NZME. launches events business

Jane Hastings.

Media company NZME. is launching an event management business.

NZME., which owns The Radio Network, iHeartRadio, GrabOne and the New Zealand Herald, already produces several annual business and lifestyle events including Mood of the Boardroom and Deloitte Top 200, as well as iHeartRadio concerts featuring the likes of Lorde and Ed Sheeran.

Chief executive Jane Hastings said the company was launching two new divisions - NZME. Experiential and NZME. Events - to focus on developing the event management side of the company, and diversifying from the platforms the company already offered.

NZME.'s Ash Lomberg has been appointed group event director, and said the move into events was in line with other international media companies.

"There are a lot of international examples where media companies have at least a third of their revenue now coming from events," Lomberg said. "If you look at the likes of Bloomberg, the New York Times and Daily Mail, they've all moved into the event side producing world-class speaker series and conferences."

Lomberg said the company's size, scale and diverse range of media and editorial channels gave it an advantage over the many other event companies in New Zealand.

"We've got all of the ingredients to put on amazing events," he said. "We've got some of the best people in design, research, marketing, finance and sales as well as access to a diverse range of editorial channels, so we can take events to different audiences that no one has been able to do in the past."

The new NZME. Experiential team will focus on flexible brand marketing, from small-scale advertising to larger mass-media marketing, and will be headed by Mike Lane.