Wokingham Festival
Meet the team
Wokingham Festival is non-profit company limited by guarantee. There are no shareholders, and the festival does not make a profit for the organisers. It is a completely independent festival with no council funding: it is run by a bunch of locals who simply love a good time. It couldn’t happen without all of the people below giving their time 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, work at some of the country’s major festivals, and manage Kyros who are signed to Whitestar records.
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.
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.
Spencer Brooks
Spencer is the founder of sustainable event production company SBM Productions.
He has been involved in Wokingham Festival since 2021 and enjoys all aspects of running a festival, from booking acts to putting up fences, marking up the field, litter picking, and providing production equipment and sound engineering services.
Spencer is also very useful when there isn't a step ladder to hand, and is easy to spot in a festival crowd!
Aaron Cilia
Aaron is the founder of Spriggan 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 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.
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
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.
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, stage gate security, 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 the website. She and Helen also work together on Trader liaison and Volunteer coordination.
Stan Hetherington
Stan has been part of the team and the driving force behind the festival since the beginning … as has his hat.
Starting in 2023, he is acting in an advisory capacity to share his considerable experience with the rest of the team.
Ian Wisdom
and the Twyford Beer Festival Team
Our Beer Bar staff are just brilliant. There are far more of them than we could get in this picture.
… and last but absolutely not least, our wonderful volunteers. We simply couldn’t run the festival without them.
Perks of the jobs! Some of our volunteer helpers stop for a well earned drink at the end of setup.