Following on from another successful Greenbelt there was little time to rest before our Events & Festivals team headed off to Warren Farm just outside Swindon for the Sugarhill Festival.  Event & Management Services provide full pre-event production management, and on-site event delivery for the festival, with the specific role of specifying, procuring and delivering the site infrastructure.  This included management of water, waste, power and other services, as well as the design of the layout of the site, management of contractors and provision of a site management team.

Event Production Manager Ben Parker was assisted by Site Manager Simon Fullbrook in the delivery of the event site, although with the weather taking a turn for the worse the event wasn’t without its challenges.

‘Unfortunately, due to the restrictions on the budget, track-way wasn’t an option’ says Ben, ‘but it did bring out the true spirit of the festival.’

With severe rain in the days before and during the event the inclement weather plan was brought into action – and everyone lent a hand.

‘Everyone from site crew and stewards through to the Festival Director grabbed shovels, 4×4s and tractors to keep the event moving’ added Ben.

The event takes place at Warren Farm which is situated afoot the beautiful Sugar Hill in the Wiltshire countryside.  The festival was created thanks to the involvement of the landowner who wanted to share his farm with other music lovers.

The event venue is now managed by Event and Management Services and beginning to see its self flourish as a perfect site for Festivals and Events alike.  If you are looking for a venue for a new or existing festival or event, with excellent transport links, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

It’s a sad time in the E&MS office as we say goodbye to our events placement student Grace Capener.  Grace has been with us for about a year and worked on many of our projects, starting with Cheltenham Jazz Festival (as Transport Captain), then Wychwood as Assistant Office Manager before finishing her year as Communications Manager for the Greenbelt Festival Office.

Grace also managed her own ‘open garden’ project for Cotswold Farm whilst with E&MS before returning to complete her studies in Event Management at Bournemouth University.  We all wish Grace the best of luck with her final year.

For as long as we can remember August Bank Holiday weekend has meant one thing for the E&MS team - Greenbelt Festival.  This year’s event saw music from Fightstar and Beth Rowley, an amazing beat-boxer called Shlomo, talks on every subject under the sun and a huge childrens’ programme.

E&MS provide event site management delivery for Greenbelt Festival - an undertaking which sees us provide a team of six production and management staff on-site for three weeks.  On top of this we are responsible for the contractors, venues and production for the entire site and event.

We’ve worked with Greenbelt for almost ten years and this year’s festival was another fantastic success with increased numbers on the Saturday from last year.

So as the 2008 festival comes to a close we’re thinking about the de-rig and the next events we’re working on.  We would like to take this oppurtunity to thank all contractors, site crew and volunteers who made this years Greenbelt a roaring success - Most of the team are  now off to Sugar Hill - so see you there.

August sees the majority of the E&MS team out on site at Cheltenham Racecourse for the annual Greenbelt Festival (August 22-25).  We’ve just finished the first week of the build and I thought I would post a few photos of the site, which is really now starting to take shape.

E&MS provide site and production management services to the festival and are at the venue for a total of three weeks, managing the site build teams and contractors.  With over fifty venues, camping for up to twenty thousand and a number of outdoor stages the event takes almost twelve months to plan each year.

I’ll post some more photos next week when the event is live and full of people.

Yes as you can see there is not a lot here at the moment, but in these days of instant communications that won’t take long to change.

Why have we built this blog ? Well in part because we want you to know what’s happening the Events and Festival scene…and in part because we want you to tell us what your up to too.

This is an environment where you can use the comments links to tell us what you think about some of the subjects and issues discussed on these pages.

We’ll try to keep you up to speed on the ever evolving conversation about brands and how the way we are working to communicate brand messages to clients and consumers is changing.

So come back soon and you’ll discover that soon there’ll be a lot to talk about.