DC Site Services

Dick Collins and Suggs

16 Feb 07

Dick Collins was at the Total Production International (TPI) awards last week and we managed to get our hands on a couple of photos of Dick presenting the 'Venue of the year' award on ENTEC Sound & Light's behalf - doesn't he scrub up well!

In case you're wondering why Dick (The chap who runs DC Site Services) is presenting an award on ENTEC's behalf and not rushing about a festival site looking for stewards, worrying about traffic or the messy state of the arena - we've asked Dick to provide a little history about DC Site Services, ENTEC Sound and Light, and how it all came about...

"Both companies started because of the Reading Festival.

Marquee Entec Ltd was part of the Marquee group of companies, which took the name Marquee from the famous Marquee Club in Soho were nearly all the big bands started. It was originally a Jazz club in the 1960's and filled the empty nights with acts such as the Rolling Stones etc.

The Reading Festival (or National Jazz Festival as it was known originally) and the Marquee Club required lights and sound and to cut a long story short bought a company and call it ENTertainment TEChnicians. Therefore gradually Entec was born. It used to provide all the sound & lighting for the Reading Festival until Festival Republic took over.

I went to work at Reading some 33 years ago in the first hospital to be set up on a festival site. I then took on the litter work and then finally formed the car parking and stewarding teams. This was all done on a part time basis.

18 years ago I left the Express Dairy and joined the Reading Team on a full time basis as an assistant to the Production Manager whilst still running the litter & stewarding work, this of course meant working closely with Entec sourcing suppliers, organizing all the trader and food concessions (yes this was done in house at one time). This meant that in the week of the festival I was extremely busy. Example: You know the Woodman (Terry) all down to me.

Entec were looking for new premises and I suggested the last Express Dairy warehouse that I was the former manager of.

When Festival Republic took over in 1993 I formed DC Site Services as Dick Tee wanted me to work on some projects with him and at the same time I took on the accounting side of Entec.

Since then, Entec has grown 3 times in size & DC Site services has grown about 10 times.

That is the potted history without all the bits & pieces."

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