Event Director

Organisation: Level Water
Salary: Part-time/contract role - rate to be agreed depending on experience, scope, and working pattern
Location: Nationwide (HQ is in Tunbridge Wells). Event weekends at venues across the South of England
Contract type: Fixed Term (Part time)
Closing date: 31 August 2025
Job Description: Event Director role: 50-80 days per year
Part-time or contract

Purpose

Do colleagues see you as someone who takes ownership, spots opportunities, and acts decisively to make things happen?
Come and join a very ambitious, joyful and purpose-led team to deliver the “London Marathon of Swimming” and the “Glastonbury of swimming”.

Level Water owns and operates one of the UK’s most famous and iconic series of outdoor swims: river swims (including the Dart10k and Bantham Swoosh) and our growing series of Wild Swim relay series (in lakes and lidos).

We’re looking for an experienced Event Director to oversee the safe, smooth and successful delivery of our events, and to help us grow new strategic venue partnerships.

Our events aren’t just about great experiences on the day - they’re the engine behind our charity’s impact. Every ticket helps to fund life-changing swimming lessons for children with disabilities. So delivering them well, and making them thrive, is central to our mission.

In this role, you’ll oversee our existing delivery team - working closely with our wonderful Event Manager and Events Assistant to be a second pair of eyes on all operational elements of our events - managing risk, aligning workstreams, coordinating delivery teams (internal and external), and making informed decisions on the ground. You’ll also play a key part in shaping how our events grow - working with the wider team to improve participant experience, support ticket sales, and drive long-term success.

This is a senior role for someone who can hold the big picture, lead with confidence, and ensure that the quality and impact of our events reflects the ambition of our mission.

Key Responsibilities

Event Oversight & Planning

- Hold top-level knowledge of all elements of the event plan, timeline, and risk areas
- Review and sign off:
- Operational Plans
- Health & Safety Plans
- Key documentation (e.g. risk assessments, briefing documents, site plans)
- Ticketing platform processes
- Staffing and Volunteer Plans
- Sign-off swimmers email content, communications and data
- Attend key planning meetings to stay up to date and input on decisions
- Oversee and advise on participant registration and data analysis (e.g. skins applicants, wave allocations)
- Provide strategic input and sign-off on participant communications and planning

Event Weekends

- Lead on-site presence at both the start and finish locations
- Act as the lead point of decision-making on the day, particularly for:
- Event timings
- Health & safety decisions
- Incident response
- Ensure all delivery teams (logistics, medical, water safety, volunteers, etc.) are aligned and coordinated

Post-Event

- Contribute to post-event debriefs and evaluations
- Provide insight into how operational decisions impacted the participant journey, communications, and conversion
- Input into commercial and strategic planning for future years

Nice-to-have: Event Growth, Marketing & Sales

- Setup and oversee management of ticket sales platforms, database and email marketing
- Identify and act on opportunities to improve participant experience, retention, and referrals
- Lead the planning and execution of strategies to grow our swim event audience, participation and locations year-on-year
- Collaborate with the Marketing Assistant to shape campaign messaging, timelines, and content.
- Use insight from registration data, feedback, and event performance to suggest improvements and innovations that can increase future ticket sales

Essential Experience & Skills

- Significant experience in delivering complex outdoor or mass participation events, ideally in a senior leadership or Race/Event Director role, ideally with a team beneath you
- Proven ability to manage and support staff (e.g. Event Manager, Assistant), while holding overall accountability
- Strong operational knowledge, including health & safety, risk management, and incident planning
- Confident making time-sensitive decisions on event day, particularly relating to safety, scheduling, and logistics
- Proven ability to oversee multiple delivery teams, suppliers, and stakeholders, ensuring cohesive and joined-up operations
- Skilled at reviewing, shaping and signing off core event documentation (e.g. operations plans, site plans, risk assessments, briefing documents)
- Experience working with participant data to inform decisions (e.g. wave allocations, special access needs, skins swimmers)
- Commercially aware, with understanding of how operations, marketing, and communications affect ticket sales and participant experience
- Clear and calm communicator - across email, in-person meetings, and live radio environments

Desirable Experience

- Experience with water-based or endurance events
- Familiarity with participant journey communications and/or marketing campaign planning
- Experience contributing to or leading on the growth of an event series
- Experience working in a charity, purpose-led organisation, or with volunteer teams
How to apply: Please email lucy@levelwater.org with a CV and a cover letter. We always appreciate a phone call with questions - if you have any, please call 07912 432 660.