At BIRD, it’s not just about great shows and good music—it’s also about the people who make it all happen behind the scenes. In Meet the BIRDIES, we take you backstage to introduce you to the faces behind BIRD. This week: Thamar Kempees – Head of Marketing.

What’s the most challenging aspect of marketing in the music and events industry for you?

"A major challenge for me right now is what I call the ‘Meta risk’: why should we, as music venues and cultural organizations, keep pouring money and time into American tech giants like Meta, where we’re constantly battling algorithms we can never really beat? Aside from my own resistance to the idea of endlessly feeding a billion-dollar company like Meta, I see more and more cultural organizations starting to think seriously about alternatives. But how do you do that? How do you continue reaching your audience if you make that switch? Do you start over from scratch? More and more often I find myself wondering how we can keep reaching people in a world where everything moves faster than ever and content is more fleeting than ever. I think those are the kinds of questions we should be asking ourselves as a sector."

Which marketing campaign or activity in your career are you most proud of—and why?

"I’m actually most proud of the moments when I said 'yes' to projects I wasn’t entirely sure about. Things I’d never done before, where I thought: this could either go really well or completely flop. And to be honest: sometimes it did flop. But those situations taught me the most. I’d rather fail hard and come out smarter than always play it safe and never discover anything new."

What’s something your BIRD colleagues would be surprised to learn about you?

"That I study social and media psychology, and that I founded an intersectional feminist book club in 2019: the Boze Bitches Boekenclub. I’m also pretty serious about collecting sneakers, and I spend most of my free time traveling, going to concerts and festivals, and sharing long dinners and dance floors with my friends."

Read more stories and interviews in our magazine!