Events Manager – EMEA

Grafana Labs is the company behind the open observability cloud. More than 35 million users and 7,000+ customers rely on it — including Anthropic, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Salesforce. The company is 100% remote with 1,600+ team members across 40+ countries, backed by Lightspeed, Sequoia, GIC, Coatue, J.P. Morgan, CapitalG and Lead Edge.

The opportunity

You would independently own and deliver Grafana's regional events across EMEA and, over time, APJ — from their ObservabilityCON on the Road conferences through to the third-party sponsorship portfolio.

This is a hands-on role for someone who has run their own conferences end to end: sourced and contracted the venue, managed the budget, managed the vendors, and been on-site when something went wrong. Grafana are explicit that you own the outcome of your events, not just their execution.

What you'll be doing

• Independently managing a portfolio of in-person events, including owned regional user conferences and third-party sponsorships, across EMEA and eventually APJ
• Leading end-to-end logistics: venue sourcing, negotiating and contracting, vendor coordination, booth design and setup, and on-site execution
• Owning project management — timelines, budgets, contracts and vendor communications
• Defining and tracking event success metrics, then turning post-event analysis into improvements that lift ROI
• Creating and approving event assets: signage, collateral, presentations, registration experiences
• Building AI and automation tools to improve planning efficiency and reporting
• Identifying risks early and making real-time on-site decisions
• Guiding junior team members, contractors and agency partners while staying hands-on

What makes you a great fit

• Located in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden or Germany
• 4+ years of direct event management, including conferences you personally owned end to end
• Demonstrated ownership of the full lifecycle: venue contracting, budget reconciliation, vendor management, registration build, on-site delivery as lead, post-event analysis
• Experience as primary on-site lead, making real-time calls on vendors, staffing and run of show without escalation
• Curiosity about new marketing technologies, including AI-driven tools such as Claude Code
• Excellent communication across global, cross-functional teams
• Zuddl or similar registration platforms preferred; Salesforce and Monday.com familiarity useful

Compensation and benefits

• UK OTE: £79,000 – £95,000. Ranges are country-specific; your recruiter discusses your market's range at the start
• Restricted Stock Units in every role — Grafana states all roles include RSUs
• 30 days annual leave globally, three reserved as company Shutdown Days so the whole team disconnects together
• In-person onboarding with fellow new joiners

The travel commitment — read this carefully

This role requires approximately 40% travel by plane, including long-haul trips to APJ and occasional work across APJ and AMER time zones. Grafana also flag that during peak event seasons travel may be frequent, with back-to-back trips over extended periods.

That is a significant commitment and it is the central trade-off here. Events work is inherently location-bound in bursts — worth weighing honestly against a settled remote routine.

Location — one thing to note

The listing header shows "United Kingdom (Remote)", but the requirements say you may be located in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden or Germany. Grafana posts this same role as four separate country listings, one per market. Filed here as EMEA to cover all four; you only need to apply once, to whichever version matches your country.

The application also asks whether you speak fluent French, whether you are eligible to work in your country of residence, and whether you require visa sponsorship — so existing work authorisation is expected rather than sponsorship offered.

Grafana discloses that it may use AI tools to help match CVs against job postings, with the recruitment team continuing to review inbound CVs manually.