Hay Festival 2014

Behind the Scenes (and Seats) at the Hay Festival 2014

The Hay Festival of Literature and Arts is an annual event where a wide variety of speakers host events and talks are liable to leave you on the edge of your seat, but to ensure audiences stayed comfortable festival organisers again turned to Wernick Events to provide the seating.

Guests this year included Stephen Moffat, Jacqueline Wilson and Richard Dawkins. These are only three of many names, but they serve to illustrate the wide range of high profile speakers attracted to the event every year.

Aside from supplying seating for the 8 main venues, Wernick also supplied 19 portable cabins to the site which were used for anything from storage to press offices. Everything supplied was designed to fit the needs of the Festival, for example providing platforms in the seating for sound and camera crews, and technical offices for the broadcasters at the event.

The Festival is sometimes referred to as ‘The Woodstock of the Mind’. This year’s Hay, however, was more similar to other festivals around the UK in that organisers and festival goers had to cope with the wet weather. Installation in the middle of a muddy field is no simple task; and matters were only further complicated by extremely limited site access that was shared by all suppliers. Despite this, there were no delays in setting up, as Wernick worked around and alongside other suppliers to ensure the site was ready in time for the week’s first event.