Johnny Allen is a former Director of the Australian Centre for Event Management (ACEM), a centre devoted to training and research in event management at the University of Technology Sydney. Johnny is co-author of the texts ‘Festival and Special Event Management‘ and ‘The Regional Event Management Handbook‘. Prior to joining ACEM, he was Special Events Manager for Tourism New South Wales from 1996-1998, where he devised and implemented an Events Strategy on behalf of the state government. In this role he established and serviced a whole-of-government Major Events Advisory Committee, as well as supervising the Regional Flagship Events and Sydney Hallmark Events Programs.
From 1989-1996 Johnny was Special Events Manager for the Darling Harbour Authority where he devised and implemented an event led marketing strategy. This program included nearly a thousand events per year, and positioned Darling Harbour as the place ‘where Sydney celebrates’.