Hay Festival has agreed an extension to the partnership with GL events UK that will see the festival extend its infrastructure brief to include seating areas as well as temporary structures. The extension continues the long-term relationship between the two organisations, which kicked off in 2010. In that time, Hay Festival has continued to grow: 273,000 tickets were sold to Hay Festival 2018 (up 18,000 on 2017) with attendees from over 40 countries, ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela.

Hay Festival is the world’s leading festival of ideas, bringing readers and writers together to share stories in sustainable events across the globe. Taking place over 11 days in May and June, the UK edition sees over 600 award-winning writers, global policy makers, pioneers and innovators, comedians and musicians take part.

Over the last eight years, GL events UK has delivered a wide range of temporary structures to house all the show’s diverse features and events, the new agreement will also see the company’s seating and stadia division deployed to create over 5,000 comfortable tiered and flat floor seating for some of the main events within the festival.

Georgie Docker, Production Director at Hay Festival, said: “We’re pleased to partner with GL events seating and stadia for 2019 following a successful eight years of working together with their temporary structures. Putting one of the world’s biggest sustainable arts festivals together at our Dairy Meadows site is an annual wonder and we work hard to make it better each year. Here’s to 2019.”

“This is great news for both the continuing success of the Hay Festival and our own business success,” commented Scott Jameson, GL events UK Group Managing Director. “These contracts mean a great deal to us. We work in partnership with events like Hay Festival and see them grow, and with it our own role with them as well. Hay remains one of the best and most respected festivals in the UK calendar and we’re delighted to be an even bigger part of it next year.”

Hay Festival 2019 takes place 23 May-2 June. Earlybird tickets are out now at hayfestival.org.

Adam Parry
Author: Adam Parry

Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.