and with a new leadership style.

Tom is a devoted father who lives in Pompton Lakes, NJ and has 2 children. His son Tommy is an attorney, and his daughter Lexi is finishing her Masters and just recently accepted a job in the engineering field.

Mark Plutzer serves as Senior Vice President, Ticketing for Major League Baseball (MLB). Plutzer is responsible for overseeing the relationships between MLB, its ticketing partners and the MLB Clubs and has implemented many ticketing initiatives where MLB was first into the space within sports such as a league-level secondary market partnerships, mobile ticket delivery and subscription-model ticketing.

With over 25 seasons working in professional baseball, Plutzer is a graduate of The Ohio State University & lives on Long Island, NY, with a beautiful wife and two awesome kids.

Sam Sherman is the CEO and Founder of Automatiq. After he began selling tickets in 2012, Sam envisioned an automated ticket marketplace that would mirror other commodity markets. The first product Automatiq introduced was the Auto Pricer in 2013. This revolutionary dynamic pricing technology helped automate a brokers' individual pricing strategy. His company continued the tradition of innovation by creating the first managed service pricing program in 2015 and releasing a brand new version of the product called UpTick in 2018.

Lena is currently the COO of Premium Seats USA and the President of Entertainment LiveSTYLE. A proud graduate of The University of Miami, Lena has spent almost 15 years in the live entertainment space.

Lena resides with her husband Jimmy and two boys in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is an avid enthusiast of all things live entertainment.

Kevin Wagner is the Product Owner of Pricing Software at Automatiq. The Full-Service Pricing team, launched in 2015, leverages Automatiq’s pricing technology and data resources to execute client strategies and maximize their returns as the premier managed pricing service in the industry. Joining Automatiq in 2016, Kevin has been able to make significant contributions in a number of roles ranging from Data and Analytics to Product Ownership.

A native New Yorker, Kevin received B.S. in Business Administration from Stony Brook University. He currently resides in Queens, where he enjoys spending his free time golfing and playing softball.

Working in the live event ticketing space for ten years, Daniel Weisbaum has worked in a variety of internal and client-facing roles during his time with Ticket Evolution. He has been instrumental in the company's development, overseeing many functions such as working with support staff, as well as integrations with major distribution partners. Most recently, with the merger of DTI/1Ticket, Daniel was appointed as VP of Ticket Operations for the combined entity.

Erin Witte is the Director of Consumer Protection for the Consumer Federation of America. Erin leads CFA’s advocacy efforts in consumer protection, including advocating for consumer protections in Congress and at regulatory agencies, communicating policy positions to the press and the public, organizing meetings with stakeholders on consumer protection issues, and providing educational tools for consumers to help them navigate marketplace challenges.

Prior to joining CFA, Erin was an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, where she handled matters involving various abusive, predatory and fraudulent business practices. Erin also worked in private practice in Fairfax, VA where she represented individual consumer clients.

With 23 years experience in the ticket industry, Christian leads the communications charge for all categories of Stage Front business including technology, primary, secondary and VIP hospitality.

Karl Roes founded Stage Front in 1984, growing the company into a $450 million technology company focused on proprietary products and services for the ticketing industry.

As the Vice President of Product and Project Management at StageFront Karthik relies on his 15 years of ticketing technology experience for handling the logistics around product delivery and service quality for all four StageFront verticals.

Mike straddles the line between data and strategy, building analytic/BI innovations and generating insights for Stage Front and partners.

As a previous Solutions Architect at Ticketmaster and respected consultant within the ticket industry, Stevan has extensive tech execution experience in both the primary and secondary ticketing markets.

Serge serves as Sr. Product Manager at SeatGeek where he oversees all resale on the company’s marketplace platform including individual sellers, season ticket holders and a large community of professional brokers.

Curtis Cheng has been a leader in the ticketing industry for over 20 years — from his early years as a professional ticket reseller to his work over the past decade building DTI Management, 1Ticket and most recently Ticket Evolution into a distribution and technology powerhouse. Following Ticket Evolution's 2022 acquisition by one of the predominant private equity companies in the country, Curtis has continued to shape the future of the ticketing industry with investments across new products, platforms and distribution channels to maximize growth for professional ticket resellers.

J Cobb began his ticketing career in 1994 as a graphic designer, applying his skills shortly thereafter to launch one of the industry’s first ticket reseller websites. Later J became an investor in Ticket Evolution, joining the company full time in 2013. J is currently Vice President of Broker Services and Partner Integration where he oversees a supply chain of over one thousand ticket resellers.

Harris Rosner founded VIP Tickets out of a small office in California in 1981. He was drawn to the ticket business first as a die hard fan of the Lakers, Dodgers and music. He built his business knowing that every client is a VIP, and that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a ticket is worth a million memories.

After celebrating over 40 years in business, the mission hasn’t changed - VIP Tickets, VIP Service - and being the gatekeeper of our client’s memories is at the core of what we do.

Scot Tobias is the founder and CEO of Worldwide Tickets, an independent, privately owned company. Scot’s talent lies in building relationships that build business. His persistence and economic savvy have propelled Worldwide Tickets from a small resale start-up to a global enterprise. With more than 30 years of industry experience, He has always taken an analytical approach to the business and continues to embrace new technology available to advance and promote business growth. He sees the future of secondary ticketing as both challenging and exciting in the years ahead.

Outside of work, Scot enjoys Tennis and golf and is the proud father of two teenage boys.

Tony Beram is President and CEO of Western States Ticket Service and Western States Ticket Service International, both based in Phoenix Arizona. Western States Ticket Service celebrated 31 years in business this year. Tony is a founding member of the NATB and is returning as a director after a several year hiatus.