Meet the team

Chris Johnson

Managing Director, Co-Founder

Chris is co-founder, Managing Director of Kambe Events, and Sustainability ‘guru’ for Shambala Festival.

He is passionate and driven on sustainability, working across the UK Live music industry with not-for-profit initiatives (which Shambala has co-founded and participates) to drive progress on climate action; He is Chair of Vision:2025, the UK outdoor events green forum, and CEO of charity ecolibrium, which tackles travel impacts.

In his day to day role at Kambe and Shambala, Chris works on strategy, impact goals, leads on specific operational aspects such as licensing and emergency response, and co-leads as Festival Director onsite.

Sidharth Sharma

Co-Founder, Creative Director & Head of Consultancy

Sidharth is a serial social entrepreneur who has combined his two lifelong passions, food and music, by setting up and establishing multiple, award-winning businesses in those sectors. He has spent the last 25 years creating strong, resilient brands and developing market winning strategies.

The consistent thread that runs through all his various projects, past and present, are the concepts of sustainability, innovation, and social benefit. Sidharth believes that the most difficult and pressing issues that we face as a society, can be tackled by using creativity to reframe the problems and deliver solutions.

Sidharth currently is a Trustee for The Watershed Arts Trust and has previously sat on the Boards for The Association of Independent Festivals, FareShare, Bristol Food Network and the Bristol Food Policy Council. He has acted as a strategic consultant for various commercial and charitable organisations, helping create environmental campaigns that encourage behaviour change.

Sidharth is a BA Honours graduate of the Visual Arts, a Bio-leadership Fellow and is regularly invited to speak at events both at nationally and internationally. In 2011 he was the first person to be awarded the title of ‘Local Food Champion’ by the City of Bristol in recognition for his work in promoting sustainable food, and in 2014 won the BBC Food and Farming award.

Becka Whiteley

Marketing & Communications Director

Becka heads up all things Marketing & Communications for Kambe and all of its events. She is responsible for setting and delivering the MarComms strategy for the year, and holds responsibility for managing press and media, advertising, sales, brand identity, design, video, photography, app development, merchandise amongst various other creative threads.

Becka sits on Kambe’s board as an Executive Director, and is a member of our Senior Leadership Team.

Prior to joining the Kambe team way back in 2015, she specialised in sustainable marketing, from electric car clubs to community farms and green energy initiatives. Outside of work, she’ll either be found with her nose in a book, happily lost in a forest with her dog Twig, or attending every festival she possibly can under the guise of market research.

Judy Bec

Events Director

Judy is the Events Director for Kambe, joining the core team in 2025. She has been involved with Shambala for 20 years, first leading the Oxfam stewards, moving to overnight Event Controller and Night Manager, and doing a stint in Operations planning in 2019, so it feels like a natural progression for her to take up the reins of delivering our events.

Prior to joining our core team, Judy has had a wealth of experience in the festivals and events world (since 2003), with too many shows under her belt to list here, but to spotlight a few; working as Operations Director at Boomtown Festival, Gate Manager for Glastonbury for 10 years, crowd manager at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and oodles of Event Controlling. Judy’s driving force is the safety of everyone attending festivals, with extensive experience in safety, security and crime management (including Evictions!), crowd management, and command and control, as well as general operations.

Judy’s particular personal passions are in tackling violence against women and girls, leading an anti-harassment programme at Soundstorm in Saudi Arabia for 2 years in 2020/21, and championing diversity and inclusion. Judy’s face is familiar to many in the festival world as a regular speaker/workshop leader at industry-focused events and conferences.

Dan Raffety

Co-Founder & Music Director

Dan has been Kambe’s principal musical booker from the very beginning. Over the years he has programmed and produced the 4 in-house stages at Shambala, books and produces the music at Starry Skies, has produced numerous promotions in Birmingham and Bristol and ran all things musical at Reggae City.

All told, he has booked and produced over 2,500 acts and has developed extensive and valuable relationships with many agents and musicians. He knows what is needed to produce shows to a very high standard and his meticulous planning means that his stages run without a hitch and with minimal fuss.

Alongside this Dan was MD for Kambe Events for 6 years, until 2022 and he now is the Chairperson of Kambe’s Board of Directors.  He was also on the Board of Directors for Bristol’s Big Green Week for 2 years until 2016, speaks on panels and, periodically, as a guest lecturer.

Oli Grassi

Co-Founder & Non-Exec Director

Oli’s passions are the arts, food and people. He’s promoted music and art since the late 90’s and has extensive experience coordinating a variety of events from greenfield festivals and venue gigs to art exhibitions, food shows and charity fundraisers.

Oli’s tireless energy has also seen him run a record shop, art gallery and café, developed food and business for a Michelin star chef and consulted for many Food & Beverage enterprises.

His love for people and the ever growing Kambe community is his biggest focus and he fights passionately to maintain our cultural values.

Oh, and when he retires, he’ll be burning food on a fire and feeding people – he’s well known round these parts as being “The Feeder”.

Janine Bennett

Head of Finance & HR

Joining the team in 2018, Janine works as Head of Finance across the full Kambe Events portfolio; a busy role with peaks and troughs throughout the year. Janine comes from a background in health and social well-being. After graduating from Birmingham University with a degree in Psychology, she then embarked on a 10-year career within the charity sector, managing charity helplines and eventually heading up the Information and Support services for Marie Curie.

Janine is passionate about people, health, diversity, accessibility and taking care of our beautiful planet. Naturally she feels completely at home here.

Sarah Mason

Senior Production Manager

Sarah is the Senior Production Manager for Kambe Events producing all our events, managing key teams and suppliers, as well leading a team to manage the concessions aspects at our shows. A musician, with a key interest in community projects, crew welfare and diversity & inclusion, Sarah’s background is in international touring and live TV production supply; notably working as part of the team to deliver special effects to the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony and paralympic ceremonies, The MTV Awards in LA and international tours for Katy Perry and Muse.
Through her work at Kambe she has developed a keen interest in regenerative food production and food impact reduction and sits as Chair to the Kambe Food Strategy group who aim to develop and deliver a five year food vision for our events and contributors.

Christine Dent

Site Coordinator

Christine is Site Coordinator for all of Kambe’s events. She co-ordinates every event from start to finish; from booking and managing site crew, to creating site maps on Vectorworks, to booking infrastructure and managing contractors – always ensuring everyone has exactly what they need, when they need it!

Christine has bags of experience in thinking on her feet, problem solving and building a safe and functional event site from the (literal) nuts and bolts upward. From quantification to build and break plans, she is not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Abi Moores

Creative Production Coordinator

As an events all-rounder Abi has had a variety of roles at Kambe but is currently found production co-ordinating both Shambala and Starry Skies, with a focus on the creative content side of things, ensuring there’s always a healthy dose of sparkle and silliness at Kambe’s events.

With a background in environmental campaigning and now firmly rooted as a freelancer in the Bristol events industry, Abi brings with her a love of working and playing outdoors and in the water! (She recently added ‘swimming teacher’ to her extensive repertoire).

Karen Vigers

Purchase Ledger Officer & Data Analyst

Karen is Kambe’s Purchase Ledger Officer and Data Analyst . Her main focus is paying the invoices of all the wonderful people who work at our events and analysis of data post event. She has over 10 years experience in Finance, after graduating from Bristol University with an Economics degree she worked in residential and commercial property companies in Bristol. Needless to say, she has always loved numbers.

Karen loves being part of a community and is passionate about sustainable practices, so feels very much at home in the Shambala Team.

Tash Simmons

Event Operations Associate

Tash is the Operations Associate for Kambe Events, working with Event Managers to deliver core event requirements such as licensing, event management plan collation and safety, as well as managing various operational teams on site.
She has always had her fingers in lots of event related pies, working in various roles both on and off site. Her love of the outdoors means spending her summer on festival sites is her idea of heaven (even with the inevitable bad weather!).

Jo Bodimeade

Sustainability Officer

Jo is an eco-nut and is on top of all things Sustainability at Kambe’s events and beyond. She makes sure we walk the walk for mother nature, whilst we fancy foot through our annual calendar of events! Everything from the wonders of waste, to revering recycling, to energy enthusiasm falls into her realm.

When not convening with colleagues to care for the climate, she can be found canoodling with nature: climbing through forests and over hills around the South West, or plunging headfirst into rivers and lakes. When at home, you’ll find her trying her hand at random creative endeavours all day – from clay, haberdashery and art to poetry and rap.

Andrew Lucas

Project Coordinator

As Project Coordinator across all of Kambe’s events, Andrew helps keep things running smoothly, working on everything from event delivery to concessions management. Onsite at Shambala, you’ll find him managing the production office, making sure the team has everything they need to create a magical event—coffee included.

Andrew has worked across a range of live events, from agency-led productions to in-house conferences and international expos. Career highlights include being part of the ceremonies team for the London 2012 Olympics, earning a distinction in his master’s degree in Events Management, and being nominated for a Rising Star Award at the 2023 CN Agency Awards.

Outside of work, Andrew enjoys getting outdoors, picking up new hobbies, and heading off on adventures with friends.

 

Amia Watling

Marketing & Design Associate

Amia works on all things marketing and communications for Kambe and all our events, with a key focus on the visual design of all public facing comms, as well as internal and consultancy reports. After finishing a degree in Fashion Communication she’s developed her marketing, graphic design and social media skills and portfolio working with sustainable fashion brands, events companies and music magazines. 

Outside the office you’ll usually find Amia behind a camera at a gig or shooting for independent music artists and fashion designers around Bristol. In her spare time she likes to fill her evenings with high energy dance classes or relaxing yoga practices.

James Barratt

Finance (Sales) & IT Assistant

James is Kambe’s Finance (Sales) & IT Assistant, a big part of his role is processing company income and he oversees the relationship management for our entire office building – including all our licensees.

James has been known to spend many a weekend at a gigs or festivals, meaning working on site comes naturally! When he’s not ears deep in live music he loves to host dinners and cook for friends, or have a few pints down the local.

George Devereaux

Site Assistant

George has been working in events for the best part of 10 years, spending the majority of his summers out in the fields. With a varied background in everything from production, build and artist liaison to trading and bar management, festival life on site comes naturally to him! Away from the fields he’s also played a hand in large-scale arena tours and winter wonderlands around the UK.

In his role as Site Assistant George covers all things procurement, securing all the infrastructure and kit needed to make our events happen – think everything from stages and tents all the way through to loos and showers – as well as ensuring the festival build runs smoothly and in a timely fashion.

George’s interests outside of work are travel and learning about the world, DIY and crafting, messing around with electrics, electronic music, geo politics, games and sneaking away in his van to get back into nature. His travel highlights include a couple months spent road tripping round Portugal and a solo adventure backpacking round Colombia (which got abruptly cut short after he fell out of a coconut tree and broke his foot – ouch!). George also loves to cook and eat vegan food, and loves a good spot of food tourism hunting down the best vegan snacks he can get his hands on!

Oriana Hollis

Music Booking & Artist Logistics Assistant

As Music Bookings and Artist Logistics Assistant across all of Kambe’s events, Oriana’s role involves coordination and planning in all the stages needed to produce shows, bring artists to our events and make sure they are well looked after.

Oriana has held a number of roles both in and out of the music and events world, from hospitality, to performing, to freelance proofreading and translation. Music and performance are some of her passions among adventuring in the wild, dancing in festival fields and exploring coastlines in a van.

Matt Tooth

Site Management & Mapping Consultant

Toothy manages all of the site services for Shambala. Planning the backbone infrastructure that supports the event as well as drawing up the site plan, he makes sure everything comes together in the run up to Shambala on site!
Leading the industry in site systems, procurement and build management, he has extensive experience managing large projects both in the UK and internationally. Well versed in coordinating large teams, he’s not afraid of getting stuck in on the ground from start to finish.

Jack McCutcheon

Technical Production Coordinator

Jack is responsible for overseeing the Technical Production of each stage across the Shambala site and manages everything from the stage up! He also supports all our wonderful area managers to make sure they’ve always got what they need so their productions run smoothly and are they best they can be.

Outside of the Kambe world Jack is a top-class Tour Manager and Sound Engineer, working with the likes of Lily Allen, Nick Mulvey, Beabadoobee and Miles Kane – to name a few! He’s currently embarking on a new journey launching a super-low carbon touring production company, alongside running his own recording studio at The Jam Jar.

When Jack’s not immersed in all thing’s music production, you’ll find him surfing or enjoying good food and good company.