More than half a million fans attend the festivals we own and co-produce each year. They do so because they share our passion for festivals. Festivals are in our blood and we are proud to provide the heartbeat of the summer.
Festival Republic is the UK’s leading festival and event promoter, and is extremely proud to be the team behind festivals including the greatest live show on the planet, Reading & Leeds Festivals; Latitude, the critically acclaimed multi-arts festival; and overseas events Electric Picnic, Berlin Festival and Lollapalooza Berlin.
Formed in 1982 under the name Mean Fiddler, the company largely created the modern music festival market in the UK, taking shared ownership of Reading Festival in 1989 and producing numerous other events including the Fleadh and Phoenix festivals, Creamfields and Homelands. From 2001 until June 2012 Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic, also held the licence and operational control of Glastonbury Festival. In 2007 the Mean Fiddler name and venues were sold, with the full festival portfolio remaining under the new name of Festival Republic. Since then the company has gone from strength to strength, producing an impressive portfolio of live events in the UK and overseas, and opening an office in Dublin in 2013.
The Glastonbury Festival aims to encourage and stimulate youth culture from around the world in all its forms, including pop music, dance music, jazz, folk music, fringe theatre, drama, mime, circus, cinema, poetry and all the creative forms of art and design, including painting, sculpture and textile art.
A large area of the Festival (the “green” area) is set aside for complementary and alternative medicine, demonstrations and displays of environmentally-friendly technologies and techniques, various forms of religious expression, and a forum for debating environmental, social and moral issues.
The Festival organises market places, selling an enormous range of wares, and which place particular emphasis on offering high quality prepared food and hand-made goods, including clothes and jewellery.
The company makes films and recordings of the event, which are sold all over the world.
In addition to all of this, the company actively pursues the objective of making a profit. And in so doing is able not only to make improvements to the site, but also to distribute large amounts of money to Greenpeace, Oxfam, Water Aid and other humanitarian causes which enhance the fabric of our society. In the running of the event the Festival deliberately employs the services of these organisations, increasing the amounts they can raise towards their objectives.
Sziget Ltd. is the biggest festival organizer in Hungary and one the biggest festival organizing companies in Europe. We manage numerous events yearly such as Gourmet Festival, Children's Island, Telekom VOLT Festival, Balaton Sound and Sziget Festival.
The company was established in 1993 and now operates with more than 50 full-time employees.