Dawn Farrow - Experience Economy Sales & Marketing Consultant.
- Isobel Arden
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
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Meet Dawn Farrow.
In this interview, Mark invited Dawn Farrow to create her own fantasy cultural year from the answers to some easy questions where there are no wrong answers. Enjoy her journey below.
Dawn Farrow is one of the UK’s leading voices in the experience economy — a strategist, consultant and founder.
Dawn specialises in the commercial machinery behind live experiences, from immersive exhibitions and theatre to festivals, branded activations and cultural attractions. She is known for helping organisations sell more tickets, grow audiences and build confident, commercially savvy marketing teams.
Dawn began her career in theatre marketing, bouncing between touring productions and regional venues before launching her first business, Boom Ents — an agency that handled campaigns for comedy, circus and family entertainment long before “immersive” became the trend it is today.
Over the years she sold campaigns into stadiums, parks, museums, London venues and international markets, proving that ticketing wasn’t just about conversions, it was about psychology, storytelling and understanding why people choose to leave the sofa.
After moving into freelance consultancy, Dawn spent a decade advising producers, promoters and creative teams on sales strategy, demand generation, revenue planning and audience development. Along the way she clocked up over 36 million ticket sales across a sprawling ecosystem of experiences.
She founded On Sale Group, an industry-first platform dedicated to upskilling and supporting the commercial layer of the experience economy — the marketers, ticketing managers, comms teams, revenue leaders and sales strategists who turn concepts into audiences.
On Sale Group runs workshops, masterclasses, networking events, membership programmes and talent development initiatives designed to build confidence, skill and community. Its flagship event, On Sale Live, is the first and only confex for the commercial engine of live experiences: a hybrid conference and exhibition where industry professionals share real tactics, real case studies and not a single inspirational “thought-leaderism” unless it’s actually useful.
On Sale Group’s founding thesis is blunt: the experience economy is growing faster than its talent base, and without structured training, the industry will hit a ceiling. Dawn’s goal is to prevent that ceiling — and to make the commercial side of the industry feel less lonely, less opaque and considerably more competent.
Alongside On Sale Group, Dawn is a Governor of the Central School of Ballet, a speaker, a writer and an advocate for events that bring us together.
Dawn's Fantasy Cultural Year ... with a magic wand and time machine to hand.
Dawn Farrow’s Fantasy Cultural Year opens in the quiet beauty of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire — a place threaded with history, fields, and childhood memory. With her father’s farm next door, the Abbey isn’t just architecture, it’s belonging.
At 6pm on a warm June evening she sits at the little visitor café, a iced rosé at her elbow and a copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist at rest beside it — chosen for its companionship on her entrepreneurial journey and its optimism about destiny and persistence. In her headphones plays “Defying Gravity” from Wicked — the musical theatre anthem that followed her all the way into adulthood.
A Global Commission
From this quiet corner of Lincolnshire, a fictional philanthropic family foundation approaches Dawn with an extraordinary commission: a year of first-class global travel to understand where the experience economy can create the greatest cultural and economic value. Waiting at the end will be a book, TV series, TED Talk, and a role as the national spokesperson for the experience economy.
There is one non-negotiable: her 9-year-old daughter Ivy must come with her. No child should be left behind in the making of a global expert, and Dawn imagines Ivy quite happily becoming the junior co-author of the whole thing.
New York as First Launchpad
Her first real stop after London is New York City, for its concentration of live performance, extreme audience demand, and relentless global influence.
On the flight, she is given a challenge: she may only listen to one genre of music for the entire year. Dawn smiles — for her, there is no contest. She chooses musical theatre: emotional, expressive, narrative, and utterly human.
A Time-Shifted Dance Highlight
In Manhattan, she is welcomed by students, experience-makers, and cultural innovators who take her to a dream performance — with the rules bent through time. Dawn selects Lee Anderson’s Featherstonehaughs, the dance company she adored as an A-Level dance student: club settings, fevered physicality, and avant-garde performance long before social media.
Afterwards, Dawn and Ivy head for dinner, and the choice is charmingly unpretentious: smashed burgers, eaten with glee and no white tablecloths in sight.
The Hero Lunch
Before returning to the rest of the year-long journey, Dawn is granted the tradition of the hero lunch — a meal in London with anyone, living or not. Dawn chooses her dance teacher, Janet, the figure who opened the door to performance, physical confidence, and the wider world of live entertainment in which Dawn would eventually build a career.
In a twist, Janet is allowed to invite a guest of her own. Without hesitation, she chooses Lily Savage — for wit, boldness, subversion, and the pure electricity of performance.
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Mark Walmsley FRSA FCIM AGSM
Chief Culture Vulture
Arts & Culture Network
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