Programme and speakers Registration Location & Venue Accommodation Famil Options Partners


Programme and Speakers

Tuesday 4 August 2026 Pre Conference Famils
Wednesday 5 August 2026 Pre Conference Famils (morning)
11.00am
1.00pm
TBC
Registration / Welcome lunch
Opening – Minister Tourism Hon. Louise Upston
Evening Dinner Event Riverside Markets
Thursday 6 August 2026 Conference Day Two
Topical Industry Business Sessions
Industry Panels
Key Note Speaker*
Awards Dinner One New Zealand Stadium
Friday 7 August 2026 Post Conference Famils

A detailed programme will be made available closer to the time and subject to change.

Key Note Speaker**

Ant Williams – An expert in mental fitness & high performance leadership

A New Zealander, now based in Australia, Ant Williams is no ordinary speaker. He’s a world-record freediver who has held his breath for over 8 minutes, dived to 100m on a single breath, and swum 182m under solid ice in an unforgiving Arctic landscape. He doesn’t just talk about risk-taking and mental fitness, he lives it.

But here’s what makes Ant different: he wasn’t always a risk-taker. A former Sport Psychologist, Ant spent years coaching elite athletes – motoGP riders, big wave surfers, rock climbers – only to feel like a fraud. Everything he was teaching came from a textbook, not from actual experience.

So, he decided to take up a dangerous sport and discover whether risk-taking could be learned – and what advantage his mental fitness techniques would create.

Recently featured in an immersive film with Apple (2025), Ant’s keynotes combine gripping storytelling, powerful techniques from applied psychology, and interactive experiences to help audiences perform at their peak when it matters most.