Festival Team

This year's team is passionate about delivering a Festival fuelled with fun and community spirit. Join them in celebrating 38 years of Festival.

Simon Green - Festival Director

Never shy to stand up and belt out a tune or two, Festival Director Simon Green has lived and worked in Queenstown since 1996 and has had direct involvement either from an event production or entertainment perspective in every Festival this decade.   Prior to his tenure as Director, Simon made a huge statement  at Winter Festival in 1999 by executing an exceptional head plant at the bottom of the M1 at Coronet Peak, this was such a spectacular execution he temporarily forgot that he was the Starry Eyed Director which was a famous show featuring on the Festival Calendar.  Since then, he has got his memory back and has directed five, yes folks, five previous Winter Festivals - 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007,2010 and 2011 along with the overall event design and management responsibility.

Known as Queenstown's "Mr Entertainment" Simon has a professional theatre background, owns and operates his own creative event management company, has directed and produced numerous theatrical productions, corporate functions and special events and continues to entertain audiences all over New Zealand.  If you ask him nicely he will probably sing you a song or two.

Jono Sutherland -  Sponsorship and Marketing Manager

Jono Sutherland has a long corporate history in sponsorship and marketing from both sides of the fence! After eight years with Lion,working on events such as the Speight’s Great Beer Delivery, NZI International Sevens and the Speight’s Coast to Coast, Jono utilised his regional experience and contacts working as the RWC 2011 Co-ordinator and Festival Manager for the hugely successful Taste Queenstown (as part of the Real NZ Festival). Jono has now brought his talents to the Winter Festival team and will be working closely with our sponsorship partners to optimise their investment.

Anna Bastin – Operations Professional

Anna first got the Festival bug way back in 2005 and now she is truly addicted. Anna is our Operations Guru overseeing the operational and logistical aspects of Festival. She has loads of experience in event management and tourism and has a passion for the Festival that is seldom matched. Outside of the Festival office, Anna can be found out in the hills , running and mountain biking, day or night!

Virginie Vandenhove – Operations Assistant

Fresh off the boat from Singapore where she worked for major international brand Nestle, Canadian-born Virginie is all hands on deck as our brand new Operations Assistant. With no less than four years under her belt working as events manager at Tremblant ski resort in Canada she’s feeling confident about helping us take over the world. Virginie’s role is to manage our ticketing, organise accommodation and flights for entertainment, and everything else on her To Do lists! Being a Canadian by origin we’re also thinking she’ll no doubt be a dab hand rookie on our Festival mountains.

Mike Heasman (a.k.a. Mikey)- Production Manager

Spends most of the year running stages, events and gigs in theatres and venues in the UK and then travels over from Scotland specifically to work for the Queenstown Winter Festival, which he considers to be his favourite event of the many he’s done over the years.  This is his sixthyear with us and he tells us it’s  a great privilege to keep coming back to work with such a fantastic and motivated team on a festival which has no comparison back home.

Craig Gallagher - Event Manager

Returning for his second year as the event manager, Craig can’t wait for the festival to begin. He is a full time professional event manager, based out of Queenstown with his own company which keeps him very busy working on many events and festivals in and around the district.  

Festival also has the full support of Destination Queenstown and works closely with the CEO, Marketing Manager and Communications Manager in the planning and execution of our marketing and PR activities.

From early in the new year we also start adding our event delivery team which includes a Night Event Manager, a Day and  Mountain Event Manager and a production assistant along with over a dozen dedicated production personnel and over 100 volunteers.