Eventival was officially founded as a UK company in November 2008 near Fontainebleau, France, by Adrian Johnson, Tomáš Prášek and “Dawna” Cha Yeo Myoung. But the story of Eventival began much earlier.

In 2000, while working as Guest Services Manager at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), I persuaded my colleague, software developer Pavel Kalenda, to establish DataKal. Pavel had created an internal festival management system for KVIFF, and we believed it could benefit other festivals facing similar organizational challenges.

Our first client outside Karlovy Vary was the inaugural Bergen International Film Festival in Norway. It was followed by Finale Plzeň and soon afterwards by the Pusan International Film Festival (today’s Busan IFF), where we fundamentally redesigned many of the festival’s operational workflows. Each new collaboration expanded the software and deepened our understanding of how different organizations worked.

Over the following years, DataKal became the world’s first internationally adopted film festival management system. By 2008, it was supporting more than twenty major festivals, including Bergen, Busan, Thessaloniki, Udine, Tribeca, Mar del Plata, Rome, Paris, Hamburg, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Goa. Every new festival contributed new ideas, requirements and experience, gradually creating a unique body of knowledge about how festivals operate.

In 2004, while working on CuBa, the new festival management system for the Berlinale, we met Adrian Johnson, a British entrepreneur and software developer. Several years later, in September 2008, while we were beginning work with Cinéma du Réel in Paris, Adrian suggested something new: creating a web-based platform that would make the experience gained with DataKal accessible to many more organizations.

That idea became Eventival.

Originally, the vision was to create a simpler, lighter platform for smaller festivals and cultural events. During the preparations, however, Pavel decided not to join the new venture. I therefore invited Dawna, my colleague and life partner at the time, who had spent five years managing MOFFOM (Music on Film – Film on Music), a film festival founded by producer John Caulkins. Together with Adrian, we established Eventival in France and began building the new platform.

Our backgrounds complemented each other perfectly. Adrian brought extensive software development expertise, while Dawna and I contributed years of practical experience organizing international film and music festivals. From the beginning, our goal was not simply to build software, but to simplify the increasingly complex work of festival organizers, improve collaboration, strengthen communication and provide better services to participants.

The response was immediate. During Berlinale 2009, more than fifty festivals expressed interest in the new platform, and organizations such as AFI FEST, Ventana Sur, Bergen International Film Festival, Giffoni Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival became early adopters. The demand exceeded what our small team could deliver, and it soon became clear that we needed a stronger development structure to realize our ambitions.

In August 2009, Dawna and I returned to Prague and established Eventival as a Czech company. With a dedicated development team, UX specialists and new investment, we began building the platform that continues to evolve today.

What started as a web-based successor to DataKal has since grown far beyond its original vision. Eventival now supports more than a hundred festivals and other events across Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia. While it was born in the film festival industry, it is now used by film markets, theatre festivals, film schools, professional associations, cultural institutions, book fairs and many other organizations that share the same need for accurate information, efficient collaboration and long-term knowledge management.

Although the technology has changed dramatically over the years, the original mission remains the same: to help creative organizations spend less time managing complexity and more time creating outstanding events and building lasting communities.

Tomas Prasek

Dozens of people have contributed their ideas, skills and deditation to the creation of Eventival since the time the company was founded near Fontainebleau in 2008, We immensely appreciate the support and patience of all the festival organisers who trusted us when this unique and unusual company was merely an ambitious idea.