Hay Festival

As the largest event of its kind in Europe, the 11-day festival has created a forum to explore art, literature, science, politics, music, and comedy, every May and June over the last 39 years. 

Each year the event hosts more than 600 award-winning writers, global policy-makers, pioneers, innovators, comedians and musicians, with appearances from renowned speakers such as Bill Clinton, Richard, Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Stephen Fry throughout the long history of the festival. 

GL events UK has a rich heritage in providing temporary infrastructure solutions to many festivals, particularly within the arts and literature sector. As long-term partners of Hay Literature Festival, we’re proud of our relationship with their team of event organisers, as well as the diverse range of temporary structures we install every year in support of the festival. 

During the festival, the rural landscape is transformed, with the creation of the event village. As part of our long and successful partnership with Hay Festival, our site-team travels to Hay-on-Wye every spring for the five-week build.   

This year we supplied over 13,000 square meters of structures, featuring everything from marquees to smart, hard-sided temporary festival structures, all with robust and cassette flooring.

Almost 70 temporary structures were installed to host all of the show’s diverse features and events, such as auditoriums, cinemas, youth craft structure, a food hall, cafes and restaurants and VIP hospitality areas, featuring glazed panels and decked terraces to create a unique event aesthetic.  

We also supplied retail units for the shopping arcades and a temporary structure to house Europe's biggest bookstore! As well as a multitude of  back-of-house areas such as workshops, welfare tents and festival admin offices. 

Cinema tents are quickly becoming a popular addition to festivals. One of the latest additions to the event is the provision of a temporary cinema structure, provided by GL events. This was a purpose-built 10m x 20m structure, designed to deliver a fully enclosed and immersive viewing experience. The internal space featured black premier linings throughout, creating an optimal light-controlled environment for screen visibility.   

Beyond traditional film screenings, the cinema tent was used for a range of carefully curated drop-in events and conversations that entertained and engaged festivalgoers.  

Hay Festival Global CEO Julie Finch added:  

“Through this new partnership with MUBI, we are delighted to open the first-ever cinema space on site, offering a dynamic blend of screenings, conversations and drop-in events to engage and entertain festivalgoers.” 

Hay is unique in that the event features temporary structures from across our entire product range of single-story structures. By taking a consultative approach, we can refine and innovate our designs each year, as the needs of the festival and its visitors evolve. 

In 2026, we worked with the client to redesign two separate venues and combine them into a larger single structure. This provided an impressive, high-impact event space that consolidated capacity into a larger, open-plan environment that improved flow, atmosphere, and operational efficiency. 

To complement our diverse range of structures provided, GL events supplies almost 2,500 temporary tiered and flat floor seats for the festival and printed branding.