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Gary McClarnan, Founder, Sparklestreet

Gary is a serial entrepreneur who started out studying Engineering technology and design in the early 1980's, then moved on to photography. He contributed to the definitive Hacienda book, 'The Hacienda Must Be Built', and then joined the team at the UK music magazine Mixmag, taking it from DJ fanzine to leading club culture glossy. Alongside this, he turned a failing rock venue in the UK into a leading dance venue and took DJ Sasha from bedroom DJ to national icon.

In 1995, Gary started an artist management and event production company in Manchester and discovered dj Mr Scruff, who is still a client, and has helped him reach international fame, selling over 500,000 records. He's produced events for Adidas, the BBC and others and synchronised his clients' music to Adidas, Virgin Atlantic, Mastercard, Volvo, Lincoln, Pathe Films, Universal Films, BBC, C4 Films, Bacardi, Accors Hotels, BT and more.

In 1997 Gary joined the Music Mangers forum board, later becoming 'Head of New Strategies' (1999), and contributed to the development of Mpeg4 and Mpeg7.