Moewaka  “Moe” Coffey (Tangahoe) is the driving force behind the collection of event service and products under the umbrella of The Event Co.

“Running an event can be incredibly stressful” says Moe. “We know that stress is the cause of many mental health issues. By supporting our clients to make their life easier and their events more profitable, there’s a massive impact on their wellbeing.”

The Event Co. also supports the wellbeing of the wider Aotearoa community. “We hire locally and employ fundraising initiatives for events to help ease the financial pressures on clubs and people’s homes. Moe says, “I’m actually really proud to say that we employ a lot of Māori and Pasifika people in our casual workforce.”

As an event manager and a tour manager, Moe found that the major ticketing companies had a ‘self-serve’ attitude and ‘terrible service delivery’. “They weren’t supporting us the way that we needed to be supported,” Moe says, “But also the platform features and capabilities weren’t quite there for what we needed. I said, ‘Stuff this, I’m going to start my own ticketing company.’”

From ticketing to RFID cashless payments, The Event Co supports events of any size, from small functions to festivals & concerts. Moe says, “We’ve got such a wide range of solutions that we’ve got something that fits any type of event.”

Part of their success at disrupting the market as a new player comes down to core values and a strong emphasis on customer support and client support.

“We’re the people that will pick up the phone at 11’oclock when they’re ringing on a Saturday night because they just realised they need to scan tickets for their event or they just need some support. We’re responding.”

The Event Co. is currently focused on the domestic event market with plans to diversify from music events into conferences and expos. Long term, Moe says they are focused on expansion, growth, and innovating new solutions for whatever challenges are coming around the corner.

Full-time team members Lucy Campell, General Manager for Ticketspace and Claudia Colenso (Ngati Porou), Client Services Manager also joined Moe on the 12-week programme.

The proven business acceleration processes used during the Kōkiri programme have helped the team to reflect on the solutions they offer, and how the separate businesses fit together. “Through the programme we’ve reorganised the different businesses under one umbrella company, The Event Co., and separated out one of the products that we were supplying as a stand alone business.”

Being in the Kōkiri cohort and having like-minded people that you can bounce ideas off of or discuss things with has been very valuable, Moe says. “The wealth of information we’ve been privy to through the programme, and having other entrepreneurs that are sort of going through what you are going through or going through a challenge that you have already experienced, that you can relate to has been very beneficial.”