Julius Grafton is a fixture of the Australian live events and entertainment technology industry, with a career spanning five-plus decades. He's based in Birchgrove, Sydney.

He started out in psychedelic and stage lighting from 1973, working his way up to lighting designer by 1980. That year he moved into live sound, founding Graftons Sound and Lighting and Australian Monitor, before selling out in 1989.

He founded ENTECH in 1994 as a single-city trade show. He sold it in 2003, watched the new owners run it into the ground, and lost his key manager to a rival start-up in the process. Rather than walk away, he launched the CX Summer Roadshow in 2011 as a fresh start, then bought back the ENTECH name and database in 2015 — for 1.5 cents in the dollar of what he'd sold it for. Today's ENTECH Roadshow grew out of that comeback and is now the leading touring trade show for professional AV, lighting, staging and production across Australia and New Zealand.

He's co-founder of Kate and Julius Pty Ltd, which runs the ENTECH Roadshow, and owner of Sydney PA Hire, an AV equipment hire business in Artarmon trading since 2010.

Between 2001 and 2010 he ran Julius Events College, a registered training organisation offering a Diploma of Theatre and Events Production. It never made money, but plenty of its graduates are still working across the industry today.

He built event-connect.com.au, the platform behind ENTECH's operations, and is now working to commercialise it more broadly. He also owned CX Magazine, industry media he sold in 2020 while keeping major influence over its direction — its full 359-issue archive, dating back to 1990, has since been made searchable online.

Beyond the events business, he convened the Live Events Electrical Compliance Working Group (LEECWG) after raising electrical safety concerns at ENTECH 2026, pushing for a National Restricted Electrical Licence for live events technicians.

He describes himself as radically transparent — a value he treats as both personal principle and business strategy.