We do a couple of million tickets a year John Cleary, founder of Eventmaster

The Local Enterprise Awards for 2026 taok place recently in the Mansion House in Dublin. The awards are a celebration of the very best small businesses from across the country and serve to highlight the work that Local Enterprise Offices are doing with up-and-coming enterprises in every local authority area in the country.

The 31 finalists have each been chosen by their Local Enterprise Office to represent them and their area at the awards, which are in their 26th year. The finalists feature a diverse mix of sectors and founders all competing for a share of the €80,000 prize fund and the chance to be named National Enterprise of the Year. There are also regional awards, and categories for Best Start-Up, Best Export Business, the Innovation Award, Digital Award, Green Award and the Female Entrepreneur award.

I caught up with three of the finalists, and the first finalist I spoke to was John Cleary, the founder of Eventmaster and the Limerick finalist.

John talks to me about his background, what Eventmaster does, the Local enterprise awards and more.

More about Eventmaster:

John Cleary, Founder of Eventmaster set up the company in 2010 while working as Race Director of the Great Limerick Run. John could not find a ticket participation system in Ireland capable of managing large-scale sporting events – so he set out to design one. Eventmaster operates a one-system approach for ticketing, fundraising, real time data and scalable digital infrastructure for events.

Since 2010, Eventmaster technology has supported over 3,000 events including the Dublin Marathon, Very Pink Run, Cork City Marathon and many more charity-based events. Eventmaster is now looking to target markets internationally through exporting the technology used.