Wokingham Festival
Meet the team
The Wokingham Festival Directors and Organisers, from left to right: Andy, Julie, Dean, Helen and Chris
Wokingham Festival is run by Wokingham Festival Ltd, a not for profit company limited by guarantee. It has no shareholders, no buildings, and the structure of the company prevents the Directors from being paid - we organise and run the event on a purely voluntary basis.
It is a completely independent festival, run by a bunch of Wokingham residents who simply love to be able to use their time and various skills to put on an event where others can have a great time. Any profits from the event are used to fund and improve the festival in subsequent years.
Wokingham Festival couldn’t happen without all of the people below giving their time so generously.
Dean Nelson
Dean is the owner of Generation Studio in Maidenhead, which he has been running since 2016. Working with local and national artists, he has accumulated over 100 millions streams in tracks he has worked on. This has led him to perform with Mel C and work at some of the country’s major festivals.
Since helping to run the second stage in 2021, Dean’s role at the festival has developed over the past few years, and he now heads up the team to continue the festival’s legacy well into the future.
The Studio also serves as the Registered address for the festival.
Chris Hillman
Chris has been involved in the music industry for many years and currently runs a few record labels (White Star, Magick Eye & Braccan) as well as providing music and other business and consultancy services. He also writes a weekly music feature (RaW Sounds.Today), in support of the music scene, which appears in both the Reading.today & Wokingham.today newspapers, and he appears regularly on radio shows.
In 2019 Chris helped set up a new day at the festival focusing on prog and classic rock. That went so well that he was asked to head the creative team in booking bands for the whole festival. He now assists in the running of the festival as advisor and board chairman.
Helen Taylor
Helen first helped out at the festival in 2019 and enjoyed it so much she immediately signed on to help out again. She now looks after all things financial, and collaborates with Julie on Trader Liaison.
Andy Merritt
Andy has been photographing the Wokingham Festival since 2015, and part of the organising team since 2019. He is constantly on the move trying to find the best angle to capture the acts and the audiences enjoying them.
Of course, getting a photo OF him was a challenge!
Photo credit: Steve Aluicious Blake
Julie Wills
The newest member of our team, Julie first volunteered in 2021, performing almost all of the volunteer roles at some point during the weekend, including car park marshal, litter picking and the ticket desk, not to mention the most unglamorous but necessary jobs of checking the toilet cubicles and restocking the loo rolls and hand sanitiser! She also created the website’s first graphical schedule that year, and helped to refine the advance ticket check-in system.
In 2022 she took over the day to day website updates, as well as creating a new check-in system for advance ticket holders, and continued to help out in other ways over the festival weekend. She became a full member of the organising team in 2023.
Julie’s main areas of responsibility include IT and website design, along with site planning and volunteer co-ordination.
She and Helen also work together on Trader liaison.
Sound Production: Summit Productions
Aaron Cilia
Aaron is the co-founder of Summit Productions and has over 10 years of live sound experience, as well as at least 5 years in studio, video production. Aaron has engineered for many festivals, concerts from small to big, and from small folk trios to heavy metal bands, therefore possessing experience in many avenues.
As well as being a sound engineer, Aaron Cilia is a solo multi-instrumentalist (drums, bass, guitar, mandolin/bouzouki, keys) with his own solo venture, and is able to offer his musical skills and experience where necessary when producing and assisting bands in the studio.
Spencer Brooks
Spencer is the co-founder of Summit Productions.
He has been involved in Wokingham Festival since 2021 and enjoys all aspects of running a festival.
Spencer is also very useful when there isn't a step ladder to hand, and is easy to spot in a festival crowd!
Bar: Twyford Beer Festival Team
Ian Wisdom and the Twyford Beer Festival Team
Our Beer Bar staff are just brilliant, and are assisted by our volunteer crew.
Volunteers
… and last but absolutely not least, our wonderful volunteers. We simply couldn’t run the festival without them.
A volunteer briefing session