There is some renovation going on here…

in the meantime you can get in touch on benpugh@me.com

Currently

  • Head of Production and Event Operations – UK City of Culture Bradford 2025
  • Senior Production Manager – Bradford Producing Hub
  • Teaching Fellow – School of Performance and Cultural Industries – University of Leeds
  • Traders and Caterers Manager – Greenbelt Festival
  • Technical Director – The Performance Ensemble
  • Digital Producer – National Centre for Early Music and York Early Music Festival

How I kept busy during ‘COVID times’

During the couple of years or so while the live events and cultural sectors had to shut down venues, I’ve been fortunate as a freelancer to have been able to keep busy and draw on my 10 years of experience in live-streaming and producing digital content. I’ve had some great opportunities this year to work with some amazing teams who have pulled all the stops out to ensure they are continuing to share their work with audiences in new ways.

Some recent projects:  

Some ‘pre-covid’ live projects:

For 25 years I’ve been providing comprehensive management infrastructure for projects, productions, festivals, and events in the creative and cultural industries. I work across disciplines in theatre, music, visual arts, festival, digital, community and education.

As a cultural sector practitioner, my credits include major public events such as the Bradford Mela & Festival, Illuminating York, The York Mystery Plays and the PRSF New Music Biennale. I’ve been fortunate to have worked on some amazing projects – everything from establishing an international puppetry festival, to creating a high end studio ceramics exhibition, to delivering a city-wide, site specific theatre project, to helping artists and academics recreate the acoustics of a long ruined abbey – live in the footprint where the building stood.

I have commissioned and delivered work in a wide range of settings – from the Mumbai streets to New York; encompassing public parks, heritage sites, theatres, museums, galleries, town squares, botanical gardens; everything from rugged moors to NCP car-parks. Having worked with numerous different organisations running a huge variety of projects, I’ve built up a clear picture of how to create meaningful engagement, what makes a successful project and what is viable with the available resources.

I offer a range of skills for individual projects, from long-term strategic development to realisation on site.  From detailed planning to the co-ordination of volunteers, managing contractors and stakeholders, as well as all the production infrastructure.

As a management consultant, I’ve provided strategic support and organisational development to a number of cultural sector teams. I’ve enabled and facilitated a range of activities from developing major capital projects, to preparing policy frameworks, to securing licenses, to establishing a charity.

In recent years I’ve added a strand of university lecturing to my portfolio. I have delivered training in management disciplines in University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, University of York and Manchester Met University.  As a practitioner I’m able to take the frameworks and theories that the students learn and embed them in real world experience.

As well as a degree in Technical Theatre Arts, I am an MBA with the Open University Business School – Including specialisms in Managing Performance and Change, Strategy, Creativity, Innovation and Marketing.

I thrive on the challenge of complex partnerships or unusual projects. Though the role description and job titles change, at the core of my work is enabling teams of creative individuals to develop their ideas and bring them to life in the world of the audience.

I navigate between bold visions and how to successfully deliver them.