There has always been a special atmosphere around Glastonbury Festival, emanating from the tightknit team assembled around organisers Michael Eavis, his daughter Emily and her husband Nick . Enteetainment are in constant touch throughout the year's planning that goes into constructing the world's most famous festival stages and their associated production, ensuring the 135,000-strong audience enjoys the 51 bands appearing on these two stages across the weekend.
The core team comprises Dick Tee, head of production, along with daughter Frankie Tee, (in the role of Pyramid stage office manager) working her seventh year, Amy Harmsworth (operations and logistics manager Pyramid and Other Stage) working at her 13th Glastonbury and Kim Bickell (Other Stage office manager) also working her seventh festival. Other key Enteetainers in the team of 24 include John Clarke (site manager for Pyramid and Other stage) and Tony Boffey (deputy site manager for production at Pyramid and Other Stage).
Dick comments, "Our close relationship with the Eavis's and the extended Glastonbury Festival family means that we are all on a common wavelength of moving the festival forward in the right direction.
"There are quite a few parent / sibling relationships working at Glastonbury, which I believe stems from the great respect we've built between us and an ethos that any parent would want their children to be a part of."
Dick's son Toby is also working on site as a rigger within Neg Earth's lighting team.
The mentoring of knowledge goes beyond family and Enteetainment Crew as the company also brings in placement students from the local community to learn about festival production during the festival build and over the weekend. Amy (Harmsworth) herself was introduced to the industry as a placement student with Dick in 1998 and has gone on to progress to her current status as a senior production manager within the company. This highlights the ongoing policy of introducing new talent into the industry.
Enteetainment took tenancy of their onsite offices at the rear of the Pyramid Stage three weeks ahead of the festival, overseeing the installation of the stages and site structures, by Serious Stages, followed by the production load in of lights, Neg Earth, giant LED screens and camera's, Production Video , PA Pyramid Stage by RG Jones and Other Stage Skan PA. Frankie also enjoyed her role advancing technical artist requirements, supporting the management on the West Holt Stage.
(Jim Evans)
