Senior Manager of Event Sales

This is a Full Time Job

We are currently hiring for the position of:

Senior Manager, Event Sales

This position is a crucial role in driving event sales and managing relationships with external clients. This individual will be responsible for generating client estimates, booking events, coordinating with internal teams, managing revenue tracking, processing invoices, and maintaining up-to-date documentation.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Provide strategic leadership and day-to-day oversight of the team sales strategy to achieve annual revenue target (average ~$2.8M/annum)
• Develop innovative sales and asset strategies for outreach to drive sales pipelines and revenues to TLB
• Steward returning large scale 3rd party Events (Partner Festivals, Corporate clients and city-wide conferences) to maximize both experience and revenue
• Lead Event Sales through 3rd party inquiry internal approval (alongside Event Production & TIFF Programming)
• Maintain team processes and documents for Event Sales
• Liaise with internal departments to ensure relevant event information is being sent in a timely fashion (Front of House, Technical)
• Support Director with revenue forecasting and budget oversight, monthly reconciliations, and annual submissions.
• Job Grade 4

TARGET CONTRACT DATES:
• Mid-March 2026

WORK LOCATION:
• Office Location: 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
• Weekly in-office requirements:
• Minimum 2 days (November to May)
• Minimum 3 days (June to October)
• Festival Office Requirements: Full Time during Festival

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

Education & Experience
• Minimum 5 years’ experience driving revenue via live events; including in event and/or venue sales, hospitality, partnerships, and event planning strongly preferred.
• University degree, college diploma or equivalent work experience.
• Experience working in a non-profit or arts organization an asset.
• Demonstrated experience managing teams.

Skills
• Exceptional Communication / Negotiation
• Clearly and effectively communicate with external clients and internal stakeholders.
• Ability to participate in and lead high-stake negotiations with internal and external stakeholders and partners.
• Proven ability to lead regular calls with event stakeholders and partners independently.
• Ability to lead a high volume of presentations (internal and external).
• Ability to act as a productive team representative at internal and external meetings with multiple stakeholders to drive results, e.g. Collaboration with Partnerships, Loyalty & Engagement, Visitor Experience and Event Production.
• Ability to work diplomatically with multiple stakeholders and be persuasive with both internal and external parties.
• Work closely with event bookings clients to ensure event inquiries are responded to in an efficient and timely manner; anticipate and negotiate any potential conflicts.
• Ability to trouble-shoot when approached onsite with concerns by clients, partners, members or general public.
• Actively listen to stakeholder feedback, particularly during post-mortem conversations, and work efficiently and professionally to address problems and/or improve their experience.
• Work closely with partners/clients/prospects to develop sustainable and realistic objectives during negotiations.
• Understand and keep abreast of key partner industry news and trends.
• Strong ability to prioritize competing priorities (both internal and external).
• Proactively and professionally resolve scheduling conflicts with internal teams to ensure success of both internal and external events.
• Ability to find solutions for difficult or complex stakeholder issues and/or goals, through internal collaboration.
• Hire, train, and motivate Event Sales team members as required.
• Effectively share team processing and best practices organization wide.
• Thoughtfully provide input on the assignment of event portfolios based on team member capacity and interests.
• Monitor industry best practices and develop net new event bookings strategies to generate further revenue opportunities.
• Research the current market, maintain, and put into practice a strong understanding of the Hospitality and Event Partnerships spaces including growing existing client relationships and fostering new ones for growth year over year.
• Consistently review current processes and suggest the implementation of changes that improve efficiency, reduce team overtime, and achieve stronger results.
• Organization/project responsibility
• Manage and prioritize many priorities, deadlines and deliverables
• Lead team maintenance of pipeline and prospects documents on an ongoing basis.
• Provide monthly revenue and partnership reporting to internal teams as assigned.
• Interpersonal skills
• Strong negotiation skills to bring in new clients and renew existing clients while presenting upsell and/or optimized revenue opportunities.
• Showcase a positive attitude, professionalism and exemplary listening, verbal and non-verbal communication to build strong relationships with partners.
• Able to manage and diffuse difficult situations with clients and internal stakeholders.
• Experience working with Event Management systems, specifically Artifax, considered an asset.
• Concentrating for prolonged periods at a computer terminal working on tasks data input, invoicing, contracts, and emails.
• Providing service to several stakeholders, both internal and external, working under many simultaneous deadlines.
• Long periods and occasional later evenings onsite while hosting events or supporting the service of client events.
• Ability to move swiftly through the TLB venue to address client issues efficiently onsite and in real-time.
• Consistently available for working hours 9am-5pm Monday through Friday, some extended hours in lead up to and during Festival and other major client events. Mix virtual/live when not required to provide Event Sales or support services onsite. On average minimum 3 days/week in-office, must be flexible to increase based on client demand.
• Office, mostly sitting, regular interruptions.
• Distractions/multiple demands
• Weekly reporting to Director
• Monthly revenue, bookings details and partnerships reporting to Senior Management and other select internal teams
• High volume of meetings and ongoing event deliverables with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Firm maintenance of Event Sales Service Principles; e.g. Response to all external inquiries within 48 hours at the latest. Venue License Agreement