Gareth Swann

Gareth (or Swanny to most) started in the industry working agency side for PlayStation at experiential agency Making Waves, looking after the PlayStation network (incorporating UK universities, Virgin Active,Gleneagles, Hotel Pelirocco and Beaulieu Motor Museum), working on the huge PlayStation Experience events, the million console parties and DevStations (platform run developer events), and most notably writing the PSP training manual for SCEE staff. Swanny also managed roadshows and tours for tech clients (Samsung / 3 Mobile) and drinks clients like Diageo (Aftershock / Jose Cuervo....). After leaving Making Waves, he then had a spell sitting in a dark hot room eating crisps and drinking endless amounts of coke with 6 guys, testing at TT Games on Lego Star Wars 2.

In 2005, Swanny moved to neon communications to manage the Xbox Third Party account (as well as work on the release of Halo 3 and various Xbox experiential and shopping center tours among activity), and Account Manage other Games Publishers including Codemasters, Disney, Sega, Capcom and THQ. While at neon, Gareth also regularly "went on loan" to Xbox EMEA to assist with product & support plans in relation to publisher titles, gaining valuable knowledge in the various opportunities presented through the numerous channels now available through the platform as a content provider.

As well as having organised umpteen press trips / launches (DiRT 2 & DiRT 3, Epic Mickey, Caspian, Pure, Anarchy Reigns, The Club, Condemned and Viking) and working on a number of integrated online & ATL campaigns (G Force & SplitSecond, Dead Rising 2, Drawn2Life), Gareth also worked on many consumer events and launches including Street Fighter IV UK and SFIV European championships, the Halo 3 launch, MW2 launch (on behalf of Xbox), the Windows Phone launch & tour among others.

Gareth took up position as Bethesda Softworks' European Events Manager in May of 2011 and has since worked on GamesCom, IDEF, Eurogamer, Paris Games Week, and the launch of the EPIC Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.