Laura Prunty has trained all of her adult life to be the General Manager at Antix Management, a specialist ticketing consultancy headquartered in Australia. In that position, she leads strategic planning across a diverse client base, and her more than 17 years of experience in ticketing and live entertainment have prepared her well.
In those 17 years, she has developed and delivered strategies for a broad array of major musicals, everything from “Les Misérables” to Disney’s “Aladdin” to “TINA — The Tina Turner Musical.” Prior to joining Antix, she worked at Chugg Entertainment, Ticketek and MTV Networks, leading successful ticketing campaigns for festivals, venues and concert tours, including the Australian tours of Prince and Elton John.
Laura Prunty
She is based in Sydney, but she often travels to manage touring productions. Prunty says, “My role at Antix involves wearing a few hats, but everything essentially ladders up to making sure our clients’ shows are selling smartly and sustainably. That includes setting up and refining dynamic pricing strategies, reviewing inventory to ensure sales patterns make sense, providing both realistic and stretch season targets and diving deep into sales analysis to uncover patterns and opportunities. I’m also the one who talks way too much on our weekly sales calls!”
The Rewards and Challenges of the Job
She says that one of the biggest parts of each work week is “supporting our account managers — being that sounding board or strategic wing person when things get tricky. Longer term, I work closely with our Managing Director to keep an eye on what’s coming next, whether it’s shifts in consumer behavior or emerging technology or planning for future years in the business.”
Somewhat surprisingly, Prunty says that one of the favorite parts of her job is the energy of those last few days leading up to a show opening. “I genuinely love tech, preview and opening night week!” she exclaims. “It’s full-on — often with small fires to put out — but there’s something electric about being in the thick of it with the team. Because we all work across different states, those weeks are when everything converges: problem-solving, pacing, adrenaline and, often, a bit of glamour to cap it off.”
One of the things that distinguishes Prunty is her self-awareness of the areas she feels she still needs to improve on even after nearly two decades in the business. She confesses to “still trying to master the fine art of convincing the client that our strategy is sound — without launching into an unsolicited TED Talk.”
Prunty knows there are times she gets “too deep into the weeds, thinking if I just present all the data, logic and nuance, they’ll see the light. But sometimes less really is more, and I’m learning that a confident one-liner can often do more than a color-coded spreadsheet and a three-point pricing thesis.”
Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Prunty credits working with top industry figures such as Angela Higgins and Ingrid Hook with a lot of her success. She says the latter taught her to develop “an eagle eye, and I owe much of my attention to detail to her early training.” Higgins, meanwhile, was often fond of saying, “People who don’t make mistakes rarely do any work.” That seems to have really stuck with Prunty. “Mistakes are part of the process,” she says. “The key is learning from them and not making the same one twice. She also showed me that it’s possible to be both a [mother] and a ticketing professional — you really can do both. That advice, and seeing her live it, gave me confidence at a time when the balance felt unattainable.”
And along the way, she has certainly racked up funny stories and interesting anecdotes about her “time in the biz.” Prunty has plenty to tell, but she is especially fond of this one instance where she accidentally let slip to a high-profile client that she “wasn’t here to f**k spiders.” “It’s a very blunt Aussie phrase that’s not all that common and definitely not what you’d expect in a meeting. I was mortified it came out of my mouth. But, to my surprise, they loved it!”
But as hopeful and as positive as Prunty was throughout our interview, she did strike a note of caution when asked to look ahead to the second half of 2025 and give her forecast for ticketing and live events. “I’d say it depends on the sector,” she says. “Concerts and sports are charging ahead — it feels like they’re selling like a freight train. But in commercial theatre, things are tougher. Mounting a production in Australia is getting increasingly expensive, and that’s showing up in ticket pricing. Combine that with a high cost of living, and it’s harder to convince audiences to commit. I’m cautiously optimistic overall, but theatre needs some fresh solutions to keep pace.”
Advice to Other Women
Finally, with this being our Women in Ticketing series, is there any wise counsel Prunty has for young women reading this just starting out in the ticketing/live event business or currently having a tough time reaching their goals? She was quick to reply: “A great piece of advice I’ve carried with me is: ‘Don’t panic, mate.’ That might sound casual. But in the ticketing and live events world — where things can change in a flash and pressure runs high — learning to stay calm and navigate through complexity with composure is an underrated superpower.”
When specifically discussing women who are starting out, Prunty says it is important to “know that your perspective is valuable and your voice matters. Don’t wait to be invited to the table — take your seat, contribute thoughtfully and trust that you belong in the conversation. Mistakes will happen, curveballs will fly. But the confidence you build in your judgement and resilience will serve you far beyond ticket sales.”
She adds, “And if anyone tells you this industry’s too niche or too hard to break into, ignore them! I was told entertainment was a pipe dream and that I should aim for something more conventional. But if you want it, and you’re willing to put in the work, you absolutely can make it happen.”
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