Design Engineering Project management

Windy Ridge
Festival
2026

A private festival built from nothing on a patch of open ground: a mirrored pavilion, a speakeasy hidden behind a mirror wall, a hand-tiled heart hung over the tables. I sketched the scenes over site photographs, designed the structures and their lighting, sourced and made what could not be bought, and ran the programme to the day itself.

RoleDesigner · engineer · programme lead

Year2026

SitePrivate land, open ground

ScopeScene concept, build, lighting, run of show

Festival tent interior with a mirror-tiled hand-heart sculpture above a silver banquet table

the main tent, an hour before doors

Sketch first,
over the site

Every scene started as a drawing on top of a photograph of the real spot — the shed that would become the speakeasy, the gap between trees that would carry the pavilion. Drawing over the site settles sightlines, lamp positions and where a guest's eye lands before anything is bought.

drawn: velvet walls, ring light, mirror ball, four wash lamps, one bar. built: exactly that.

Hand-drawn scene sketch of the red speakeasy interior drawn over a photograph of the shed

concept sketch — drawn straight onto the site photo

Mirrored wall with a red velvet arched doorway cut into it

from the garden it's a mirror. then you find the arch.

A wall that
hides a room

The speakeasy reads as a mirrored garden wall until you are close enough to see the arch. Inside: velvet on every surface, a neon ring and a mirror ball on the same axis, and four lamps aimed so the ring is the only thing you look at when the curtain closes behind you.

Reveal — mirror skin outside, no visible door line.

Light — one ring as the hero, washes kept off the faces.

Sound & mirror — ball hung to throw across the velvet, not the guests.