StandOut Magazine May 2024

#FoFs connect | community | celebrate

April 2025...…

MAY 2024

he grit and determination displayed by the athletes taking part in this year’s Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race are a prime example of the lengths that people will go to win. Cambridge’s pacesetter Matt Edge had to be helped from the boat following the university’s win over Oxford. Event medical teams sprang into action and helped get the rower back on his feet to take his place on the podium, albeit for a brief moment.

This month, we have talked with Chris Price, event project manager for The Boat Race, about developments at this year’s race including big changes to the event’s fan zones and, thankfully, athlete medical provision. It’s demonstrative of the positive steps being taken to improve everyone’s experience at unticketed events, yet Chris’ interview is not the only discussion I have had recently about making events more accessible and welcoming.

Joe Carter, event lead of this year’s Brighton Marathon, has also talked to StandOut about extensive changes at the mass participation event, the first year that London Marathon Events (LME) has had a full 12 months to plan the event since it took over the running of the marathon weekend in December 2022.

The changes that LME has implemented are huge and I’m sure that they are just the start of an ongoing journey. And it’s a similar story for the organising teams at Hay Festival, Boomtown, Brighton Council, and Brockwell Live. All are taking significant steps towards making their events more sustainable, so turn to page 21 and you can read about cutting down on plastics, the increasing use of mains power, travel tracking, carbon monitoring and more.

This month’s issue is packed full of positive stories. From the expansion of the Summer Sessions brand to a look at the unwavering strength of the team behind Test Fest, a small music festival designed to promote men’s health and raise awareness of testicular cancer. Turn to page 41 to read our chat with festival director, Sue Brand, and the festival’s ballsy approach.

As always, pop the kettle on and settle down for a read. It’s an issue to celebrate so enjoy and let me know what you loved reading about the most.

Happy reading,

Caroline T

12 NO PLACE LIKE “HOME”

17 SUMMER OF LOVE

21 IT’S TIME TO ACT

10 EVENT TENDERS

Check out the latest event tenders and news of contract wins

12 NO PLACE LIKE “HOME”

Event Buyers Live is back… with a big announcement

14 STROKE OF LUCK

New measures introduced at The 2024 Gemini Boat Race had a massive impact on the event’s success. Chris Price, the event’s project manager, reveals all

17 SUMMER OF LOVE

Cuffe and Taylor’s Peter Taylor discusses Summer Sessions and why local audiences and a strong brand are the key to success

21 IT’S TIME TO ACT

From carbon labelling and milk vending machines to salvaging old sets and reducing energy consumption, event organisers are working hard to reduce their impact on the environment

41

53

29 POSITIVE STEPS

A wheelchair wave, reflection areas, and family welfare hubs were all introduced at this year’s Brighton Marathon. StandOut talks with London Marathon Event’s Joe Carter, event lead

32 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Steve Heap has retired from the Association of Festival Organisers. Here, he reflects on what his role has taught him and why he has every faith that the festival scene will bounce back

41 BALL GAME

How a charity has taken a ballsy approach to raising awareness of testicular cancer with its own festival. Sue Brand, festival director, talks all things Test Fest

53 THE SHOW MUST GO ON… UNTIL IT CAN’T

What criteria should you use to judge whether an event can continue after you have opened the doors? Acumen Safety’s Olly Galvin raises the question

BALL GAME

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

CONTRIBUTORS: This month’s

RICHARD WALPOLE

As CEO of Gloworm Events Group, Richard oversees the running of Gloworm Festival in Nottingham and Gilbert’s Big Day Out in Warrington. Additionally, he shares his expertise as a lecturer in event management at Nottingham Trent University and also freelances, drawing on years of experience as an event manager and stage manager on various outdoor events and festivals. In this issue, Richard talks with StandOut about the expansion of his family-friendly brand and the ticket-buying trends he has witnessed within his target market.

JOE CARTER

For more than seven years, Joe has worked at London Marathon Events (LME) in a variety of roles. From activations co-ordinator and operations planner to operations manager and now senior manager, Joe has a wealth of operational and sporting event experience. Before joining LME, Joe worked at Fuse on the Nissan UEFA Champions League and Carlsberg Premier League accounts. His experiences have stood him in good stead for his current role, event lead at the Brighton Marathon. In this latest edition of StandOut, Joe talks about event developments at the mass participation event and how 12 months of solid planning has made such a huge difference to the customer experience.

ANDY FRYERS

Andy is the sustainability director at Hay Festival and is deeply passionate about event sustainability and our collective impact on the climate and environment we live in. Andy has worked at Hay since 2007 and he is responsible for improving the festival’s direct impacts through changing management practices. He works hard to provide options and incentives for visitors to reduce their own impacts and influences and informs the festival’s sustainability agenda by hosting leading authors, politicians, business leaders and commentators in discussions, debates, events and seminars. In this issue, Andy reveals new sustainability measures for Hay Festival 2024, including a pilot project around milk and plastic.

Andy Fryers image: © Billie Charity

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Luke Watson has been promoted to logistics manager EMEA at Ironman Group.

Julie Coates-Walker has been appointed as group head of sales for conferences, events, and hospitality at Arena Racing Company.

Guy Kinnings has been appointed CEO of the European Tour Group.

Richard Barrett is the new head of sales at Wasserman Live.

Richie Gage has joined Bearded Kitten as director of production.

Freemans Event Partners has appointed Jake Denton as head of concessions.

Kez Withers has joined Attachment as head of live.

Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre has appointed Sarah Marshall as venue director.

The world’s largest adventure motorcycle festival returns to Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, on June 28-30, 2024. The fifth Adventure Bike Rider Festival (15,000 capacity) promises to be the most interactive motorcycle event in the UK, with visitors looking forward to more opportunities than ever to ride motorcycles, listen to live music acts, and be inspired by stage talks. The Adventure Bike Rider Festival boasts 40 kilometres of continuous purpose-built trails for 2024, welcoming riders of all abilities to give off-road riding a try. This year’s festival will feature alternative entertainment on the new Bridgestone Stage.

LINKEDIN POST OF THE MONTH

There are only three types of conversation, so says Charles Duhigg in his brilliant book, Super Communicators.

The person starting the conversation wants one of three things; understanding this can transform how we interact.

• Heard – The person starting the conversation simply wants to be heard; they might want to rant, moan or exude about something. They don’t need anything from you other than to listen.

• Hugged – The person you are speaking with needs understanding, support and empathy from you.

• Helped – They want practical advice on something.

At the start of a conversation, try asking the conversee, what it is they need from this conversation. This hack reduces misunderstanding, reduces the risk of conflict and boosts relationships.

The Purple Guide contains an updated chapter for Events on and Around Water.

The UK Government has launched a bid to host the Invictus Games in 2027.

The UKCMA, Night Time Industries Association and LIVE have published a guide called Safer Crowds, Safer Venues to enhance crowd management practices in licensed venues, under 5,000 capacity.

A Greener Future has published its latest Festival Sustainability Report.

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The United Kingdom Crowd Management Association has appointed Anne Marie Chebib as its new chair.

Tender time

Looking for new business opportunities and to fi ll the order book? Discover the latest event tenders up for grabs…

South Ayrshire Council is looking for an experienced traffic management provider to develop and manage traffic at the International Ayr Show – Festival of Flight. The deadline is 12pm on May 8. Email procurement@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

The University of Aberdeen requires event management services for its summer graduation ceremonies. The deadline for this tender is 12pm on April 29. Email e-sourcing@abdn.ac.uk

The Prince’s Trust wishes to appoint an event delivery agency for its flagship mass participation event, Palace to Palace, as well as an additional smaller event called Walk the Talk. The deadline is 12pm on April 29. Email David Washbrook at support@multiquote.com

The Royal Parks is conducting an early market engagement exercise before inviting suitably qualified organisations to submit proposals for an event (up to five days) in Kensington Gardens. The event would run from 2025 to 2029. The deadline for this tender is 12am on November 1. Email sreboucas@royalparks.org.uk

Durham County Council has extended Showsec’s crowd management and event security contract for a further eight months to accommodate a period of restructuring currently taking place within the council’s culture, sport and tourism department.

TBI Media has won the contract to produce Team GB House for Team GB at Paris 2024.

Manchester Central has issued a tender for event security and stewarding services. The deadline for this £1.5 million, threeyear contract (with an option to extend) is 12pm on May 17. Interested parties should email Luke Sheldon – procurement@ manchestercentral.co.uk

National Highways is conducting an early market engagement exercise to gather feedback ahead of issuing a tender for a highly-visible converted vehicle that it wishes to use as a mobile exhibition vehicle to engage the public. Interested? Please email adprocurement@nationalhighways.co.uk

No place like “home”

Event Buyers Live has signed a multi-year deal with luxury estate Carden Park to host the respected hosted buyer event

S tandOut Multimedia, the organiser of Event Buyers Live (EBL), has signed an exclusive three-year partnership with Carden Park, which will see the industry-leading hosted buyer event take place at the luxury country estate, Chester, until 2027.

This year, EBL, which facilitates prearranged meetings between respected live event organisers and event suppliers, will celebrate its tenth anniversary.

Carden Park has hosted EBL since 2022. This new partnership will see the EBL organising team work collaboratively with Carden Park’s management and operations team to deliver EBL guests a productive experience in relaxed surroundings.

Neil Fagg, co-founder of EBL and event director, said of the partnership: “Every year, we survey our guests to find out how we can improve the event experience, and I’m humbled to say that once again, the feedback last year was overwhelmingly positive. I’ve said it before but when your guests tell you that they love the venue and the staff, venue choice is a simple decision.

“As event professionals, we all know how important venue choice is to the success of an event and therefore, I am so pleased to now be able to call Carden Park home for the next three years.

“The team know us and how the event works, which makes planning all the more easier, and when we’re busy deciding on how we are going to make this year’s EBL and our 10th anniversary celebrations the best yet, busy eventprofs will appreciate how much pressure this takes off you. It means we can focus on making sure our guests are getting the most from the event and empower the Carden Park team to do what they do best.”

PRODUCTIVE MEETINGS

Image: © Aniseed Photo

THE RIGHT PARTNER

Event Buyers Live 2024 will take place from November 11-13 and is a not-to-be-missed date in event professionals’ calendars. This year’s outing will be a big celebration packed with first-rate pre-arranged meetings, topclass content, unrivalled networking and awesome entertainment.

Fagg continued: “We couldn’t be happier to have signed a three-year partnership with Carden Park. It brings a huge smile to my face to be able to say we’ve found the right venue partner, who wants to collaborate and also give our guests such a great experience that our guests want to return too.”

Dan Gibson, sales director at Carden Park, said: “We have been working with Neil and the wider Event Buyers Live team for some time now and have loved welcoming their guests to our wonderful estate.

“Event professionals know only too well the pressures that come with making guests

feel happy and welcome, attending to their every need, so to see Event Buyers Live return, knowing that my team is doing a great job, is heart-warming.

“I am truly looking forward to welcoming EBL back to Carden Park this November and for the next three years.”

In previous years, event professionals from LIV Golf, DF Concerts, LS Events, Kilimanjaro Live, Avantgarde, Cuffe and Taylor, Organised Chaos, Proud Events, Green Man, WOMAD, Royal Horticultural Society, IMG, Bristol City Council, Identity, Southampton Boat Show, Human Race, and London Marathon Events have attended.

This year, EBL wants even more event professionals to experience the event and discover what all the excitement is about. If you would like to attend Event Buyers Live 2024, get on the waiting list now. Please visit www.eventbuyerslive.com or call the team on 01795 509113.

CARDEN PARK

Stroke of luck

New measures introduced at The 2024 Gemini Boat Race had a massive impact on the event’s success. Chris Price, the event’s project manager, reveals all

A s the finish line approached, it was clear that Matt Edge, Cambridge’s pacesetter, sitting in the stroke seat, was visibly suffering from the demands of the Cambridge v Oxford Men’s Boat Race.

For the last four minutes, the rower’s blade was barely going in the water. It was evident that he would need medical attention. Edge’s condition was being monitored by the professionals in event control and watched by viewers as BBC camera crews beamed live race footage into millions of homes.

As Edge slumped forward in the boat, the event’s organising team were able to put their plans into action and a medical team were ready to meet Edge as he hit dry land. Thankfully, this year’s event featured new provisions for athlete welfare and a new medical director.

“Our medical cover went through a big review process because we wanted to ensure we were working to high standards,”

explained Chris Price, The Boat Race’s event project manager, just days after the 169th Men’s Boat Race and the 78th Women’s Boat Race. “We were well prepared for it [the situation], and everything felt comfortable as we monitored it from event control.”

NEW EDITIONS

The 2024 edition of the historical sporting event featured several tweaks. Official hospitality was “professionalised” with more screens, direct feeds from the BBC, better food, event hostesses and guest speakers, but the biggest change was a new fan zone underneath the Riverside Stand at Fulham FC’s Craven Cottage Stadium. It provided thousands of spectators with the perfect view of the famous annual sporting event.

Massive delivered the official Boat Race fan zones in Hammersmith and Fulham and worked alongside The Boat Race Company to deliver a fun spectator experience. Its role included managing suppliers and all

production in the fan zones including big screens; infrastructure to ensure a safe experience for all spectators on the day; food and beverage and entertainment. Alongside that, Massive also managed Boat Race partners and liaised with all relevant councils and the licensing operations safety planning group.

“We made a lot of nice new editions this year, helped by longer-term sponsors and us understanding where we could get more benefit from the event,” Price continued. “The new fan zone at Fulham featured new areas for sponsor activations, which was a change from them being in a muddy field.”

Fans enjoyed spectacular views of the race from the concourse, along with food and drinks from the vendors underneath the Riverside Stand. An overflow area in Bishops Park, previously used as a fan zone, featured big screens and picnic benches and gave Price and his team a space (if needed) to disperse crowds.

THE 2024 GEMINI BOAT RACE

All images: © Row360

MORE EYES ON THE RACE

These were not the only additions to the 2024 race. The Boat Race Fund, in collaboration with Fulham Reach Boat Club, hosted the inaugural Youth Boat Race, which saw 32 local students from seven local state schools take to the Thames. The event marked the expansion of The Gemini Boat Race festivities and was an attempt to increase engagement in the run-up to the event, as did a crew announcement at Battersea Power Station. Both of these new measures “got more eyes on the race”.

Price concluded: “Will we build on the new measures that we’ve introduced? 100 per cent. In the past, The Boat Race was very much a race. Now it’s an event and needs to be marketed as an event. That will bring in funding from sponsors and partners and will build excitement around attending the event and build on what we’ve achieved this year.” SUPPLIERS

LIST

Event

Summer of love

DF Concerts is teaming up with Cuffe and Taylor and expanding its Summer Sessions live music series into England and Wales. Here, Peter Taylor, co-founder of Cuffe and Taylor, talks to StandOut and reveals why local audiences and a strong brand are the key to success

n October, Live Nation, DF Concerts and live music and event promoter Cuffe and Taylor revealed that Scotland’s live music series Summer Sessions was expanding. This year, the long-running live concert series will head south of the border, taking place in five locations in England and Wales, and it’s hoped the new live events will become regular fixtures in hardcore music fans’ calendars.

Peter Taylor, co-founder of Cuffe and Taylor is at the helm, steering the Summer Sessions brand in England and Wales, hoping it will be embraced by expectant audiences in and around Bedford, Chepstow, Derby, Plymouth and Southampton.

With just two months to go until Plymouth Summer Sessions opens its gates, Taylor is keen to talk about the year ahead and what he describes as an “ambitious but manageable” diary packed with stellar performances from big names in music.

“Summer Sessions has been a big focus for me and the team,” he says. “We knew the brand existed and we already had shows in Chepstow and Bedford, but we wanted to have a footprint in certain areas, and we were looking for sites in the south.”

Taylor and his team looked at the map to see where it was missing opportunities. He

continues: “We needed an identity. What was the hook? What were these shows going to be called? How do we market them on social media?

“I rang Geoff [Geoff Ellis, CEO of DF Concerts] and said: Can I rip off your idea? Summer Sessions had a strong brand and the way I sold it was that we could market Summer Sessions as a collective as well as individually. By calling the events Summer Sessions, it gave us something to hang our hats on. The brand was already successful so why just have it in Scotland.”

STRONG IDENTITY

This year, Cuffe and Taylor will deliver 168 shows across 19 venues, including Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Lincoln Castle, The Piece Hall and Cardiff Castle.

“It’s all about forming relationships with people,” Taylor adds. “We help co-promote shows at amazing venues and bring marketing and sales power, and artists, and our partners know the sites. We couldn’t go into 19 greenfield sites blind and do it ourselves, so we work together.”

Cuffe and Taylor is best known for Lytham Festival and events at Scarborough Open Air Theatre (SOAT), but now its expertise is spreading far and wide. This year, Taylor and

his team are delivering Live at Lincoln Castle, The Wyldes (Cornwall), Live at The Piece Hall, Depot Live at Cardiff Castle, and Forest Live, which is a new seven-year contract, as well as all Summer Sessions in Bedford, Derby and Plymouth (15,000-cap), Chepstow (20,00030,000 cap) and Southampton (5,000 cap).

Taylor acknowledges that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Hence, some of the events he is delivering and promoting do not sit under the Summer Sessions umbrella. That’s because when you visit a town or city and find a venue that has its own identity, like The Piece Hall, you can ride on the strong identity it already has. But when you find a location or venue, and it’s void of its own identity or doesn’t have a particularly strong one, then it’s game on. The Summer Sessions brand can put a location on the map.

LOCAL AUDIENCES

According to Taylor, 2024 is an “investment year”. Cuffe and Taylor is spending time, investing in the cities and locations that it finds itself in, taking plenty of time to engage local audiences.

“We’re heavily reliant on local audiences,” he continues. “They turn the dial for us.

“Local people will always support shows because when you announce that a big

name like Sting is going to perform in Plymouth, you will hear people say things like, ‘Finally, we always miss out. They never come down here’.

“We have this if we build it, they will come mentality,” he adds. “Hardcore fans will travel for shows but people also want to see artists in beautiful locations. Some people who might love Sting just won’t travel to London to see him, so we’re talking to those passive fans and getting them to come along.”

Yet despite good ticket sales, it’s not entirely plain sailing. In Derby, for example, Derby Summer Sessions has been met with some scepticism. The city has been chosen to host a lot of shows in the past, which have all been cancelled so audiences are understandably a bit reticent. However, TK Maxx has signed a three-year deal with Cuffe and Taylor to headline sponsor several of its live shows, including Summer Sessions [not Chepstow], Depot Live, and events at The Piece Hall. According to Taylor, the retailer would never have considered sponsoring Lytham Festival or SOAT on their own, but Summer Sessions is a different beast. The series gives the brand a national footprint and media exposure and residents now believe that the TK Maxx presents Derby Summer Sessions “feels more legitimate”.

SOMETHING SPECIAL

“It’s so important for customers to have confidence in you as an organiser,” Taylor comments. “By the end of the year, 1.5 million people will have seen one of our shows and if you include our theatre shows that goes up to two million.”

But what are Taylor’s thoughts on being imitated? Does he mind that a growing

number of promoters are trying to emulate the success that Cuffe and Taylor has had at The Piece Hall, for example?

“The Piece Hall is a unique venue and has got its own brand,” explains Taylor. “We’re a good promoter and so when you put the two together, you get something special. You can’t imitate that [that magic] and if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.

“Also, if people don’t love a venue, they won’t get behind it [any event you are trying to promote]. You have to deliver things really well and it’s not as easy as everyone thinks it is,” he comments.

So what now for Taylor and his 35-strong team at Cuffe and Taylor? “We’re excited

about our Forest Live shows and we’re looking forward to Lytham Festival. Because Lytham is on our doorstep, we have a lot riding on it, otherwise, you get it in the neck.

“But also TK Maxx presents Plymouth Summer Sessions is at the start of the season and is a new venue for us so there is lots to be excited about.

“We know that we don’t have any sites in the northeast and so that’s a focus for 2025. Plus, we already have a dozen artists in the diary and ready to go next year. The market is still competitive, no matter what anyone says, but all of the Cuffe and Taylor team is up early in the morning and on it; you’ve got to be on the ball,” he concludes.

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It’s time to act…

From carbon labelling and milk vending machines to salvaging old sets and driving down energy consumption, event organisers are working hard to reduce their impact on the environment and improve their relationships with the communities they serve and operate within

Carbon is the slut of the periodic table,” exclaimed Mark Stevenson, cofounder of CUR8, at the recent Green Events and Innovations Conference. Stevenson was talking about The O2’s first carbon-removed gig by The 1975, which used carbon removal methods to extract the carbon generated by the event from the atmosphere.

The session discussed the pilot and how it could create a best-practice model for venues and promoters on how to execute a carbon-removed event and more broadly, how it could inspire more organisers to consider their carbon impact.

The O2 worked alongside A Greener Future (AGF) to determine the event’s emissions, based on the expected outputs for power, food and drink, merchandise sold, travel/transport etc. Massive amounts of data had to be collected before The O2 could pay for any carbon to be physically removed from the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to £150 per tonne.

During the candid session, Stevenson said that any monies should be reinvested so that carbon removal initiatives get cheaper for

everyone to use. If everyone “did their bit”, carbon removal could be more affordable, but the reality is that most promoters and organisers are only just getting their heads around measurement and monitoring. Carbon removal seems so advanced when some organisers don’t fully understand what Net Zero means.

GOT THE POWER

One of the more noticeable sustainability trends currently happening across UK event sites is an increased demand for mains power. Mote Park in Kent is looking to put in a sufficient grid connection, Brighton and Hove City Council’s new 15,000-capacity event space, Black Rock, is set to feature mains power and Brighton’s Preston Park will soon feature mains power, meaning a large chunk of Brighton Pride’s Fabuloso in the Park will be run off mains.

Brighton and the area around it is a designated UNESCO Biosphere Reserve called The Living Coast. A biosphere region is designed to teach and inspire those living in the local area on how best to balance

biodiversity and sustainable development, which is why sustainable measures are so fundamental when it comes to event activity in the city.

For example, the council is looking at how events are impacting the ground. Therefore, it is investigating long-term damage to the city’s green spaces and trees. Ian Baird, outdoor events development manager, culture tourism and sport at Brighton and Hove City Council, and his team are carrying out root protection surveys and integrating that into a basic events protocol. Plus, the council is creating a Living Coast Award for events that demonstrate good sustainability practices and year-on-year improvements.

MILKING IT

It certainly requires a team effort to ensure positive steps are being taken to lessen our collective impact on the environment. This is something which both Freemans Event Partners and Hay Festival recognise.

At this year’s Cheltenham Festival, Freemans Event Partners worked with Klimato and introduced carbon labelling

Image: © Adam Tatton-Reid

on menus. All menus used a traffic light system to display the carbon footprint of all meals.

This year, Freemans Event Partners is working with the organisers of the New Forest Show, Cheshire Show and Badminton Horse Trials and carbon labelling will be present on all event/concession menus. Plus, Freemans Event Partners is talking to clients about trialling the collection of edible food waste. But that’s not all. The company is working with Net Zero Now, which helps businesses to identify and reduce their carbon emissions, to benchmark its head office and its carbon footprint whilst working on-site at an event.

The business is focusing on its climate impacts. Likewise, Hay Festival has put sustainability at the heart of everything it does. So much so that Andy Fryers, Hay Festival’s sustainability director, and his team are now simply “tweaking” things on-site, analysing any new developments around technology that will help make bigger changes, and delving deep into tiny details.

SMALL MEASURE BUT BIG IMPACT

“Let me talk about waste,” said Fryers. “Around 85 per cent of our waste is recycled, reused or composted. This is higher than the industry standard, but now we’re into that last 15 per cent and a lot of that is contaminated.

“About five years ago, we introduced a reusable cup scheme, which meant we’ve gone down from 300 to 400 wheelie bins full of coffee cups down to less than one now. We’ve also seen a corresponding drop in plastic, but we want to remove stuff and not have it on our site in the first place. And one of the biggest things for us is milk containers because we sell a lot of coffee.”

Fryers continued: “All the individual traders bring four or six-pint plastic milk containers, which are very practical, and we do recycle them, but we’d rather not have them. So this year, we are trialling a centralised milk system.”

Hay Festival is working with a local supplier who operates a milk vending machine that sells milk sourced from a local farm. It is yet to be decided if the supplier will bring in reusable containers, full of milk, which will be used, washed, and brought back the next day (a large-scale milk bottle scheme) or whether traders will be asked to bring reusable containers and fill them up with milk at a central point.

Whilst there are many conversations around milk and the sustainability of nondairy products, Hay is looking at this from the point of view of the container that the product comes in rather than the product itself. Fryers added: “If you look at a typical event, it’s quite a small impact. But because it’s one of the few remaining things we’ve got, because we’ve ticked a lot of our boxes, it’s quite a big thing for us to try and nail.”

BE MORE TRANSPARENT

This year, Hay Festival is investigating the

FREEMANS EVENT PARTNERS: CARBON LABELLING

use of big battery banks to reduce the use of backup generators and it is looking to trial individual metering for traders and caterers to drive down energy consumption. Kendal Calling – which has a dedicated 20-strong sustainability department – is looking to run the “Kids Calling” area exclusively on renewables as a pilot and it is also exploring the idea of a circular waste plastic initiative, but this is more likely to happen in 2025.

Green Gathering is extending its Green Traveller incentives. People who arrive on public transport, by bicycle or on foot receive a free programme and discounts on pre-pitched tents and camping accessories from Camplight. This year, the organising team is adding discounts on tipi hire – both whole tipis and simple, affordable “dorm beds” in tipis – which will enable people to travel lighter, reducing the need for private transport. Yet it’s not the only change.

Em Weirdigan, director of Green Gathering, explained: “We’re also increasing signage and publicity about our ‘Moon Loos’ – toilets with screened washing areas for people using menstrual cups and other reusable period wear, the aim being to encourage a reduction in plastic waste as well as providing a service to those already using these products who struggle to wash them in standard festival toilets.”

Site Event is working with Organise Chaos on all Brockwell Live shows (including Mighty Hoopla and Cross the Tracks), which use grey water down the toilets rather than blue,

and Project Power is providing solar and battery power to events in Brockwell Park too. Clare Goodchild, director of Organise Chaos, which is delivering all Brockwell Live shows, said: “After the events in 2023, we did a community feedback session and 55 per cent of people said that the environment was important to them.

“We did a lot around sustainability but probably didn’t speak about it enough. It’s really important to people so we need to be more transparent.”

ACCOUNTABILITY

As well as working with Greenbox on waste management and ecolibrium and eventree on travel tracking initiatives, Brockwell Live has also partnered with Gig Buddies, opening the events to people with learning difficulties, and this year, site walks are being arranged for local youth organisations to teach kids about the opportunities in the event industry.

Holly Hollister has been appointed as sustainability manager on all Brockwell Live events, Better Not Stop is helping Goodchild and her team to build sustainability policies, AGF will be carbon monitoring the events for the first time and targets are being set so everyone can be more accountable.

DATA COLLECTION

Extreme E, the off-road electric vehicle race series, has published its third sustainability report and has revealed that by leveraging

solar and green hydrogen energy, it has maintained its carbon-neutral status and reduced its overall carbon footprint by 8.2 per cent. EY teams calculated that 8,301 tCO2-e was emitted during Season 3 – down from 9,045 tCO2-e across Season 2 – despite travelling further afield and holding doubleheader races at each X Prix.

This achievement is supported by Extreme E’s motorsport race site infrastructure, which is powered by 100 per cent renewable energy, including green hydrogen in remote locations produced by ENOWA’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell System.

During Season 4, EY – Extreme E’s official sustainability partner – will again run pre and post-racing impact assessments.

Already, the series has issued statements of intent to increase the number of solar and wind energy sources available to Extreme E in Season 4 and aims to work with Power Logistics to deploy small-scale wind turbine technology to tie in with its battery storage system. Furthermore, it also recognises that there are untapped opportunities to improve its waste management approach and wants to pioneer new and effective waste management systems. In Season 4, it wishes to improve data collection and monitoring of its waste to better understand the event’s waste footprint, which will inform the development of new and improved waste management strategies.

WORK SMARTER

Data collection and monitoring are vital if organisers want to reach specific sustainability goals. Boomtown has spent years collecting data because it recognises that if it wants to reduce its impact on the world, the first step needs to be establishing what that impact currently is.

Tess Wilson, event operations manager and head of sustainability at Boomtown Fair, explained: “In the past, people have sometimes felt threatened by the subject of sustainability, and getting to the bottom of what it means for them.

“Within an industry that is often under a lot of time or budgetary pressure, asking people to prepare additional data for you, and increasing workloads dramatically doesn’t often work. We try to work with other departments to find ways to utilise their existing spreadsheets, orders and schedules to do most of the hard work for us.”

Wilson is a huge advocate of making existing processes and systems work harder, rather than creating new ones. This means adjusting or developing what you already do, to get it to achieve even more. She says that when you start to look at the information you need, you’ll find that a lot of it already exists somewhere, or only needs a minor adjustment to make it do what you need. That could be looking at ANPR information or cashless data.

For example, after the pandemic, Boomtown went fully cashless. It means that the organising team has digital records of every transaction made on-site.

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BOOMTOWN

When working on its Co2e impact assessment, it already had data on everything that was consumed (or bought) on-site, from gin and tonics to mac ‘n’ cheese. With some input from traders, and the help of Klimato, and the Co2e database of food and drink, the team was able to calculate Boomtown’s overall impact relating to all food and drink sold on-site. It was a terrifying number, but one that Wilson and her team are empowered to tackle and even more determined to reduce.

FANCY SPREADSHEETS

Staggeringly, 20 per cent of all meals eaten on-site at Boomtown can be attributed to crew. Hence, the festival’s sustainability team is now focusing on crew catering. Wilson commented: “This year, we are building on three main things to educate our wider team to help reduce waste in crew catering. One – all teams book and order meals a month in advance so the food purchased reflects demand, making Red Radishes’ procurement process more efficient. Two – each meal will be given a carbon value so at the point of decision, crews feel informed about what is

the best sustainable option. This also builds on our meat-free Monday and meat-free lunches policy. Three – encouraging all crew to bring their own plates/cutlery to reduce the number of single-use plates on site.” Boomtown will provide washing facilities to help facilitate this behavioural change. But it’s not the only area of focus for 2024. Having undertaken a lot of data collection in 2023, production transport is a big deal.

“Production transport was something we hadn’t delved into in great detail before, but having turned to our Scope III emissions, we knew it was essential that we finally started to tackle it,” Wilson said. “We integrated our data collection into our existing vehicle accreditation process, where all delivery vehicles go to the office on arrival, to give their registration, phone number etc.”

Boomtown asked drivers and suppliers three simple additional questions. What postcode did you come from today? What vehicle did you drive? What fuel do you use?

“In addition to this, our amazing artist team added a similar series of questions into their pre-existing advancing forms, which gave us a phenomenal amount of

information,” added Wilson, who alongside Lauren Blackburne-Tinker, Boomtown’s deputy event operations and sustainability manager, worked with suppliers and utilised their delivery and trucking schedules to work out journeys.

With most of the hard work done by a handful of “quite fancy spreadsheets”, Boomtown was shocked by the results. The team discovered that its production transport movements equate to 23 full loops of the planet. Therefore, this year the festival is focusing on how it can tackle this impact and is looking into crew shuttle buses from Bristol, for instance.

JUST DO IT

Again, transport is not the only aspect that Wilson and her team are monitoring closely. Lifespan planning is a key focus for the production team too, which looks at stage and set builds in some detail.

For example, once the festival is over, the organising team look at all the stage sets and creative pieces and decide what can be used and what has reached the end of its life. If it can be reused, any specific parts are salvaged and put aside to be used again.

Wilson explained: “If you are going to create something for the first time, with new materials, you have to ask how long will it last, and what will it go on to be? We look to enhance the lifecycle of our materials by re-using, rather than recycling. This can take different forms, be it a redesign, renovation and facelift, or salvage to go into other projects or sites.”

She concluded: “Our main aim is to keep learning more about ourselves, and developing the event in a way that supports all of its values in cohesion. It is possible to create a world that is beautiful, creative, magical, fun, economical, and has a positive impact on the environment. You just have to make it so.”

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BRIGHTON MARATHON

Brighton Marathon Weekend/London Marathon Events/Joe Leicester/Andrew Baker

Positive steps

A wheelchair wave, reflection areas, and family welfare hubs were all introduced at Brighton Marathon Weekend 2024. Joe Carter, event lead, talks about event developments at this year’s event

More than 11,000 people completed the Brighton Marathon on April 7, making it the biggest edition of the event since before the pandemic. Thousands more lined the streets – often three-deep in places – as the city came alive to cheer on those taking on the new-look Brighton Marathon and the BM10K, a mass participation event held earlier in the day.

This year’s Brighton Marathon – organised by London Marathon Events (LME) – comprised several new measures, including a dossier of inclusion facilities. Moving forward, these will now feature in all events that LME organise.

From family support/welfare areas that enabled parents to breastfeed their children and heat baby food to multi-faith reflection spaces, LME worked hard to provide additional facilities in Preston Park (start area) and Hove Lawns (finish area).

LME’s Joe Carter led the Brighton Marathon Weekend event team. It was his first full year in the role after shadowing Hugh Brasher [event director] at the 2023 event and it was the first year that LME had a full 12 months to plan the event since it took over the running of the marathon weekend [from Grounded Events] in December 2022.

“At the 2023 event, Hugh was in charge,” Carter explained. “I was his understudy with a view to me taking on the event this year.”

He continued: “The most important thing was ensuring that we had good communication and conversations with the council, residents and community groups. Really, we were starting over again, and it was really important to us to have a Brightoncentred event. This wasn’t LME dropping in and delivering a typical event model and so this meant that the structure of the event was open for review.”

NEW IDEAS

“We had a lot of ideas on the table,” added Carter. “We had to think which were the best to introduce. We didn’t want to run before we could walk, and we didn’t want to throw loads of things at the wall to see what stuck.

“A big thing for us was reformatting what was the Mini Miles event and launching Brighton Miles.”

Previously only children and young people were able to take on the one-mile course, but for 2024, LME introduced family miles, an adult-only mile, and some community-specific and gender-specific miles to give everyone

the chance to take part in the event in a way that suited them. As part of this initiative, a Walk and Talk mile was also introduced to make the mile distance less daunting, and a Welcome Wave was introduced which specifically catered for any participants with disabilities and participants who are neurodivergent.

But it was not the only move that LME made to make Brighton Marathon Weekend more inclusive. This year’s Brighton Marathon also included a wheelchair category for the first time, giving people with racing chairs a chance to take on the course.

EVENT EXPERIENCE

Carter worked alongside Ben Stevens, route manager, Dominic Henderson, activations manager, Ralph Turner, commercial partnerships manager, Jadie Hobson, volunteers workforce, and Fiona McParland, project manager. Together, they had 12 months to deliver Brighton Marathon Weekend. “In theory, having a full 12 months to deliver the event should have made everything calmer,” commented Carter. “But because of the steps we wanted to take, there was more pressure.”

LME ensured information points at both Preston Park and Hove Lawns were stocked with sanitary products and it improved toilet provision. Alongside toilets and male urinals, the event also featured female urinals and additional accessible toilets.

Participants with disabilities and participants who are neurodivergent also got additional support on the marathon route in the form of a Disability Welfare Hub, located at mile 11. The staffed tent contained noise-cancelling headphones and was a space for participants to rest. Plus, spectators were also catered for, thanks to three accessible viewing points.

Carter explained further: “Going into 2024, we’re looking for all our events to have these inclusion initiatives.

“Our family welfare hub had a lot of uptake – from spectators and participants –and so it shows that you have to think of the whole event experience and not just about operations and getting people over the finish line. “We want people to feel heard and that they are being looked after.”

FEEDBACK AND DEBRIEFS

Carter and the wider event team have had “great feedback” about LME’s dossier of inclusive initiatives.

He continued: “We have a bit of work to do to smooth out processes and how we are communicating them, but I am sure that our participants will feel better for having these services on offer.”

The marathon closed the Brighton Marathon Weekend, which saw more than 14,000 people in total take on a challenge

across Saturday’s Brighton Miles event, the BM10K earlier in the day and the Brighton Marathon. Now, as the event has drawn to a close, thoughts have turned to 2025.

“We already have a number of debriefs in the diary,” Carter added. “We know we want to build on Brighton Miles and involve the community more, we want to collect feedback from those who took part in the wheelchair wave to see if the course needs to change [if necessary] and we need to round off any edges and make sure all comms are appropriate.”

But what stood out about this year’s event? Carter concluded: “I grew up in the area and have been to many marathons but the look and feel of this year’s event was perfect. We were very lucky with the weather and that just added to a wonderful event.”

SUPPLIERS LIST

Toilets – Vacant Hire and Peequal

Site production and branding – Massive

Crowd stewarding – The Event and Exhibition Partnership

Traffic stewarding – NDST and Newman Event Services

Barriers and trackway – Sunbelt Rentals

Health and safety – JPC

Power – Smart Power

Marquees – Brooks Marquee Hire

Wi-Fi and comms – Roadphone NRB and Focus IT

Waste management/cleaning – NuKleen

Baggage vehicles – DSV PA cabins – NSR

Mission accomplished

Steve Heap recently announced his retirement from the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO). Here, he chats about what his role has taught him and why he has every faith that the festival scene will bounce back

I’ve been in the festival business for a long time,” says Steve Heap, the recently retired general secretary of the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO). “I went to my first festival in 1965 and I started working at festivals in 1968, just helping other people shift things around, moving chairs, all that kind of stuff. I quickly started to learn quite a lot about how festivals worked, and it occurred to me then, and it still stands, that if I fall off my perch, having not told anybody what I’ve learned, then it would be a bit of a waste of time.”

More than 50 years later, Heap is relaxed as we discuss a life dedicated to sharing information and championing festivals. On April 2, Heap retired from the AFO, the AFO was disbanded and all AFO members were encouraged to join the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).

For 38 years, the AFO has been a beacon for smaller festival organisations and what started as a “natter” between a few organisers in a pub soon became a collective; an association designed to support one another and to be a soundboard for small festivals, run by enthusiasts and volunteers.

LESSONS LEARNED

Heap talks candidly as he looks back on what

drove him to launch the AFO, his biggest achievements, lessons learned and what has kept him motivated for so long. “I think sharing information and knowledge is great,” he continues. “I don’t always say that what I’m saying is correct. I’m just saying, this is one of the ways you can do that, and here are some contacts which you might find useful.

“During my time, I’ve learned a lot about management, people management, committee management, learned lots about how to listen to what other people are saying, understand other people’s points of view, and put across my point of view in the nicest possible way. When you speak, we all think we’re right. But it’s unfair to suggest that

TOWERSEY FESTIVAL

STEVE HEAP ( he/him)

somebody else is wrong. So I’ve learned to be a little more conciliatory in meetings. And I think I’ve also learned the dynamics of meetings. It’s been very valuable, especially since COVID.”

THE RIGHT MOVE

Whilst Heap is recognised as a figurehead within the industry and respected for being so, he has always seen himself as nothing more than a “custodian”. Now, the AIF’s John Rostron (CEO) will look after what were AFO members and with youth on his side and the right contacts, Heap believes that the move is the right one.

“Maybe I foolishly worked 70 hours a week, and perhaps John won’t, but he has good staff and good people around him to help,” Heap adds. “I think he certainly has the skill and the knowledge to deal with the tiniest little festival with the smallest little question, just as he has a big question from a big festival. He understands the difference.”

NOTHING IS A WASTE OF TIME

So what now for Heap? Well, he’s not leaving the industry. He remains chair of the Events Industry Forum (EIF) and will be spending more time working on The Purple Guide. Plus, he’s writing a book called You Call That A Career, a look back on his event life, full of stories from seven decades of festivals, including his memories of Sidmouth International Festival, Towersey Festival and running an Easter festival for Butlins.

“There have been some ups and downs, certainly,” Heap smiles. “But I work on the basis that nothing is a waste of time, as long as you make good use of the experience.

“Although there have been some cringe moments, like, there have been some bands on a stage that I was responsible for, which were nowhere near as good as we expected and half the audience walked out, there were lots more very successful days.

“One of the most successful things I ever saw was right in the middle of the Cold War. We had 50 international, traditional and

ballet dancers from Russia and about 30 or 40 Americana-style musicians and dancers from America. The Cold War was on, but these people were living and eating together, sharing anecdotes and meeting daily for eight days. And on the final night, when they were introduced onto stage, the Americans appeared in Russian costumes and the Russians appeared in American costumes. They held each other’s flags and danced and sang and played and the audience stood and cheered. It brought tears to my eyes. I don’t mind admitting it. It was a wonderful experience.”

WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

Heap’s story is the perfect example of how festivals can unite people with a common love. Now, the festival scene is going through a “tough time” but to quote Heap, “we’ve been here before”.

“We’ve gone through tough times and the industry will survive,” says Heap, sitting opposite StandOut at a large oak table. “There will be casualties, but the festival industry is far from dead and buried.

“There are still plenty of enthusiastic people out there who want to launch festivals and want to do it.”

He concludes: “After COVID, I wrote an article that said 2023 will be our bounce-back year. How foolish that was I. It certainly wasn’t. I think we’re looking at another two or three years before we get back on our feet. But as I said before, we’ve been here before. We’ve recovered and we do bounce back. And we will. The people who manage and run our festivals and events are so dedicated to what they do. They put their heart and soul into it working long hours for not enough money. Because they thoroughly love what they’re doing as do I.”

“Thanks to EBL for making our lives easier as event organisers! To have all the key suppliers in one place, allowing us to have focused and fruitful conversations makes planning our shows so much simpler. Meeting fellow event organisers and attending workshops allows us to thrash out the key issues in the industry at a time in the season when we can make change for the upcoming year. EBL is always the most useful event of the year to attend!”

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TJust the ticket

Statistics say there’s a huge appetite for live events so what are organisers doing to convert the “data” into ticket sales? Organisers discuss ticketing operations, payment plans and consumer buying behaviour

his month, festival production company The Fair launched an initiative to drum up support for independent events across the UK. “Your Festival Needs You” is a social-first campaign that urges people to recognise and support the value that festivals bring to the events landscape and emphasises why audience support is integral to their survival.

The campaign is imploring audiences to purchase early bird tickets because it’s feared that without intervention and encouragement, the events scene could suffer irreparable harm.

Your Festival Needs You is just one example of the steps being taken to raise awareness of the event industry’s challenges – and drive ticket sales – despite data from the UK Festival Awards and CGA Strategy which states that the festival industry is in fact set to thrive.

According to UK Festival Awards voters, a third of festivalgoers plan to visit more festivals in 2024. This figure is backed by more recent data from ticket resale marketplace Tixel and entertainment marketing agency Bolster, which argue that the appetite for live entertainment remains incredibly strong.

CONSUMER SPEND

Despite many promoters and organisers

struggling to balance increased costs with a ticket price increase that’s acceptable to consumers, the stats suggest that consumers are willing to spend more on average (£91) for a major sporting event than a worldrenowned artist in a stadium/arena (£84). They’re even willing to spend almost double the amount of a major sporting event in comparison to a theatre performance (£56) and triple the price of a local music concert (£36) or a comedy show (£35).

Tixel and Bolster’s report shows that the desire for purchase flexibility has shifted from trend to ingrained habit as busy ticket buyers call for greater flexibility when spending. More than two-thirds of ticket buyers are more likely to purchase if there is the option to resell later and 81 per cent suggest they find it annoying or off-putting when there is a lack of resale options.

FLEXIBILITY

Giving fans the confidence to buy early with the flexibility to be able to resell their ticket later is now essential in a festival landscape where it’s harder than ever to lock in early sales. This is why El Dorado opted to incorporate Tixel into its ticketing strategy earlier than ever in 2024.

El Dorado has been working with Tixel since 2021 and uses its tools to better understand its audience, get pricing insights,

unlock fan data and open up additional sales channels to drive revenue. The team works closely with Tixel to develop strategy, marketing and ticketing plans. More broadly, El Dorado also offers flexibility through more payment plan options as well as utilising other avenues such as ambassadors to sell more tickets.

“You have to give flexibility to your fans,” explained Sean Fay, marketing manager at El Dorado. “With so many options available, people are hedging their bets more than ever and waiting for the last possible moment to purchase.

“The trend for years has been to enforce strict no-refund policies, but this forces the people who are 70 or 80 per cent likely to buy tickets into a decision before they’re ready to,” Fay added. “Anything that can be done to give audiences more confidence in their finances and the tickets they’re purchasing is a good thing.”

BUY NOW PAY LATER MENTALITY

Richard Walpole is CEO of Gloworm Events Group and oversees Gloworm Festival, Nottingham, and Gilbert’s Big Day Out, a new one-day event in Warrington. He introduced payment plans to Gloworm Festival – the family-friendly event – in 2017 and has seen their popularity increase. In 2019, 25 per cent of the festival’s entire sales came from

payment plans. Now, they make up two-thirds of the festival’s sales.

“This is down to two things,” commented Walpole. “The cost of living crisis and not being able to commit, and a buy now pay later mentality.”

He continued: “Payment plans enable customers who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to afford a VIP ticket to enhance their family experience without compromise.”

COMPETITION

Walpole states that sales are “on track” for both his events. “We are less reliant on ‘artist availability’,” added Walpole. “Our customers have a Glastonbury mentality. Two-thirds of our ticket sales are done in the first two weeks after the festival. We drive sales on momentum, and you will find next year’s artwork littered across our festival site.”

Walpole and his team have dramatically changed their marketing activity and are actively pulling away from online marketing. Instead, Gloworm – which has a new home for 2024 – is going back to basics with a flyering licence for Nottingham City Centre, putting flyers in the hands of its target market, using local magazines and utilising banners across the local area.

“You’re not just competing online with other event organisers but you’re also competing with all businesses that are

targeting the same market, from Pampers to toys,” said Walpole. “We started pulling away from online marketing last year and it was such a success that we are doing more of the same this year.”

CONTROL

Walpole works with Gigantic, the ticket agency, for all ticket sales and says that Gigantic’s marketing support and ability to analyse trends – knowing what works and what doesn’t – has been great for his events.

Gigantic is set to launch products in the coming weeks, which will help promoters and organisers to streamline their ticketing operations. Gigantic is launching MyGigantic an “enhanced self-service system” which gives organisers control of the front and back-end of their ticketing sites. Plus, it is rolling out new box office and scanning apps.

Such innovation is needed if organisers are to maximise any value from working collaboratively.

SHIFT PERSPECTIVE

The organisers of Badminton Horse Trials and Royal Welsh Show are working with TICKETsrv and whilst neither event is a music/ independent festival, they have similar challenges; they want to drive early and advance ticket sales and to do that they need to adapt to consumer buying behaviour.

TICKETsrv says that festival attendees will

turn out in bad weather for a sell-out event when they have paid £200 for a ticket, but this is not true for an average family who knows they can check the weather forecast and then decide if they are going to go to an equestrian event or county show and buy a ticket on the gate.

Naturally, organisers want early sales and certainty over attendance, and therefore they need to make it advantageous to book early. However, a shift in thinking is required.

Sally-Ann Jay, sales and marketing director of TICKETsrv, said that it has helped to shift its clients’ perspective away from the concept of “discounting” tickets to “loading the gate price”, making tickets purchased on the gate more expensive. It’s a way of moving away from describing the advance price as a discount. Organisers can view discounts as lost income. However, with good comms, it’s possible to point out to customers that they are paying for the convenience of choosing when they book.

CUSTOMER JOURNEY

TICKETsrv is working with The Royal Welsh Show, which broke new ground this year. It has decided to reward customers who commit to “Specific day” tickets, charging a premium for the added flexibility of an “Any day” ticket.

Furthermore, it has also been working with Badminton Horse Trials for several years,

helping the organising team to build up its customer database. Many thought it a radical move when it announced that it would be ending on-the-gate sales. However, with communication, PR and hard work, it has been proved that only advance sales do work and bring in equivalent numbers as to when tickets were also sold at the gate.

“The crucial thing for any customer is a good customer journey, even when purchasing a ticket,” said Walpole.

BETTER TICKETING EXPERIENCE

The organiser of Edinburgh Festival Fringe agrees. This year, the performance arts festival is improving its ticketing experience by adding Apple and Google Wallet ticketing functionality to the 2024 event.

Audience members will be able to instantly save e-tickets booked via the Fringe Box Office to their Apple Wallet or Google Wallet app. Downloaded tickets can then be easily accessed even in areas with limited internet coverage – a common issue in the city during the busy festival season – and the new functionality will also enable users to share tickets more easily with friends (provided they each have the same Wallet app installed) if arriving at a show separately, for example.

It is hoped that this new move will improve audiences’ ticket-buying experience at the festival, and their overall experience via the enhanced sharing capability.

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Ball game

How one charity has taken a ballsy approach to raising cancer awareness with its own festival called Test Fest. Sue Brand, festival director, chats

What do music festivals and testicular cancer have in common? You would probably think not a lot but in 2017, South West-based charity It’s in the Bag launched a music festival designed to promote men’s health and raise awareness of testicular cancer. Test Fest, as it’s now known, was born but it has been a challenging journey.

The one and only Testicle Festival, as it was first called, started as a fundraiser. It was organised by Andy Heather, who had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and was supported by It’s in the Bag.

Sue Brand used to be the testicular cancer nurse specialist for the South West of England and Heather was one of her patients. The pair met through Brand’s work with It’s in the Bag and Heather wanted to give back to the charity.

“Andy had lots of contacts with bands, artists and sponsors, and worked with me to make the festival a success,” explained Brand, Test Fest’s festival director and chief operating offi cer at It’s in the Bag.

“It was a small festival [300 cap] in a huge venue [Taunton Racecourse], which gave the event a less-than-intimate feel. But it did what Andy wanted – it raised money and allowed him a platform to live beyond his cancer diagnosis.”

The event was well received; the duo was keen to repeat it. “Experience tells us that we

tried to grow too quickly with not enough resources behind us,” Brand continued. “Whilst Chesney Hawkes headlining in 2018 encouraged numbers, it was the sponsorship that helped raise the money. But growing the festival meant expenses rose too and whilst it was another great festival and enjoyed by many, it was not as many as we would have liked.”

RESILIENT

In 2019, Toploader headlined the festival, but ticket sales did not increase. The charity’s board started to wonder if the event was the best use of funds and resources. Brand and her team sought the advice of other local festival organisers, but they could not understand why the event – with its unique USP – was not successful.

The organising team had to fight its corner and get approval from the charity’s trustees to stage the festival again. It was given a reprieve, and the festival was due to take place again in 2020. But COVID forced the festival to be cancelled twice.

Instead of worrying about what would happen next, the charity and its volunteers spent time improving services and streamlining processes to encourage skilled trustees to join the board. In turn, they supported the volunteers moving forward and ensured the festival came back.

However, one issue kept being raised by the team. The venue. Was it too big? Was it easy to get to? Was it easy to advertise there? In all cases the answer was no, so It’s in the Bag started to look for a new festival home.

“During our hunt for a venue, we learnt that sports venues had struggled during the pandemic,” commented Brand. “Premiership football still had its backers, but local rugby clubs were worried and were looking to make income outside of the season. Rugby clubs like Taunton Rugby Club. We met with their team, and they were keen to give us a try. Test Fest would be their pilot event.

“However, after two years off, like many other events, we had to reinvent the festival with a limited PR and marketing budget; knocking on doors for sponsorship postpandemic was painful. Our volunteers stood out in the rain at markets, knocked on doors and sent out thousands of flyers.”

REINVENTION

In 2022, Test Fest [2,000 capacity] took place. The weather was unkind, but the team rose above it and whilst it was wet, and the stage nearly flooded, everyone who turned up had a blast. But still. Things weren’t perfect. Numbers were low, and questions were looming about if the event could survive.

It’s in the Bag was determined to come back even stronger with the support of

All images: © Chris Cronin/James Lock/Andy Lee

sponsors, partners and suppliers, including Event Hire Solutions, DBD Group, G&C Sound and Light, St John Ambulance and Event Sparks.

It’s in the Bag decided to reinvent the festival, bin all the old images and start afresh. With the creativity of Brand and the images from the charity’s patron Jon Dixon (Dixon Does Doodles) Test Fest 2023 was born. The new look created interest. People started to enquire about the charity and in 2023, it was shortlisted for an award at the UK Festival Awards.

TURNED A CORNER

Last year, the charity worked hard to grow its sponsorship and welcomed local cider heavyweight Sheppy’s Cider and photonics engineering firm, G&H, on board. Furthermore, It’s in the Bag forged good relationships with local colleges. All of them understood what the charity was aiming for and are now part of the Test Fest family. Brand explained further: “Test Fest 2023 was

the most attended event to date, and we believe we have turned a corner.

“If we save one life during the run-up to or at the festival, we have done our job. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer of 15 to 49-year-old men. Although most cancers get more common as we get older, testicular cancer is different. It’s most likely to happen when you’re young or middle-aged and has a high survival rate; more than 96 per cent of men who have been diagnosed with testicular cancer will survive, but early detection is crucial. It’s an important message, so we need to get it across.”

Test Fest is the perfect platform to support the charity’s main aims which are to support those diagnosed with testicular cancer and going through treatment and teach men the importance of checking their balls regularly. It also focuses on survival – helping men tackle the emotional and practical impact of testicular cancer, both during treatment and into their lives after. Brand continued: “Has Test Fest

helped anyone? The answer is yes. We have learned of at least two men who have been diagnosed with early-stage testicular cancer because of our messaging at the festival.

“During the festival, a guy asked one of our volunteers if he had had testicular cancer, as the only reason he came was that he might meet another sufferer. So for 2024, we have decided to have a support tent with a couple of our trained support facilitators in attendance.”

But it’s not the only festival development for 2024. Test Fest is expanding its children’s activities to encourage more families to attend, the festival is starting earlier to incorporate more entertainment and there’ll be an Instagram Scavenger Hunt to keep people entertained, and social posts up.

Brand concluded: “We know this music festival has legs and have fought for it to continue. We believe that 2024 will buck the trend again and be more successful than 2023 and people will come on June 15 and see what all the fuss is about.”

TEAM TEST FEST

TOPLOADER

SUE BRAND ( she/her)

THE UK’S FAVOURITE POTABLE TANKER COMPANY

Providing wholesome drinking water that can be used throughout many industries, including Festivals, Events, Construction, Manufacturing, Bespoke temporary water systems and Emergency water for life’s unplanned interruptions.

We are a dedicated company and always try to exceed expectations. We provide a 24/7 service 365 days a year so no need to panic, when you have a problem we are only a phone call away.

• Dedicated mobile water quality service

• Full onsite management during your event

• Free advice and planning service for any event size

• Design and build of pressurised and chlorinated water networks

• On Site water treatment

• Bottle refill stations

• Tested quality assured supplies

• Dedicated drinking water tankers

• Various sized dedicated water tanks

• Bulk water storage

• Bulk water delivery

• Full compliance with BS8551 water regulations

• Trade equipment hire:

- 2.5k tanks fresh

- 10k tanks fresh

- 10k tanks waste

- 4k-100k Pillowtanks fresh

- 4k-100k Pillowtanks waste

- Tanks, Pillowtanks, pumps

• Highly maintained fleet of Water Tankers.

• 2k bowsers inc self serve bib taps

• Tanker certification, Chlorination and Sample

WORKING AT HIGH PROFILE LOCATIONS

On the up

Event crew specialists discuss current trends, pay rates, and best practices

ast year, LH Woodhouse, the temporary structure company, decided to stop using temporary crew to install its structures at UK-wide events.

“The core question we asked ourselves was what do we want from our labour?” said Dan Hassall, managing director at LH Woodhouse. “Do we need hands to lug things about or do we need specific skills?

“We reviewed our existing workforce,” he continued. “We had very knowledgeable foremen, agency staff and nothing in between, and our staff members were getting older.

“We had a summer with agency staff, but they had no incentive to work, and we acknowledged that our foremen didn’t have the skills to nurture these people, who we were dropping in on a job and expecting them to deliver. We recognised we needed to invest in our people and develop talent and that meant we had to put a pay structure in place and pay banding and create new roles such as junior foreman.”

Hassall was speaking at MUTA Members Day, which saw more than 80 temporary structure professionals gather to discuss issues impacting the industry. His session

looked at whether sub-contractors and agency crew are the answer to the industry’s challenges. Hassall sat on the panel and talked candidly about LH Woodhouse’s crew and recruitment challenges. He said that they saved £2 an hour (on average) by employing someone compared to agency crew rates but to get good crew, you need to forget zero-hours contracts and offer guaranteed hours, show people that the crewing industry has career progression and reward people for good work.

FIGHT TO THE BOTTOM

On April 1, the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage went up. Therefore, rates of pay for crew have increased too.

Heath Freeman, director of Pinnacle Crew, believes the largest-ever increase in the minimum wage will mean crew rates will need to increase by at least £1.70 an hour.

“The value of manpower has gone up,” he explained. “Rates of pay have to go up otherwise you go backwards, and it turns into a fight to the bottom.”

Freeman described the current market as “challenging” and advised clients to book

crew as early as possible. “Clients need to be careful,” he said. “You can’t click your fingers and find that every crew company will jump. Not even the rubbish ones. If you think you can ring up at 5pm and get 40 crew the next morning, you’re living on a different planet.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’ll always find arms and legs but it’s hard to find good crew especially when people are being offered £15 an hour for an eight-hour shift, and an easy job in the same place and not a twohour call at midnight.”

MAKE THE CALL

Sarah Rowland, managing director of N4 Crew, said that currently, 80 per cent of calls are asking for crew in a 48 to 72-hour window. For example, N4 Crew provided crew for Chanel’s recent Metiers D’Art fashion show in Manchester. With less than 48 hours’ notice, N4 Crew provided 20 crew on a 24-hour rotation. The crew had a mix of skills so that they could meet the changing requirements on-site. But such short notice is not ideal.

Rowland urged event professionals to heed the following advice: “Even if you’ve not got numbers confirmed but you know you need crew, at least make the call. A crewing company will then know what crew to provisionally hold back. You rarely get a final spec from a client until the event is close, but you can work with it,” she said.

AFFORDABLE SERVICE

N4 Crew specialise in site and production

crew. Rowland continued: “We want to be an affordable service for our clients, and we want to pay our crews a decent rate too.

“We have signed up to the Real Living Wage initiative so have increased the rates that we pay our crew, which has resulted in a small increase to our clients.

“We’re still in quite challenging times. Companies are still suffering the effects of COVID, and we’re being compounded by the cost-of-living crisis so we’re being pushed at both ends. Therefore, we’re having to work with our clients a lot more so that they get the best service they can afford.”

TOUGH PERIOD

Optimal Crew has not increased its rates much this year. It says it is happy with the rates it pays its crew. The margin is adequate to support the business’ needs, clients are happy to increase the number of crew they want onsite and often increase the number of hours they use crew for because the rates are fair.

Achille Ramanbason, operations manager at Optimal Crew, explained: “We understand

the industry is going through a tough period of costs and budgeting. Therefore, we’re doing everything we can to ensure we’re balancing all the above factors into pricing projects, but this doesn’t affect the calibre of crew the clients receive.”

EXTENSION OF YOUR TEAM

In the last six months, Optimal Crew has worked on several new projects, including building 76 Bavarian huts at Hide and Seek in Cheshire. The event has gone through an incredible period of growth. Three years ago, Optimal Crew provided Kurt Hurst, event organiser of Hide and Seek festival, with four crew. This year, the crewing requirement more than tripled and now Optimal Crew provide Hurst with an event production team because the event has grown so much.

Ramanbason continued: “We do what we can for clients and are often seen as an extension of their internal teams. This goes a long way when clients are trying to deliver high-octane events with the resources they have access to.”

HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS

According to Ramanbason, Optimal Crew has seen increased demand for managementlevel crew, as well as IPAF and forklift operators, whilst N4 Crew is providing clients with a mix of site and production crew including plant operators and harnesstrained. It’s demonstrative of the skills needed on demanding event sites. But Freeman warns that there is so much competition for skilled crew, with better rates and easier conditions, the events industry must keep standards high.

“Younger crew are career-focused, and they want to get their black books going so we have to make our industry attractive and that’s by offering good rates of pay and training,” Freeman said. “There are people out there who want to make contacts and experience the phenomenal world of events. Having high profile events in your portfolio is a draw card. “As a company, we’re upbeat for 2024,” Freeman concluded. “Clients are saying they are going to be busy, so we are recruiting earlier. I just hope clients understand that rates have to go up.”

OPTIMAL CREW

SKILLED CREW

N4 CREW

OPTIMAL CREW IN ACTION

• We can cater for any job, big or small, o ering a high level of service at a ordable price

• We have a diverse skillset including carpentry, audio visual and with each member having a positive, can do attitude.

• We have forklift and IPAF operators

t: 07904 903 452 e: info@olympuscrew.co.uk

Lighting the way

Memorable events can be created with show-stopping light, sound and AV solutions

okémon players from all over the world gathered at ExCeL London (April 5-7) for three days of fierce competition in the Pokémon Europe International Championships (EUIC). London played host to the second event in the 2024 Championships Series, with more than 4,000 players battling it out and aiming to qualify for the Pokémon World Championships that will be held in Hawaii, later this year.

As thousands of attendees happily played the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) across hundreds of trestle tables, the event’s main stage was a tense battleground. Big screens adorned the stage and showed all the tournament action that was unfolding from the Pokémon Video Game Championships (VGC), Pokémon GO, Pokémon UNITE, and TCG.

Hire Frequencies provided the EUIC organising team with sound – a big set-up, comprised of eight Martin Audio Wavefront Precision WPS line arrays, SXCF 118 subs and Torus 12 front fills. The EUIC’s stage was separated into four zones, so Hire Frequencies optimised the PA using Display 3 software to achieve audio separation between each zone.

The e-sports event was filmed and streamed globally so crisp and clear sound was instrumental to those in the room and those watching around the world.

“We’re a specialised tech production company so we love getting a brief that’s really creative and working out how we can bring it to life,” explained Will Smith, managing director of Hire Frequencies.

SCOPE AND SCALE

According to Smith, the events market is buoyant. Organisers and agencies are moving away from projection and there is growing demand for video wall technology that can deliver so much scope for a variety of events. For example, Hire Frequencies will soon provide both Care Sectors Got Talent and European Taekwondo Championships with video wall technology; the events could not be more different, yet as both organisers have chosen to use the tech for their very different events, it proves its versatility.

PRODUCTION VALUES

Smith says that light, sound and AV are hugely important to the creation of memorable events and the organiser of Young Voices –the largest school choir concert in the world that tours the country – could not agree more.

Young Voices recently returned to UK arenas for a 30-date tour with audio design and delivery from Britannia Row Productions.

Since 1997, more than 2.5 million school children have been given the opportunity to perform in arenas worldwide, with a live band

and big-name stars, with touring solutions worthy of any pop or rock star.

“A key element from the very start was to give the same production values to the children that we had for adults,” explained Ben Lewis, CEO of Young Voices. “For a child, Young Voices can often be their first largescale live musical experience so it’s vital we get it right.”

HUGE IMPACT

Britannia Row wish to give the school children an experience they’ll remember and their first taste of a professional concert with quality PA, rigging and lighting. This year, the concert’s audio comprised L-Acoustics K2 main and side hangs, Kara II for the choir hangs, KS28 subs, Kara II for front fills, LA12X amplification, SSL L550 consoles for both FOH and monitors and RF via ShurePSM1000 IEMs and Axient radio mics.

“We want to introduce these children to the widest variety of genres and styles but in the most authentic way possible,” Lewis continued. “Britannia Row helps us do that. I mean, what other concert could segue from Carmina Burana into a Lion King medley!”

Due to the number of vocalists taking part in the concerts, the Young Voices audio set-up is technical. However, the right kit and expertise needed are necessary to deliver an event with a huge impact.

HIRE FREQUENCIES IN ACTION

COMBINING CREATIVITY AND TECH

Talking of having an impact, and Walk the Plank has partnered with Bluman Associates to offer organisers of large-scale outdoor events tailored experiences using Geolights, a GPS-enabled, lightweight, sustainable and handheld light that weighs 1.5kg.

Geolights can be used to create visually spectacular mass participation public events and connect audiences to brands. The lights were originally innovated and developed for an Unboxed 2022 project called Green Space Dark Skies, which saw Walk the Plank work alongside Siemens, Core Lighting and Bluman Associates.

This new partnership aims to combine creativity and tech innovation to create beautiful events that encourage participation.

MEMORABLE EVENTS

With more than 15 hours of battery life, the handheld Geolights comprise GPS-enabled

technology, allowing real-time location tracking and real-time content delivery. Geolights content can be pre-programmed to a specific geographical location and the Wi-Fi show canvas can be an area similar to a football pitch.

Audiences can feel connected to a brand with Geolights technology enabling an experiential, collective and highly participatory event. By remotely changing the colour of the Geolights, each participant becomes a pixel within a predesigned and ever-changing image of live shapes and forms. Filmed by drone, the forms and shapes created by individuals on the ground can be recorded. This new technology, combined with creativity allows people to become part of the event and also the legacy of an event, through film or photography.

John Wassell co-founder of Walk the Plank, said: “Creating these unique Geolights has been a multi-person collaboration.

Partnering with Bluman means the scale and usage for the interactive, joining in events and brand promotions is a wonderful opportunity. We get to create massive and memorable moments with very little impact on the environment.”

This is a pertinent point as recent data from London’s ExCeL and YouGov says that event audiences are looking for eco-conscious, tech-savvy and “Instagrammable” content.

Currently, Walk the Plank and Bluman have 500 Geolights lights and there are plans to increase this number to 1,000.

Pod Bluman, founder of Bluman Associates, said: “We specialise in exceptional light events, and it seemed natural to partner with Walk the Plank to create Geolights for Green Space Dark Skies. We are now looking forward to making epic, bold peoplepowered events and brand promos together and I am truly excited to bring people and communities together in this new way.”

YOUNG VOICES

GREEN SPACE DARK SKIES

he event industry news is full of announcements of cancellations. Festivals taking stock of their situation and making the difficult decision to pull the plug. These decisions are typically financial – slow ticket sales or rising costs from the supply chain put the budget into the red and the event is no longer viable.

But what happens when the event can no longer continue after it’s opened its doors? What criteria should be used to judge whether the event can continue, and how should we manage the process?

The show must go on… until it can’t

What criteria should you use to judge whether an event can continue after you have opened the doors? Olly Galvin, director of Acumen Safety, raises the question

Our audiences deserve safe sites, and when we can no longer provide that it’s time to ask ourselves – should the show go on?

a scenario that I can think of where the decision hinges on a factor other than safety. All of the event abandonments that I have been involved with in one way or another have had a common theme: Mud. Or more accurately, a significant deterioration in ground conditions.

So how do we assess public safety at a greenfield music festival in terms of whether or not the show can go on? How much mud is too much?

If a major incident has occurred, the show has probably been stopped and its resources

directed to dealing with that incident. A major fire, collapse of a structure or a significant incident makes the decision to abandon the event relatively straightforward.

If the decision is less clear cut, ask yourself these four things:

Is the site infrastructure capable of meeting the basic needs of the audience? As a minimum, people need food, shelter, water, sanitation and at an event, entertainment.

If suppliers can’t service loos or supply clean water, people are going to start getting ill and medical resources will become overwhelmed. T

I’ve been involved with a few festivals over the years where we have had to make the hard decision to abandon the event part way through. Y Not Festival 2017 and Fire in the Park 2019 are the ones that stand out in memory. I’ve also been involved with festivals that have done a great job of walking the line, keeping the site operating safely for their audience for the duration of their planned event despite all the challenges that the event can throw at them. For me, Bluedot 2023 is a shining example of that success.

HOW MUCH MUD IS TOO MUCH?

Cancelling an event is a last resort. There are financial, reputational and operational implications that affect the event in future years. Abandoning a festival while it is open, cancelling the second or third day of the show, is a miserable experience and one that we all work hard to avoid.

When an event is operational, the decision to abandon or cancel will almost always come down to public safety. There isn’t

FIRE IN THE PARK

OLLY GALVIN ( he/him)

Are you able to deploy resources across the site to respond to incidents? If you can’t move medics, response teams or fire teams to where they’re needed, you can’t assure public safety across the site.

Are conditions across the site causing harm or injury to the audience? This is one for the medics – increased reports of lower limb injuries indicate hazardous site conditions.

Could you move the audience offsite in the event of an emergency? If your emergency exits are waterlogged, you won’t be able to achieve the flow rate that the exit calculations are based on. A slower evacuation time can mean that you can’t move your audience away from danger in the required timeframe should an incident occur.

THE RIGHT CALL

Fire in the Park Festival 2019 was a great test of these criteria. Extremely high volumes of rain the week before the event, coupled with a thin layer of topsoil on an urban site in Sheffi eld, meant that the ground was already waterlogged before we opened to the public.

Over the course of the day, that thin layer of topsoil got churned up by 10,000 attendees. More rain fell. Medics started to report patterns of lower limb injuries. They expressed concerns about their ability to move a casualty from the stage to the medical tent. The grass in front of the

emergency exits became a bog, and the exit routes ran through damaged ground in the backstage areas. Our site was not safe for 10,000 people. Our resilience for incident response had been lost.

At the 18:00 ELT meeting, it was clear that the site would not be safe to open for the second day. What should be done immediately for our compromised site? Do we stop the event at this point and move the audience off the site? Or can we safely manage the last four hours of the event and choose a “less unsafe” path?

The festival wasn’t a camping event. That made some decisions easier. As our egress routes deteriorated, the audience numbers decreased. We carried on with the event until the license ended – a steady flow of people exiting was safer than one big wave if the show was stopped. This gave the promoter time to tweak their communications plan – we would announce the next day’s cancellation once the public was offsite. It gave the site team time to reinstate the egress routes from the site as best they could. They installed additional lighting and deployed as much tracking as they could to the exit routes in the worst state.

We held off on telling the stakeholders until an hour before the public announcement was made. We didn’t want word to get out to our audience that the site was considered unsafe until they had left. Rumours can spread like wildfire.

TOPOGRAPHY AND TRACKWAY

Should we have opened to the public? I think we made the right call. The site was safe to open at midday. The event ran relatively safely. The ground conditions didn’t prevent anyone from getting the medical help that they needed.

What could the event have done differently? Outdoor events in late September are always going to be a gamble. This event was perhaps too late in the year because it was marketed to students. If money were no object, the event could have used more trackway. You can never have too much!

The event site was a key contributor to this scenario. The soil type, poor drainage and topography all contributed to the mudbath. Some of the infrastructure required by the urban location was plant machinery heavy – and plant machinery can really churn up a site. Greenfield festivals in rural settings often have more options – additional fields they can rent, along with support from agricultural neighbours. Think carefully before you choose a small, hilly site surrounded by roads and buildings for your next event!

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and we are sometimes forced to walk a fine line in the world of outdoor events. Our audiences deserve safe event sites, and when we can no longer provide that it’s time to ask ourselves – should the show go on?

MUD BATH

ACCESSIBILITY & INCLUSION

Eventwell

T: 0800 470 0958

E: bookings@eventwell.org

W: EventWell.org

ASSOCIATION

Event Hire Association

2450 Regents Court, The Crescent, Birmingham Business Park, Solihull, B37 7YE

T: 0121 380 4600

E: membership@eha.org.uk

W: www.eha.org.uk

AV, SOUND & LIGHTING

Event Production Services

The Pack House, Drayton St. Leonard, Oxford, OX10 7BG

T: 01844 278446

E: info@epsoxford.com

Hire Frequencies

T: 0203 3026947

E: enquiries@hirefrequencies.co.uk

W: www.hirefrequencies.co.uk

Press Red Rentals Limited

Unit H11, Halesfield 19, Telford, TF7 4QT

T: +44 (0) 1952 587049

W: www.pressred.biz

BALLOONS, BUNTING & FLAGS

B-Loony Ltd

Cape House, 105 Bellingdon Road, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, HP5 2HQ

T: 01494 774376

E: sales@b-loony.co.uk

W: www.b-loony.co.uk

Bar Live Events

Unit D215, Parkhall Studios, London, SE21 8DE

T: 0208 761 8424

E: nick@barlive.co.uk

W: www.barlive.co.uk

Cambridge Event Bars

T: 01223 785401

M: 07837 707057

E: Info@cambridgeeventbars.co.uk

W: www.cambridgeeventbars.co.uk

Pop-up-Pubs

T: +44(0)1993 832155

E: info@pop-up-pubs.com

W: www.pop-up-pubs.com

Symonds Event Bars

Drakewell, Stoke Lacy, Bromyard, Herefordshire, HR7 4HG

T: 01885 490267

E: info@eventbars.co.uk

W: www.eventbars.co.uk

BRAND ACTIVATION & EXPERIENTIAL

Instant Marquees

T: 01840 213063

www.instantmarquees.co.uk

BUGGY HIRE

Bradshaw Event Vehicles

New Lane, Stibbington, Peterborough, PE8 6LW

T: 01780 782621

E: enquiries@eventvehicles.co.uk

W: www.eventvehicles.co.uk

Twitter: @Bradshaw_EV

Electric Wheels Ltd

Units B & C Neaton Business Park, Watton, Norfolk, IP25 6JB

T: 0333 3582175

E: enquiries@electric-wheels.co.uk

W: www.electric-wheels.co.uk

CABINS

Event Buggy Hire

T: 0113 393 4100

E: brian@eventbuggyhire.co.uk

W: www.eventbuggyhire.co.uk

Hopkins Machinery

T: 01633 680754

E: hire@hopkinsmachinery.co.uk

W: www.hopkinsmachinery.co.uk

Qdos Event Hire Ltd

Fernside Place, 179 Queens Road, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 0AH

T: 0845 862 0952

E: enquiries@qdoseventhire.co.uk

W: www.qdoseventhire.co.uk

Twitter: @QdosEventHire

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Qdos-Event-Hire/ Instagram: @qdoseventhire

Wernick Events

Joseph House, Northgate Way, Aldridge, Walsall, WS9 8ST

T: 01922 472 900

E: events@wernick.co.uk

W: www.wernick.co.uk/events

Twitter: @WernickEvents

Instagram: @WernickEvents

BAR

CONNECTIONS

CAR PARKING

Event Traffic Control Limited

Baldersby Gardens, Ripon Road, Baldersby, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, YO7 4PS

T: 08000 246 800

E: info@eventtc.com

W: www.eventtc.com

Just Event Services

Unit 7 Broadway Green Farm, Lightwater, Surrey, GU18 5SU

T: 01276 590325

E: contactus@justeventservices.co.uk

W: www.justeventservices.co.uk

CLEANING & SUPPORT SERVICES

Falcon Cleaning

The Falcon Nest, Unit 10 & 11, Lower Gower Road, Royston SG8 5EA

E: admin@falconteam.co.uk

W: www.falconteam.co.uk

COFFEE BARS

Markey Ltd

39b Park Farm Ind Estate, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, SG9 9AZ

T: 01763 271110

E: info@markey.co.uk

W: www.markey.co.uk

CORPORATE CREW

Rodeo Crew

128 Wey House, 15 Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8NA

T: 020 8075 7799

E: bookcrew@rodeocrew.uk

W: www.rodeocrew.uk

CREW SERVICES

BTN Crew LTD

T: 07780 621 860

E: info@btncrew.com

W: www.BTNCrew.com

www.facebook.com/BTNCREWltd/ www.instagram.com/btncrewltd/

Falcon Festival Services

The Falcon Nest, Unit 10 & 11, Lower Gower Road, Royston SG8 5EA

E: info@falconteam.co.uk

W: www.falconteam.co.uk

Optimal Events Group Ltd / Trading as Optimal Crew

Marsh Mill Village, 5A, Fleetwood Rd N, Thornton-Cleveleys FY5 4JZ

T: 07375 843976

E: jordan@optimalcrew.co.uk

W: https://optimalcrew.co.uk

S3K Group

The Old Mill Building, Rookery Farm, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, PO22 6EP

T: 0845 299 7991

E: office@s3kgroup.com

W: www.s3kgroup.com

LinkedIn, Facebook & Instagram: @s3kgroup

Site and Stage Ltd (SAS)

Festival and Event Crew Nationwide

T: 0207 205 2434

M:07770 521521

W: www.siteandstage.co.uk

Trojan Crewing Solutions Ltd

57 Eastbourne Avenue, Acton, London W3 6JS

T: 07341 922974

E: chris@trojancrew.com

W: www.TrojanCrew.com

DIGITAL PLANNING

Iventis

Think Tank, University of Lincoln, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL

T: 01522 837205

W: www.iventis.co.uk

E: info@iventis.co.uk

Eamon Kerrigan: E: Eamon.kerrigan@iventis.co.uk

ENTERTAINMENT

Odin Events Ltd Unit 1 RoundHouse Farm, Marston Meysey, SN6 6LL

T: 0800 030 6881

E: info@odinevents.com

W: www.odinevents.com

EQUIPMENT & INFRASTRUCTURE

Falcon Site Equipment

The Falcon Nest, Unit 10 & 11, Lower Gower Road, Royston SG8 5EA

E: admin@falconteam.co.uk

W: www.falconteam.co.uk

EVENT ACCOMMODATION

Bunkabin

Tweedale Way, Oldham, OL9 7LD

T: 0345 456 7899

E: hires@bunkabin.co.uk

W: www.bunkabin.co.uk

Zoo Events Group Ltd

Stockton Dairy, Stockton, Warminster, BA12 OSQ

T: 01258 840233

E: info@zooeventsgroup.co.uk

W: www.zooeventsgroup.co.uk

Sponsored by the Falcon Team

Controlled Events

T: 0203 286 6392

E: info@controlledevents.com

EVENT STAFFING SOFTWARE

uTRAC

24A Lower Abbey St, Dublin 1, Ireland

EVENT MANAGEMENT

W: www.controlledevents.com

First class Resilience, Readiness, Communication & Control for incidents or pre-planned events.

2Can Productions

T: 029 20 100256

E: info@2canproductions.com

W: www.2canproductions.com

T: 0808 189 0334

E: hello@utraconline.com

W: www.utraconline.com

EXHIBITION TRAILERS & MOBILE UNITS

DWT Exhibitions

CM Production Management Ltd

T: 020 8056465

E: hello@cmpm.co.uk

W: www.cmpm.co.uk

Award

Winning Results

Facebook: facebook.com/cmpmlive

Instagram: @cmpmlive

Crow Leisure Group

T: 07500 592692

E: info@crowleisuregroup.co.uk

W: https://crowleisuregroup.co.uk/

LFX Events

www.controlledevents.com

Unit 10 Merchants House, Market Place, Stockport, SK1 1EU

E: enquiries@lfxevents.co.uk

W: www.lfxevents.co.uk

Victorious Events

E: info@victoriousevents.co.uk

T: 07869 701 616

W: victoriousevents.co.uk

EVENT SAFETY

EVENT STAFF

Eep Safety Team

Unit 42, Dunsfold Park, Guildford, Surrey, GU6 8TB

T: 01483 266486

E: tom@eepteam.com

W: www.eepsafety.com

LFX Safety

Unit 10 Merchants House, Market Place, Stockport, SK1 1EU

E: enquiries@lfxsafety.co.uk

W: www.lfxsafety.co.uk

The Occasionall Group: Festivall Staff | Occasionall Staff

The Circle, 33 Rockingham Lane, Sheffield S1 4FW

T: 01144 055 044

E: hello@theoccasionall.group

W: www.theoccasionall.group

Moorepeople Event Staffing Agency

1st & 2nd Floor, 169 A High Road, Loughton, Essex, IG10 4LF

T: 0208 508 0555

E: bettina@moorepeople.co.uk

W: www.moorepeople.co.uk

FESTIVAL GAS

FIRE COVER

FLAGPOLE HIRE

Trailer Hire, Sales & Management

Jubilee Park, Honeypot Lane, Colsterworth, Lincolnshire, NG33 5LZ

T: 01476 860833

E: pip@dwt-exhibitions.co.uk

W: www.dwt-exhibitions.co.uk

Inchmere Event Design Ltd

Swan Close Studios, Swan Close Road, Banbury, OX16 5TE

T: 01295 661000

E: alastair@inchmere.co.uk

W: www.inchmere.co.uk

TCM Trailers Ltd

Watery Lane, Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS13 7SE

E: emily@tcmtrailers.co.uk

W: www.tcmtrailers.co.uk

Festival Gas

Priors Revel, Church lane, Middleton, Nr Tamworth, B78 2AL

T: 07930 758893

E: simon@festivalgas.co.uk

W: www.festivalgas.co.uk

Aero Fire & Rescue Ltd

27 Old Gloucester Street

London WC1N 3AX

T: 0330 111 3635

E: contact@aerofireandrescue.co.uk

W: www.aerofireandrescue.co.uk

Red Rose Fire Solutions Ltd

6 Brissenden Close

New Romney

Kent

TN28 8JD

T: 01995 503504

E: info@redrosefiresolutions.co.uk

Fuchsia Exhibition Services Ltd

13 Oak Park Industrial Estate, Chelmsford Road, Great Dunmow, Essex, CM6 1XN

T: 01371 644800

E: info@fuchsiaevents.co.uk

W: www.fuchsia-exhibition-services.com

FLAGS

Instant Marquees

T: 01840 213063

www.instantmarquees.co.uk

FLOORING & FLOOR COVERINGS

Coir Store

E: andy@coirstore.co.uk

T: 07884303082

W: www.coirstore.co.uk

Event Flooring Solutions Ltd

T: 01509 768 252

E: sales@efseurope.co.uk

W: www.efseurope.co.uk

Gigtent UK

Sonas House, Button End Harston

Cambridge, CB22 7NX

T: 01223 870935

E: info@gigtent.co.uk

W: www.gigtent.co.uk

FURNITURE HIRE / SALES

Furniture On The Move

Unit B, Canada warehouse, Chittening industrial estate

Worthy road , Avonmouth, Bristol, BS110YB

T: 0845 459 9875

E: info@furnitureonthemove.co.uk

W: www.furnitureonthemove.co.uk

GBJ Event Hire

Graham Jones

T: Office. 0207 205 4226

E: hire@gbjeventhire.co.uk

W: www.gbjeventhire.co.uk

Innovative Hire

Unit N, Lion Works Estate, 543 Wallisdown Road

Bournemouth BH12 5AD

T: 01202 941 068

W: http://innovativehire.co.uk

HEATING & COOLING SYSTEMS

BiemmedueUK & Arcotherm

Unit 12, Wilson Road, South Wigston

Leicester LE18 4TP

T: 01773 836999 | E: sales@biemmedueuk.com

W: www.biemmedueuk.com

Spica Temperature Control Solutions Ltd

20 Crowsport, Hamble, Hampshire, SO31 4HG

T: 02380 453841

M: 07780 638976

E: kay@spicasolutions.com

W: www.spicasolutions.com

INSURANCE

Arc International

St. Clare House, 30-33 Minories, London, EC3N 1PE

T: 0207 977 7637

W: www.arc-int.co.uk/

Tysers Insurance Brokers

71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS

T: 0203 037 8000

E: tim.rudland@tysers.com

W: www.tysers.com

Vento

LASER & FX

Event Insurance by Event People

107 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 5JF

T: 0333 090 7589

E: freddie@ventoinsurance.com

W: www.ventoinsurance.com

Laser Grafix

Unit 4A Stratton Park, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8QS

E: info@lgfx.co.uk

W: www.lgfx.co.uk

UK office: 01767 315948

Dubai office: +971 4887 9808

LED SCREENS

EMF Technology Ltd

Unit 27 Freemantle House, Kingsclere Business Park, Kingsclere, Hants, RG20 4SW

T: 020 8003 3344

E: info@emftechnology.co.uk

W: www.emftechnology.co.uk

Lightmedia Displays

Mobile & Modular LED Screen Hire

T: 0333 600 6000 - 24 hour response

E: sales@lightmedia.co.uk

W: www.lightmedia.co.uk

Tech AV Ltd

London, Essex, Birmingham

T: 0345 257 9969

E: lee@techav.events

W: www.techav.events

LIGHTING

YSLV

London & York

T: 0800 080 3310

E: hire@yslv.co.uk

W: www.yslv.co.uk

PART OF

MARQUEES

Illumin8

Nick: 07593437891

E: sales@illumin8lights.co.uk

W: www.illumin8lights.co.uk

Alternative Stretch Tents

Building 15, Gateway 1000, A1 (M) jct 7, Stevenage, SG1 2FP

T: 01920 830256

E: info@alternative-stretch.co.uk

Fews Marquees

Chessgrove Park, Ditchford Bank Road, Hanbury, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 4HS

T: 01527 821789

E: info@fews.co.uk

W: www.fewsmarquees.co.uk

Gigtent UK

Sonas House, Button End Harston

Cambridge, CB22 7NX

E: info@gigtent.co.uk

W: www.gigtent.co.uk

Instant Marquees

T: 01840 213063

www.instantmarquees.co.uk

TT Tents Ltd

North Waltham Business Centre, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG25 2DJ

T: 01256 397 551

E: sales@tttents.co.uk

Tentickle Stretch Tents UK Ltd

Langley Brook Business Park, Unit 3B London Rd, Tamworth, B78 2BP

T: 0121 7401385

M: 07826 843099

E: jorg@tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

W: www.tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

Yes Tents

4b Hall Farm Business Park, London Road, Weston, Beccles NR348TT

T: 07932 642689

E: paul@yestents.com

W: www.yestents.com

MEDICAL SERVICES

Alliance Pioneer Group

Event Medical, Frontline Ambulance & Patient Transport Services

Hawthorne House, 2nd Floor 25 Darklake View, Estover, Plymouth, PL6 7TL

T: 01752717720

E: mail@alliance-pioneer.co.uk

W: https://alliance-pioneer.co.uk/

Instagram: @alliancepioneergroup

Twitter: @AlliancePGUK

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Alliance.

Pioneer

LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/company/ alliance-pioneer-group

Canopy Medical Services Ltd

T: 07514 780025

E: jules@canopymedicalservices.co.uk

W: www.canopymedicalservices.co.uk

Enhanced Care Services

Unit H9, Adanac Park, Adanac Dr, Nursling, Southampton SO16 0BT

T: 02380 201561

E: admin@enhancedcareservices.co.uk

W: www.enhancedcareservices.co.uk

First Aid Cover Ltd

T: 020 8875 5758

E: enquiries@firstaidcover.co.uk

W: www.firstaidcover.co.uk

Location Medical Services Ltd

The Medical Centre, Shepperton Studios, Studio Road, Shepperton, Middx, TW17 0QD

T: 0870 750 9898

E: mail@locationmedical.com

W: www.locationmedical.com

Medirek

8 Primrose Place, Portsmouth Road, Godalming Surrey, GU7 2JW

T: 07776 128 409

safety and medical

E: ryan.soper@medirek.co.uk

W: www.medirek.co.uk

MET Medical Ltd

T: 0203 627 9042

E: info@met-medical.co.uk

W: www.met-medical.co.uk

Trident Medical Limited

Based in Essex, cover events all over the UK

T: 01279 319039

M: 07379 244718

E: events@tridentmedical.co.uk

W: www.tridentmedical.co.uk

Symphotech

Safety. Production. Noise Management

Claire Feeney

T: 0871 711 5264

E: claire@symphotech.co.uk

PLANT HIRE

Hopkins Machinery

T: 01633 680754

E: hire@hopkinsmachinery.co.uk

W: www.hopkinsmachinery.co.uk

PORTABLE TOILET HIRE

Four Jays Group

Barling Farm, East Sutton, Maidstone, Kent ME17 3DX

T: 01622 843135

E: enquiries@fourjays. co.uk

W: www.fourjays.co.uk

LOOS FOR DOs Ltd

Bakers Court, Forge Road, Kingsley, Hampshire GU35 9NZ

T: 01420 588 355

E: info@loos.co.uk

W: www.loos.co.uk

Just Loos

Paddock Barn, Manor Farm, Itchen Stoke, Hampshire, SO24 0QT

T: 01962 867808

E: office@justloos.com

W: www.JustLoos.com

Ontrax Rentals

Elmwood Farm, Bampton OX18 2PL, England

E: hello@ontraxrentals.com

W: www.ontraxrentals.com

Site Event

The Depot, The Avenue, Lasham, Hampshire GU34 5SU

T: 01256 384 134

E: event@site-equip.co.uk

W: www.site-equip.co.uk

Vacant Event Hire

Unit C White Oak Technology Park, London Road, Swanley, Kent BR8 7AG

T: 01322 761 117

M: 07960 301178

E: info@vacant.events

W: https://vacant.events/

Zoo Events Group Ltd

Stockton Dairy, Stockton, Warminster, BA12 OSQ

T: 01258 840233

E: info@zooeventsgroup.co.uk

W: www.zooeventsgroup.co.uk

POWER & GENERATORS

ATD Electrical

Unit 93, Greenway Business Centre, Greenway, Harlow, Essex, CM19 5QE

T: 01279 507890

E: office@atdelectrical.com

W: www.atdelectrical.com

Energy Management Services Ltd

T: 0333 305 5144

E: admin@energyms.co.uk

W: www.energyms.co.uk

Festival Power Ltd

Unit 2, Temple Bridge Business Park, Bristol, BS39 5AA

E: info@festivalpower.co.uk

W: www.festivalpower.co.uk

Fourth Generation Ltd

220 Cricklewood Lane, London, NW2 2PU

T: 020 8450 2943

M: 07741 052565

E: tweed@fourthgenerationltd.com

W: www.fourthgenerationltd.com

Gofer Ltd

Unit 7 Arkwright Road, Hadleigh Road Ind. Est, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP2 0UB

T: 01473 282530

E: info@gofer.co.uk

W: www.gofer.co.uk

IDE Systems

T: 01543 574 111

E: enquiries@idesystems.co.uk

W: www.idesystems.co.uk

Head Office & Manufacturing Centre

Unit 3, Swaffield Park Hyssop Close, Cannock

Staffordshire, WS11 7FU United Kingdom

Lifos Advanced Battery Technology Ltd

Stafford Park 5, Telford, TF3 3AS

T: 01952 200198

E: hello@lifos.co.uk

W: www.lifos.co.uk

Midas Productions (UK) Ltd

Unit 1, Uplandside, Manor Road, Clopton, Suffolk, IP13 6SH

T: 0333 772 0772

M: 07949 007 603

E: info@midas-uk.co.uk

Newburn Power Rental Limited

Unit 36 Lidgate Crescent, Langthwaite Business

Park, South Kirkby, Pontefract, WF9 3NR

T: 0845 077 6693

E: info@npr-uk.com

Power Events

T: 01277 424800

E: enquiries@powerevents.co.uk

W: www.powerevents.co.uk

Power Revolution

23C Shepherds Grove Ind Est, Stanton Bury St Edmunds, IP31 2AR

T: 01359 256 265

E: info@power-revolution.co.uk

W: www.power-revolution.co.uk

Progen Power Ltd

Belvedere House, Pynes Hill, Exeter,Devon, EX2 5WS

T: 0330 165 5720

E: info@progenpower.co.uk

W: www.progenpower.co.uk

Stuart Power Ltd

Stuart House, Hargham Road, Shropham, Norfolk, NR17 1DT

T: 01953 454540

E: enquiries@stuartpower.co.uk

W: www.stuartpower.co.uk

Summit Power

T: 0333 0349433

E: enquiries@summitpower.co.uk

W: https://summitpower.co.uk/

Wernick Power Solutions

Joseph House, Northgate Way, Aldridge, Walsall, WS9 8ST

T: 03334 001 247

E: power@wernick.co.uk

W: www.wernick.co.uk/power

Twitter: twitter.com/WernickGroup

Instagram: www.linkedin.com/company/wernickgroup

PRINTERS

UK Flyers

Suite 210, Victory House, Somers Road, North Portsmouth, HampshirePO1 1PJ

T: 023 9229 3050

E: sales@ukflyers.com

W: www.ukflyers.com

PRODUCTION AND PROJECT SUPPORT

Smartrad Creative Ltd

5 George Street, Snaith, DN14 9HY smartradcreativeprojects@gmail.com

www.smartrad.org

T: 07711469787

PROJECTION

EMF Technology LTD

Projection Mapping, Water Screens, Flame Effects, Lighting, Mains Distribution

T: 020 8003 3344

E: info@emftechnology.co.uk

W: www.emftechnology.co.uk

RADIO COMMUNICATIONS

2CL Communications Ltd

Unit C, Woodside Trade Centre, Parnham Drive, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 4NU

T: 0800 389 2278

E: contact@2cl.co.uk

W: www.2cl.co.uk

DCRS

Edison Road, St.Ives, Cambs, PE27 3LH

T: 0800 043 2688

E: sales@dcrs.co.uk

W: www.dcrs.co.uk

REUSABLE CUPS

Re-uz UK Less is now Limited

Unit 1A Walrow Industrial estate, Commerce Way, Highbridge

TA9 4AG

T: 01278 238390

E: info.uk@reuz.com

W: www.re-uz.com & www.green-goblet.com

Blue Planet Washing Solutions

Unit 15 GIDC, Cobham Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 9RX

T: 01293 553040

E: info@blueplanetws.co.uk

W: www.blueplanetws.co.uk

SEATING

Ace Seating Hire

T: 01832 279333

E: info@aceseating.co.uk

W: www.aceseating.co.uk

SECURITY

Newman Event Services Ltd

Crowd Management, Festival & Event Security/Stewarding.

Bloxham Mill, Barford Road, Bloxham, Oxfordshire, OX15 4FF

T: 01295 722844

E: enquiries@newmanevents.co.uk

W: www.newmanevents.co.uk

Right Guard Security

Experts in Crowd Management and Event Security

T: 01227 464588

E: info@rightguard.co.uk

W: www.rightguard.co.uk

Trojan Security

Unit B7 Loughton Seedbed Centre

Langston Road

Loughton IG10 3TQ

T: 0330 113 9966

E: info@trojansecurityuk.co.uk

W: www.trojansecurityuk.co.uk

Linkedin @trojan-security-uk-ltd

Facebook @TrojanLondon

Instagram @trojan_security_UK

Staged Events Ltd

Meadow View, Newnham Lane, Old Basing, Hampshire, RG24 7AU

T: 01256578055

E: info@stagedevents.com

W: www.stagedevents.com

SHOWERS

Zoo Events Group Ltd

Stockton Dairy, Stockton, Warminster, BA12 OSQ

T: 01258 840233

E: info@zooeventsgroup.co.uk

W: www.zooeventsgroup.co.uk

SITE SUPPLIES

Concept Products Ltd

10 Cary Court, Somerton Business Park, Somerton, TA11 6SB

T: 01458 274020

E: ben@conceptproductsltd.co.uk

W: www.conceptproductsltd.co.uk

STAGING & RIGGING

IPS (Impact Production Services)

29 Mount Avenue, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LS

T: 01908 657950

E: enquiries@ips.co.uk

W: www.ips.co.uk

The Stage Bus

19 Prestwood Road, Birmingham, B29 5EB

T: 0121 585 9264

E: info@thestagebus.com

W: www.thestagebus.com

Steeldeck Rentals

Unit 58, T. Marchant Estate, 42 - 72 Verney Rd, London SE16 3DH

T: +44 (0)207 833 2031

E: rentals@steeldeck.co.uk

W: www.steeldeck.co.uk

TEMPORARY ROADWAYS

Cap Trac Limited

The Stables, Loke Farm, Weston Longville, Norwich, NR9 5LG

T: 01603 880448

E: info@captrac.co.uk

W: www.captrac.co.uk

TEMPORARY STRUCTURES

Fews Marquees

Chessgrove Park, Ditchford Bank Road, Hanbury, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B60 4HS

T: 01527 821789

E: info@fews.co.uk

W: www.fewsmarquees.co.uk

Gigtent UK

Sonas House, Button End Harston, Cambridge, CB22 7NX

E: info@gigtent.co.uk

W: www.gigtent.co.uk

LH Woodhouse

Wolds Farm, The Fosse, Cotgrave, Nottingham, NG12 3HG

Delivering successful events

T: 01159 899 899

E: sales@lhwoodhouse.co.uk

W: www.lhwoodhouse.co.uk

Losberger De Boer

Castle Park, Boundary Road, Brackley, Northamptonshire, NN13 7ES

T: 01280 846500

E: sales.uk@losbergerdeboer.com

W: www.losbergerdeboer.com/uk

Mehler Texnologies UK Ltd.

Hollinwood Business Centre

Albert Street, Oldham, Lancs. OL8 3QL

E: info-uk@freudenberg-pm.com

W: www.mehler-texnologies.com

NEPTUNUS Ltd

Cob Drive, Swan Valley, Northampton NN4 9BB

T: 01604 593820

E: sales@neptunus.co.uk

W: www.neptunus.co.uk

Stunning Tents

Creative House, Station Road, Theale RG7 4PD

T: 0118 380 5590

E: team@stunningtents.co.uk

W: www.Stunningtents.co.uk

Tentickle Stretch Tents UK Ltd

Langley Brook Business Park, Unit 3B London Rd, Tamworth, B78 2BP

T: 0121 7401385

M: 07826 843099

E: jorg@tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

W: www.tentickle-stretchtents.co.uk

The Dome Company

T: 07876673354

E: info@thedomecompany.co.uk

W: www.thedomecompany.co.uk

TT Tents Ltd

North Waltham Business Centre, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG25 2DJ

T: 01256 397 551

E: sales@tttents.co.uk

W: www.tttents.co.uk

WASTE MANAGEMENT

TICKETING

Worldwide Structures Ltd

Ayrshire Farm, Sharcott, Pewsey, SN9 5PA

T: 01672 565 060 / +44 (0) 7875 027369

E: enquiries@w-sl.com

W: www.worldwidestructures.com

Citizen Ticket

84 Commercial St, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 6LX

E: info@citizenticket.co.uk

W: www.citizenticket.com

Skiddle Ltd

Ashley Hall Farm

Inglewhite Road, Goosnargh PR3 2EB

W: www.skiddle.com

TRACKWAY

All Weather Access Ltd

County Farm, High Roding, Dunmow, Essex CM6 1NQ

T: 01371 700510

M: 07801 751137

E: henry@all-weatheraccess.co.uk

W: www.all-weatheraccess.co.uk

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

Event Traffic Control Ltd

Baldersby Gardens, Ripon Road, Baldersby, Thirsk, North Yorkshire, YO7 4PS

T: 08000 246 800

E: info@eventtc.com

W: www.eventtc.com

Right Guard Traffic Management

Event Traffic Management

VEHICLE HIRE

CSAS Accredited Traffic Officers

Car Parking

Event Signage

T: 01227 464588

E: info@rightguard.co.uk

W: www.rightguard.co.uk

Bradshaw Event Vehicles

New Lane, Stibbington, Peterborough, PE8 6LW

T: 01780 782621

E: enquiries@eventvehicles.co.uk

W: www.eventvehicles.co.uk

Twitter: @Bradshaw_EV

VENUE MAPPING

Iventis

Think Tank, University of Lincoln, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL

T: 01522 837205

E: info@iventis.co.uk

Eamon Kerrigan:

E: Eamon.kerrigan@iventis.co.uk

W: www.iventis.co.uk

D C Site Services Ltd

Fenland District Industrial Estate Station Road, Whittlesey

Peterborough PE7 2EY

T: 01733 200 713

E: info@dcsiteservices.com

W: www.dcsiteservices.com

Falcon Cleaning

The Falcon Nest, Unit 10 & 11, Lower Gower Road, Royston SG8 5EA

E: admin@falconteam.co.uk

W: www.falconteam.co.uk

WATER & PLUMBING SERVICES

Liquiline Ltd

The Incuhive Space, Office 7:001, The Guild, King Street, Wilton, Wilts SP2 0RS

DRINKING

T: 01258 830324

E: Bill@liquiline.co.uk

W: www.liquiline.co.uk/terms

MTD (UK & Ireland) Ltd

Unit 1 Westerngate, Hillmead Enterprise Park, Langley Road, Swindon, SN5 5WN

T: 01264 773 818

E: sales.uk@mtd.net

W: www.mtd.net

Wicked Event Water Services

Kevin: 07909 771996

E: info@wickedeventwaterservices.com

W: www.wews.biz

WIFI, INTERNET & STREAMING

Fli-Fi Ltd

UK Wide

T: 020 3778 0454

E: enquiries@fli-fi.com

W: www.fli-fi.com

SimpliWifi

Unit 13, Leominster Enterprise Park, Leominster, Herefordshire, Hr6 0LX

T: 0800 298 9434

E:  hello@simpliwifi.agency

W: https://simpliwifi.agency

Editor

Caroline Clift caroline@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Publication manager

Sarah Bourne sarah@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Account executives

Holley Wilkinson holley@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Jen Crisp jen@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Marketing executive

Katie Goldsmith marketing@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Design and production

Jonathan Graham

Colin Swaffer

Neil Hepden

Jemma Heslop studio@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Digital and web developer

Matthew Coppard

Credit control

Janine Walmsley creditcontrol@standoutmagazine.co.uk

Managing director

Neil Fagg neil@standoutmagazine.co.uk

T: 01795 509101

CEO

John Denning

StandOut Multimedia Limited, 3 The Metford, Evegate Business Park, Smeeth, Ashford, Kent, TN25 6SX T: 01795 509113 www.standoutmagazine.co.uk

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