A new investor group is seeking to revive the SEAT Conference, a trade show that targeted the sports technology marketplace for years before falling victim to the Covid pandemic. According to social media posts and an interview with the conference’s new CEO, the group is looking to hold the next live SEAT gathering in the summer of 2023, with exact dates and locations still to be announced, perhaps as soon as next week.
Joshua Barney, the new CEO of the SEAT Conference, said the new owners are planning to announce more details perhaps as early as Sept. 19. Barney has already posted some information about the plans to revive SEAT on LinkedIn, and said when the details are available they will be available on the SEAT website.
In a phone interview with Barney on Tuesday, he said his new investor group purchased the rights to the event from founder and former owner Christine Stoffel-Moffett. Barney said Stoffel-Moffett remains connected to the new conference team as an important advisor — “we wouldn’t be able to do this [host a new conference] without her,” Barney said.
According to Stoffel-Moffett’s LinkedIn feed, she recently started a new position as Chief Information Officer, Technology & Innovation at Kessler Collection, which according to the company is “a visionary hospitality brand and the founding members of Marriott’s Autograph Collection.” Previously, Stoffel-Moffett had been Head of Enterprise Technology, Data Engineering & InfoSec at NASCAR, a position she started in March 2020. Stoffel-Moffett did not respond to a request for comment on the deal.
The last live SEAT event under Stoffel-Moffett had been at Daytona Beach, Fla., in 2019. The conference had planned to stage its next live event in Minneapolis in 2020, but that event was canceled and no subsequent live events have been held under the previous SEAT ownership.
Barney, a former IT executive with the Utah Jazz, has partners with similar Utah-area roots; Chaz Walker, who according to the new team will head up SEAT business development, is a former University of Utah football player who has also developed a youth sports club management business, according to his LinkedIn profile. Jeff Snow, who Barney said has extensive conference and event management experience, is the third member of the new SEAT executive team.
