Tobias Thomas has been part of the close circle of the Cologne-based electronic label KOMPAKT since the early 1990s and gained fame as a DJ and ambassador of the ‘Sound of Cologne’. He has lived in Cologne since 1992 and works as a project manager, author, journalist, organiser, curator and music producer. Thomas worked as an editor for the Cologne music magazine SPEX from 2000 to 2007. Since 2007, he has worked at the Cologne music festival c/o pop, where he was the festival's programme director from 2009 to 2013. From 2014 - 2021 Thomas worked for KOMPAKT as an artist and event manager as well as booking agent. From 1998 - 2024 Tobias organised the party series ‘Total Confusion’ together with Michael Mayer and others, which is still considered one of the first diverse and queer parties in Cologne.He is a member of the Pop Culture Advisory Board of the City of Cologne and the Pop Board NRW and a guest juror for the artist programme of Initiative Musik. His great passion is for local amateur football, where he is involved in social, sustainable and anti-discriminatory projects as the full-time managing director of football at ESV Olympia Köln.As a graduate of the ‘Transformation Management Sustainable Culture’ training programme, he has been working at the intersection of culture, sport and social sustainability since 2021. His current project is the cultural programme ‘FU24BA7L’, initiated and funded by the Football and Culture Foundation for UEFA EURO 24 in Germany.