Annie Nightingale – Keynote Speaker

Annie Nightingale MBE has been enjoying a celebratory year at the end of the four decades since she became Britain’s first female dj. She is now BBC Radio 1’s longest serving broadcaster, for which she holds the Guinness Book of Records Award. Her life in music has been made into a documentary “Bird On The Wireless” and has caused a Twitter frenzy on each transmission that it has been shown on BBC4.

Annie has received many awards for her outstanding contribution to music. She has won a unique Special Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, British radio’s equivalent of The Oscars. In 2011, she won the Best Radio Show Award at the International Breakbeat Awards for the sixth year running, and a BBC A and M award for her mammoth “A Night With Annie Nightingale” on Radio 1.

Known as an energetic party animal, Muzik Magazine’s Caner Of The Year and Queen Of Breaks, Annie djs at clubs and festivals all over the world. In Summer 2011, she performed her new Decades show, a unique mix of music from the 70’s to 2011 dubstep is cut together with audio and visual news archive clips, it topped festival bills and earned widespread praise. She has toured with some of the world’s most notorious rock bands.

Her career began as a journalist, which coincided with the Sixties revolution, and later became music columnist on the Daily Express and Cosmopolitan magazine. She became a TV presenter and a co-owner of a chain of fashion boutiques. A second career in television began when she took over as sole presenter during five years of BBC tv’s legendary The Old Grey Whistle Test, recently voted top music programme in The 100 Best TV Shows of all time. She has made numerous documentaries for BBC tv BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 1. She continues her weekly music programme on BBC Radio 1. In 2011 she made her debut on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 and also contributed to The Times leader column. She is also a contributing feature writer to Radio Times.

Annie Nightingale has written two books of autobiography, “Chase the Fade”, and more recently “Wicked Speed”.

She is currently working on the publication of her never before heard interview tapes with such luminaries as Keith Moon, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Marc Bolan and Scott Walker and a TV series and tour highlighting the growing influence and success of British urban music stars.