Job Advert Summary
About Daily Maverick
Daily Maverick is an independent South African news organisation. We are funded largely by our readers through Maverick Insider, our membership programme, which keeps our journalism free to read for everyone who cannot pay for it. Alongside the daily site we publish DM168 in print and digital, run a portfolio of newsletters, videos and podcasts, publish books under Maverick 451, sell merchandise and books through the DM Shop, and stage Live Journalism events including The Gathering, our flagship annual event.
The Growth Division carries the commercial and audience side of all of that: membership, marketing, events, books, the shop and executive training.
Live Journalism
Live journalism is how we take our most important reporting off the page and into a room. Webinars, events for around 300 people, Insider member evenings and The Gathering all bring our journalists, our sources and our readers face to face. It is also one of the Growth Division’s core revenue streams, paid for by ticket sales, sponsorship and a growing webinar platform business.
The team is small. The programme is not.
The role
We are looking for an Events Coordinator to run our live journalism programme on the ground.
This is a delivery job first. The Head of Live Journalism sets the calendar, the standards and the commercial targets. You make every event on that calendar happen: on time, on budget, on brand, with audiences, panelists and sponsors leaving better off than they arrived. When something goes wrong at 18:40 and the doors open at 19:00, you are the person who already has the backup plan.
You will run several events at once, each at a different stage, and you will own the details of all of them, from the first supplier quote to the sponsor report a week after the lights go down.
This role suits an events coordinator with a few years behind them who wants their work to matter, and who wants to learn the strategic and commercial side of live events from the inside.
Who will do well here
We operate in an industry that requires constant innovation and creative problem solving. We survive against the odds; we work hard, and are in it to win it. You care about independent journalism and what it is for, and you believe a full room of people arguing about the country is good for democracy.
You are well-organised and calm when plans fall apart. You can be firm with a supplier, gracious with a minister and kind to a nervous first-time panelist, all in the same afternoon. You are happy to write the run sheet, and equally happy to carry the banner stand.
This is an events job, so evening and weekend work comes with it, especially around The Gathering. We plan the calendar well ahead and we tell you early.
Minimum Requirements
Minimum requirements
- A relevant post-school qualification in Events Management, Hospitality, Marketing, Communications or a related field. Strong practical experience will be considered in place of a formal qualification.
- 2 to 4 years’ events coordination experience, covering every stage of the event cycle: planning, suppliers, budgets, on-site delivery and post-event wrap-up.
- Experience delivering both in-person events of 200 guests or more and virtual or hybrid events.
- Supplier and stakeholder management: briefing, comparing quotes, negotiating and holding suppliers to account. Liaising with sponsors and clients who are funding the events or attending as potential funders.
- Working budget skills. You can build an event budget in a spreadsheet, track actuals and reconcile invoices.
- Excellent written English. Run sheets, speaker briefs, sponsor reports and attendee emails all go out under our name.
- Confident use of ticketing and registration platforms, webinar tools, Google Workspace and spreadsheets.
- Daily working use of AI tools, and the judgement to know when the output is not good enough.
- Calm under pressure. You solve problems in real time, and the audience never knows there was one.
- Willingness to travel between Cape Town and Johannesburg for events.
Advantageous
- Experience in media, publishing, civil society or a membership organisation.
- Sponsor fulfilment and sponsor reporting experience.
- Working knowledge of event safety and risk requirements in South Africa, or a first-aid certificate.
- Experience with South African ticketing platforms such as Quicket or Webtickets, and with CRM or email platforms.
- Comfort reading event data: attendance, conversion and survey results.
- Basic design skills for quick event assets, signage and slides.
- Experience supporting partnerships or B2B client work.
- A valid driver’s licence.
Duties and Responsibilities
Key performance areas
Event delivery, end to end. Turn each approved event into a working plan: critical path, budget, run sheet, staffing and contingencies. Deliver webinars, medium events, Insider member events and The Gathering from brief to breakdown, and run the day on site.
Venues, suppliers and contracts. Source, brief and manage venues, AV and production crews, caterers, printers and other suppliers. Get comparable quotes, check terms before contracts go for sign-off, and hold suppliers to what they agreed.
Budgets and records. Track every event against its budget. Check supplier invoices against what was delivered, get them paid on time with Finance, and keep clean records of what each event cost and earned.
Panelists and speakers. Look after the people on our stage: invitations, briefings, travel, technical checks, the green room and the thank-you afterwards. Our panelists should want to come back.
Sponsor fulfilment. Deliver everything a sponsor has paid for, from branding and mentions to guest lists and content, and prove it. Produce post-event sponsor reports to standard and on time, and give the Head of Live Journalism and the partnerships team the evidence that sells the next package.
Ticketing, registration and attendees. Set up and manage ticketing, webinar registration, guest lists, accreditation and attendee communications. Make it easy for Maverick Insiders to book, and easy for first-time guests to become Insiders.
Event marketing. Get event marketing out on time through Daily Maverick’s marketing calendar and intake process, working with the Marketing Manager: briefs, assets, mailers, on-site messaging and social. Chase the approvals that keep it moving.
Webinar operations. Run our webinar platform day to day, for our own programme and for B2B clients: setup, rehearsals, live production support, recordings and client onboarding.
Safety, compliance and access. Make sure every event is safe, lawful and accessible: venue risk checks, event safety plans and permissions where the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events Act requires them, emergency procedures, accessibility for guests with disabilities, and attendee data handled in line with POPIA.
Feedback and reporting. Put a feedback form on every event and webinar and push response rates up. Pull together the attendance, Insider and survey data the Head of Live Journalism reports on: who came, who was new, who converted and what they told us.
The Live Journalism Playbook. Write down how we do things, from checklists and supplier lists to templates and lessons learned, so that every event is easier to run than the one before it.
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