Phil Sprey, Concert Promoter
More recently known as New Zealand’s major concert promoter, Phil Sprey has a reputation for creative innovation undertakings and for tackling challenges few would dare contemplate. Phil’s tenacious approach to a diverse range of events is premised by detailed homework and an ‘everything is possible’ attitude.
His history spans senior positions with New Zealand’s leading entertainment and leisure corporations. As the senior group marketing executive and then General Manager of the Kerridge Odeon Corporation’s Cinema and Leisure divisions, New Zealand's largest entertainment company, he administered a nation-wide chain of sixty-five cinema/theatres, a substantial number of live show productions and the national booking agency for the biggest names in showbiz to visit the country.
In the 1980s he redeveloped the modern tenpin bowling industry nationwide and opened an international sports distribution network with offices in the United Kingdom, the Pacific region and Australia.
Phil was also the creative leader behind the promotion of Pakatoa Island Resort on Auckland’s coast, which hosted many international celebrities, and worked with Russell Crowe who was employed there at the time. Under the recreational and entertainment umbrella the management of a Marine Boating and Electronic Games Divisions became his charges as well. He co-created the highly successful 'Spaceworld' games centres chain.
The cinema and entertainment roles and responsibilities brought him into contact with many and varied personalities and celebrities from Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the Royal Variety Concert at the St. James Theatre Auckland to tenpin bowling with Mick Jagger after a concert performance. Hosting directors, actors and performers over the years has opened many doors and many still stay in contact socially.
Phil also chairs the Worlds of Wellington Trust, a non-profit charitable organisation. The Trust was behind the 1997 Go Dutch Festival (316,000 visitors), Anne Frank Exhibition Tour (108,000 visitors) and the only Southern Hemisphere engagement of the "Dresses for Humanity" the exhibition of the dresses of Diana, Princess of Wales (55,000 visitors). In 2000 the Trust was a major Millennium event organiser and supported directly by the Prime Minister and in 2002 built a massive temporary outdoor Ice Rink in the heart of the capital city (22,000) This organisation expanded to include an International Paintball Tournament (Easter 2004) and the Great Disney Toy Exhibition tour which the organisation created with the support of the Disney Corporation.
The Trust has raised considerable funds for organisations like the NZ Aids Foundation, NZ Arthritis Foundation, Child Cancer, Variety Club (NZ), Heart Foundation and many more.
As a concert promoter, in the last four years alone, Phil has brought Elton John to the country three times as well as major artists like Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, KISS, Whitesnake, Poison and the Moody Blues just to name a few.
He regularly lectures on sponsorship and funding to the capital’s sporting, charitable and community organisations and was a founding member and chairman of the Events Wellington Organisation. Also he was a founding member on the board of Enterprise Miramar Peninsula (EPM), a community organisation which has brought focus on the development of a suburban areas self-sufficiency in managing their future growth.
Blending together years of senior management experience, spanning a multitude of disciplines, understanding the audiences as well as the client’s perspective and the psychology behind successful events, Phil’s talent for creative and lateral thinking, his network, media, management and marketing skills bring a ‘hands on’ perspective rare in today’s business environment. Over thirty years of working in every aspect of a truly ‘people’ industry, entertainment; the totality of the learnt experience, measured risk taking and enthusiasm for new challenges has left its mark on most New Zealander’s whether they were aware of it or not.