about
Jonathan Holloway works with cities, major businesses and senior leaders to help them use giant thinking, creativity and extreme problem solving to achieve extraordinary results.
He has spent his career dealing in experiences.
Joyous, face-touching, transformational and unforgettable experiences.
Over three decades Jonathan has been a theatre director, festival director, chief executive, professional speaker and MC/facilitator.
Jonathan was Resident Theatre Director of the Wilde Theatre in Bracknell (UK), and as a theatre director he has directed over twenty productions and co-written eight, including Robin Hood for the Royal National Theatre in London starring Maxine Peake and Mark Bonnar.
He founded and ran the National Theatre's public events department, where he started/programmed/produced the Watch This Space Festival for seven years.
As Artistic Director/CEO of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, he led it to be the third largest annual arts festival in the UK, including directing Creative Partnerships for the region, the government's flagship creativity in schools programme.
In Australia he headed up two of the most important and largest International Arts Festivals in the world, in Perth and then Melbourne.
His first Perth International Arts Festival in 2012 opened with 30,000 people dancing in the streets, as angels and two tonnes of feathers fell from the sky.
In 2015 he masterminded the largest single arts event Australia has ever seen, when 1.4 million people spent three days walking with giants through the main streets of Perth.
In 2017 he brought Taylor Mac’s epic 24 hour production A 24-Decade History Of Popular Music to Melbourne, the only time it will be seen complete outside the US.
All three won the rare and prestigious Helpmann Award for Best Special Event.
His 2018 Melbourne Festival was headlined by the Fire Gardens, an immersive fiery spectacle that took over the whole of the Royal Botanic Gardens, with all 30,000 tickets selling weeks in advance. He has commissioned 70 major works, sold almost €25M worth of tickets to audiences of 7M people and delivered creative learning for a quarter of a million people.
Jonathan has been presented with a message stick (rare permission to walk on Aboriginal land and share stories) by both the Noongar Nation (WA) and Eastern Kulin Nation (Victoria), been made an Honorary Citizen of The City Of Perth, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and is a Certified Speaking Professional (the highest globally recognised speaking designation).
He has been artistic advisor to the Mayor of London, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and Barcelona’s GREC Festival.
Jonathan currently divides his time between Europe, Australia, the US and Zoom.