A legendary contribution
Steve Heap , one of the best liked and most respected figures in the live events industry , was declared an Access All Areas Industry Legend at the Event Production Awards last month . From touring in a band , performing on TV and promoting folk club nights to overseeing one of the longest running independent festivals in the UK , Heap ’ s career certainly has been eventful .
While many in the live events industry are aware that Steve Heap has been the general secretary of the Association of Festival Organisers ( AFO ) since its launch in 1987 , and was the director of Towersey Festival for 45 years up until 2019 when he retired , few will be aware of some of the more colourful moments on his impressive career path .
From a young age , Heap was eager to get to where the action was . He was born in Rawtenstall , a small town in the Rossendale valley some 15 miles north of Manchester .
Having learned to read music and play the cornet in a brass band , Heap left school at the first opportunity , aged 14 , and before long was playing drums at a local club venue .
“ My dad played drums in a ballroom dance band at the Astoria Ballroom , he couldn ’ t do it one night so I got the opportunity to stand in for him – I was basically busking , but it was great fun ,” he says .
It was the mid 1960s , and with dedicated folk clubs springing up throughout the country , Heap wasted no time immersing himself in the nascent folk revival .
He began by sweeping the floors at venues but by 1966 , aged just 16 , Heap had moved on to booking acts into venues including the Bury Folk Club and Valley Folk Club , and sometimes performing in them .
“ I joined an acapella group called Folk Valley , singing mostly English folk music ,” he says . “ We made a record , toured some clubs in the UK and across Europe and made another album when we came home . In the end , though , I found myself knowing more about organising events then playing at them and decided that was probably a better career path .”
Heap started working as a concert programmer in Manchester and set up an agency , booking folk acts such as Donovan , The Dubliners , Ralph McTell , The Watersons and Martin Carthy into clubs and festivals .
“ I ’ d been to loads of festivals and that ’ s where I thought the action was . Clubs were starting to decline a bit and festivals were taking over ,” he says .
Tower of strength Heap had missed the first Towersey Festival , which took place in the Oxfordshire village of the same name in 1965 , but was booked in a band to play there the following year . By 1968 he was MC , PA man and chair shifter . His involvement grew and finally , in 1975 , Heap took
Steve Heap receives EPA Legend award from Andy Lenthall
over the running of the whole thing . He says : “ It was a village fete with music . I helped run it , working on the infrastructure mostly . There were only a few hundred people attending in the early days but within two or three years Towersey had moved from selling about 600 tickets to 3,000 . By the time I decided to retire and hand it over to my son , we had around 8,000 people attending . The festival is now in its 58th year , and over the years it has contributed half a million pounds to charities .”
Heap ’ s interests were far from limited to Towersey . In the 1990s , Heap was running six festivals around the country including the Sidmouth International Festival . “ When we took it over it was running over seven or eight days and attracting about 5,000
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