Profile
Sarah McBriar is the creative director and founder of Up Productions Ltd and AVA.
Sarah founded and pioneered AVA, an Audio Visual Arts movement, producing 5 Festivals & Conferences in Belfast, 4 in London, and over 45 Satellite events across Manchester, Glasgow, Mumbai, Amsterdam and Dublin.
Known for her ‘innovative and bold’ approach to projects and productions alike, her leadership has gained the prestigious Innovate UK award amongst the most challenging year for arts & culture.
Sarah is a qualified Prince II Project Manager, and a guest lecturer at CSSD, producing the University’s first online Creative Producing course. She has experience in managing budgets of circa £1M, and Top Tier artist & talent, bringing a wealth of experience and direction to large scale projects.
Sarah’s passion for creativity and development is reflected in her professional life. Previous career highlights span from pioneering and project managing a large scale tourism development project for Manchester City FC between 2012-2015 acquiring international investment and achieving leading attraction status in the City, to working as the assistant to the producer at Block 9 on the Glastonbury 2014 team, to artist liaison support at WHP and MIF.
Sarah is a leading voice on the Northern Ireland Music Steering Group, currently bidding for Unesco Status, and lobbying government for Covid Industry Support; & a member of AFEM, SSS & IEF.