Fiona Stewart - Career

Career

Stewart is a festival producer and organiser. She owns and is a Director of Green Man Festival which is the largest music festival in Wales. The festival is located at Glanusk Park in Wales which is said to be "the best festival site in the country" by the Times, Guardian awarded the festival 4 out of 5 stars, and 5 out of 5 stars were awarded by The Times for the production and services.

Stewart was Festival Manager of the Big Chill Festival between September 2000 — September 2006 (6 years 1 month). She developed and produced the Big Chill in the position of Festival Manager and had the responsibility of all aspects of the festival apart from music programming and increased the ticket numbers from 3,500 to 35,000 in six years. Stewart is seen as the UK specialist in the production and development of "Boutique Festivals."

Stewart has been involved in the entertainment, leisure and events industries for twenty years, starting out in film management and production. She spent many years working in events management and conferencing for such Government bodies as The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office, as well as several ‘blue-chip’ commercial clients. In recent years she has concentrated on the management and development of cutting edge, commercial indoor and outdoor events (clubs, festivals. concerts and holidays), with various PR companies, promoters and government groups. Stewart has acted as a Consultant to the British Council and commercial arm of the Foreign Office in the managhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiabilityement of international events, and the development of British events industry interests abroad. She has managed of an annual ten day festival on the island of Naxos in Greece, as well as organizing the tour of Morcheeba in China in 2004 and Ladytron in 2005, as well as sourcing the site for the Elton John concert in Shanghai in 2005.

In March 2004 with the support of Visiting Arts and the British Council Fiona was invited to China to research the feasibility of developing two international outdoor festivals, develop links and business with Chinese arts managers and promoters, analyze and report back on the suitability of venues, available production equipment and the Chinese events industry generally. During this visit she instigated the development of the first Chinese Music Industry Think Tank to support the independent popular music industry in China, which is currently being developed, with the support of Visiting Arts, the Commercial Department of the British Embassy in Beijing and the British Council. In 2005 she undertook two more visits in Serbia and in Brazil. Her reports and evaluations were well received and circulated to the Foreign Office, the Department of Trade and Industry, British Council and Visiting Arts. In 2010 she was sent to Mombai to attend the first music conference in India called Soundbound and do an evaluation of the emerging Indian festival industry. In 2012 an Indian national from Mombai visited the UK and had a six month internship working at Green Man and their associated arts events.

She also produced a project with the National Theatre, British Film Institute and Arts Alliance titled "ID Identity of the Soul," which toured the Southbank in Palestine in 09. In 2010 she was recruited as an advisor of the Welsh Assembly Government on their Creative Industry Advisory Board. Green Man Festival also won the Best Medium Sized Festival at the UK Festival Awards at the O2 in London. In June 2012 she produced the contemporary music offer for Wales for the Cultural Olympiad London2012 Festival. The event was called Busk on the Usk and included music, theatre, arts installations, spoken word and locally sourced food. It was a free event and 6000 people attended.