Lineup Ninja wins Best Tech Startup at 2019 Event Technology Awards

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Lineup Ninja won Best Tech Startup at the 2019 Event Technology Awards in London. 

The Leeds-based company provides software that helps event planners to automate several tedious tasks involved in managing speakers and artists at conferences, exhibitions and festivals. 

Co-founder Joe Atkinson explains: 

“It all started when I was managing the programme for an association’s events. I was spending ages emailing speakers to check details, copying and pasting data between different spreadsheets and the website etc. 

In particular, when scheduling sessions into the event agenda, there was a lot of manual checking to ensure that speakers weren’t double booked, and that their sessions would be in a space that had the equipment they’d asked for etc.

Despite spending ages checking details, data would still get out of synch and mistakes would creep into my event programmes. Occasionally they’d emerge during the event itself, resulting in frustrated speakers, disappointed attendees and a stressed event crew.

I’d previously worked in tech, so I knew that software could do the job more efficiently and accurately than me, so I looked for something that could help. 

I wanted a tool that would let me run a call for speakers to capture speakers’ offers, and then set rules for my sessions (e.g. Session A must take place after Session B and be in a room that has a projector, WiFi, and can hold 200 people), and then warn me if I tried to schedue it somewhere that would break those rules.

I couldn’t find anything quite like it, so I teamed up with an old friend and colleague from my tech days and we built it.”

Two years of development later, Lineup Ninja launched the product at Event Tech Live in 2018. Fast-forward another year, and Event Tech Live used Lineup Ninja to manage the 2019 show’s speaker programme. 

Event Director Paul Allott commented: “It does everything, this thing! It’s saved me no end of time. I don’t think I’ve used a single spreadsheet for the whole programme”.

Lineup Ninja are also working with global media company Mindshare and a number of large event organisers including Reed Exhibitions and GovNet.

Co-founder Gordon Johnston said: “We’re thrilled to win Best Startup at the awards. 2020 is going to be an exciting year!”

If you’d like to find out more about Lineup Ninja, Get in touch or sign up for a free trial

Molly Hookings
Author: Molly Hookings

Molly joined the editorial team in March 2019. She has several years’ experience working in broadcast and journalism, as well as marketing and PR. Past experience includes working for the BBC and independent publishing houses. If you have a story you think Molly might be interested in, please email: molly@eventindustrynews.com