IN THE SPOTLIGHT
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
A highly experienced technical production director and stage manager whose many roles include being Glastonbury Festival’ s head of production, Emma Reynolds-Taylor’ s remarkable career path in live events began taking shape after she found inspiration at Monsters of Rock.
“ It felt like climbing Everest after running a marathon.”
athlete side of things. Off the back off that I got offered a job with Vans when I got back from a snowboard season. I used to work on skateboard and BMX events, and anything event related was always my favourite part of working in that industry.
I wanted to work on the music side of events and landed a small role at the Hop Farm Festival in 2008. Over the years that followed I absolutely worked my ass off and my role grew year-on-year at the Hop Farm until I became technical production lead in in 2012.
That journey, working with acts like Prince and Bob Dylan at the Hop Farm Festival, set me up perfectly for my role at Glastonbury. When I got asked to work on Glasto in 2014 and then take on the bigger role of technical production for the Pyramid and Other Stage in 2015, I felt like I’ d won the lottery. I still feel incredibly privileged to be the overall head of production for the festival now, over ten years later.
Emma Reynolds-Taylor
What was the first major live event that you attended, and did it have a lasting impact? The first major gig I went to was Bon Jovi when I was 14. It was on a school night and I remember feeling pretty cool that I was tired in class the next day from the late night. Not long after, I went to Monsters of Rock Festival at Donnington Racetrack and saw a female tech running cables on stage and that’ s when I knew it was possible for women to have those sorts of jobs. I wish I knew who she was so I could thank her for being a real trail blazer.
Going to Reading festival soon followed and then the year after that I went to Glastonbury and that was it. My mind was blown and I had found where I wanted to be in the world. I never dreamt I could work on the show, let alone run the iconic Pyramid Stage. I do feel extremely blessed to have found my way to where I am currently.
What led to your first role in festival production? I started my working life proper in the skateboard industry. The first big event I worked on was Urban Games, but on the
You have worked on Glastonbury for more than a decade, and now oversee its two biggest stages. How challenging is that? It’ s an incredibly challenging role for so many different reasons. It’ s super high stakes for lots of the bands. For many of them it’ s a dream to perform at Glastonbury, then eventually on the Pyramid stage, so you really want to make sure it lives up to all their exceptions. Working across all the headliner shows on the Pyramid and Other Stage simultaneously is very hard work but it’ s always worth it when the show comes together, and you take a step back and see what an iconic moment some of those shows are.
It’ s a family-owned festival so we really do care that our bosses are happy and that we’ re representing them in
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