ANNIVERSARY FEATURE
A decade since Rob Dudley and Nick Morgan founded festival production company The Fair , we mark its anniversary by exploring the company ’ s impact and what the future holds for the burgeoning business
CHRISTOPHER BARRETT
THE FAIR TURNS 10
In between staging major events throughout the UK , and increasingly overseas , the east-London based team at festival production agency The Fair have proven to be vociferous supporters of the wider industry ; not only launching and helping to fuel sector-wide campaigns but taking the time to provide one-on-one support to event professionals .
Led by Nick Morgan , himself an outspoken advocate when it comes to promoting the economic and social importance of the live events industry , the past decade has seen his business grow from being a two-man team to a company of 32 with interests far beyond festivals .
The Fair is one of three pillars that form the We Group ; the others being We Are Placemaking – which creates large-scale outdoor events in public spaces , and We Are OPS – a female-led division offering operations services , people management and safety services for events .
Among the company ’ s many longstanding event clients are Eastern Electrics , Mostly Jazz Festival , Moseley Folk Festival , Grosvenor Estates , Gottwood Festival , Houghton Festival and Bournemouth 7s Festival .
With what appears to be unrelenting energy , aside from the day job Morgan finds time to sit on the NOEA Council , while being chair of the UK Events Outdoor Group , vice-chair of UK Events , vice-chair at the AIF and a member of the
Festival DCMS Workforce .
Morgan spent his early career working as a talent booker and promoter at nightclubs across the UK before cofounding the multi-disciplined Big Cat agency in Birmingham in 2000 . He relocated to London with Big Cat colleague Rob Dudley , and The Fair was officially born on 25 November 2014 .
“ The aspiration was to get back to London , where I knew a lot of promoters . That is where I thought we needed to be in order to really start getting more shows and building the business ,” he says .
Among the first events that The Fair worked on was the Holi One – Festival of Colour ; a 15,000-capacity event in Battersea influenced by the traditional
34 accessaa . co . uk