The UK's original off-grid, grassroots festival, The Green Gathering is a four day exploration of low-impact living - filled with music, arts, activism, spoken word, crafts and so much more.
A not for profit event, the festival is commissioned by our our charity and produced by Optimistic Trout Productions CIC, a Community Interest Company. Any financial surplus from the festival goes to fund creative environmental and educational projects.
The Green Gathering community is made up of fabulous event coordinators and crew, directors of OTP CIC, trustees of the charity, and of course our inspiring ticket buying festival-goers without whom the rest would be useless!
Behind the scenes we’re a passionate bunch of festival-lovers, environmentalists, activists, campaigners, gardeners, musicians, builders, philosophers, educators, travellers, health workers and artists.
Contact us if you’d like to get involved.
Steve Muggs has been involved with festivals since the early 80’s, since the days of the Stonehenge Free Festival and the infamous ‘Battle of the Beanfield’. Thereafter, he has been engaged with the transition of some aspects of Free Festival counter-culture into Green movement events, including Maidstone Green Fair and the Green Gatherings.
Here’s Muggs being interviewed about festival, traveller and countercultural history. He's become something of an authority on such things recently, having been invited to write a chapter on ‘Green Festivals and Re-figurative Politics: Communicating Resilience and Hope’ for upcoming book ‘Communicating a World-in-Crisis’ edited by Simon Cottle of Cardiff University.
On site Muggs heads up the vital Green Control crew, keeping a calm eye on everything that happens across the festival. He deals with licensing, liaises with authorities, writes long emails very late at night and is a regular speaker at conferences such as Green Events and Innovations (GEI). Muggs is also a trustee of The Green Gathering charity.
After a decade running Weirdigans Organic Travelling Cafe, Em became a GG director in 2013. She also assists in various roles at independent festivals from Knockengorroch in Scotland to Small World in Kent.
Em manages Green Gathering’s traders, coordinates publicity, and is passionate about sustainability topping the agenda. She recruits volunteers and curates the festival’s Enchanted Woods - a space filled with art and magic, aiming to realign humans and nature.
Em qualified as an assessor for A Greener Festival in 2017, curated the Solution Zone at Extinction Rebellion’s Spring Uprising in 2019, and was interviewed for Festival Vision’s Green Leader Q&A in 2021. Her environmental activism saw her arrested at a Manchester fracking site, and she’s worked with refugee solidarity groups in France and Greece.
Em strives to convince people that expecting interminable growth on a planet with finite resources is silly; sneaks off on long walks as often as possible; counts campfires and dancing amongst her favourite things.
Shane has been involved in every Green Gathering since 1994. Nowadays at the festival Shane and his crew are responsible for the Speakers’ Forum and Greensweep recycling.
In 2023 Shane went part-time as a GG director.
Shane is a Green Councillor on Somerset Council and as a long-time green activist, has been involved in Reclaim the Streets, Legalise Cannabis events, Extinction Rebellion and other environmental and social justice campaigns.
Shane’s 5 Steps to Sustainability were filmed live from an XR action.
Linda has been involved with the Green Gatherings for many years, getting stuck in to a wide variety of roles, from finance and admin to infrastructure procurement, catering and security.
Linda is always one of the first people on site pre-festival, and is involved in site planning and site management as well as feeding the hungry, hardworking site crew.
As part of Totally Amazing Events she has long been involved in production work at events across the south of England and regularly attends event-focused conferences and strategy meetings.
The Board of Trustees is made up of volunteers who are committed to delivering on The Green Gathering’s charity objectives - all based around education for sustainability. Some of the trustees have a history of supporting and contributing to the festival and Green Gathering community over a period of years; others bring fresh ideas to the table.
Find out more here
