About Us Continental Drifts - Continental Drifts

Welcome to the world of Continental Drifts

Continental Drifts was started in 1996 by friends with a shared passion for events. Those same friends run the company today from our barge on the river Lea.

A unique company with expertise in all aspects of events. Our team of industry specialists work across event management, licensing, health and safety, experiential brand activation, artist booking and programming. With a multiple award-winning production team, we take pride and dedication in offering a 360 production service.

We have organised hundreds of festival events in London including Vaisakhi/ Diwali and St Georges Day for the GLA, Lewisham Peoples Day, NHS Lewisham and Greenwich staff thank you event, Sparkle in the park, LLDC Great get Together, the Commonwealth Games Live site in the Olympic Park and many more! Our impressive roster of Commercial Festivals include Lollibop, Gunnersville, We Are FSTVL, OnBlackheath Festival, Alice in Winterland and Grinagog! To date we produce stages at Glastonbury Shangri La, Wilderness, Boardmasters, Camp Bestival and more!

Continental Drifts are an Arts Council England, National Portfolio Organisation, for our innovative Global Local project and London Remixed Festival.

Director / Head of Music
Chris MacMeikan

Director / Head of Event production
Mandy Janes

CEO

Mel Wilds

Mel is our CEO and one of the founding company directors. Mel oversees all aspects of company management. She’s also an event manager with over 25 years’ experience in live events ranging from community festivals to large-scale commercial events. Mel has managed some of Continental Drifts’ largest events including David Blaine’s ‘Above the Below’, ON Blackheath festival, We R FSTVL & Gunnersville. Mel was one of the creative producers for London 2012, curating a programme of amazing entertainment and events across the capital. Mel has a level 5 Event Safety diploma from Derby University and a level 5 Crowd Safety Management. This includes managing SAG attendance, writing ESMPs, licensing and crowd management. You will find Mel on-site at some of our larger events.

Email:mel@continentaldrifts.co.uk

Director / Head of Music

Chris MacMeikan

Chris has been a pioneer of the festival music scene forever. Chris is a founding member, Company Director and Head of Music at Continental Drifts and his passion to bring music to the masses is infectious. He programmes music for some of the UKs largest festival stages including Shangri La, Bestival, Lovebox and Wilderness to name a few. Anyone who has attended a festival has likely been to one of our stages! Chris champions new and exciting global music on mainstream stages as well as new and exciting club nights such as electro swing. You will find Chris at most of our music gigs DJing into the early hours.

Email:chris@continentaldrifts.co.uk

Director / Head of Event production

Mandy Janes

Mandy is a Company Director and Head of Production at Continental Drifts. She oversees the daily running of the events department. Mandy has over 22 years’ experience in managing large scale community events, commercial festivals, experiential events and product launches. She has managed hundreds of events during her time at Continental Drifts including Hackney carnival, Vaisakhi Festival -Trafalgar Square, LolliBop and Southwark fireworks. She has a flare for creative design and décor and has created amazing environments for many brand events and tours. Mandy understands the language of performance and has programmed many of our events and festivals. Mandy has an IOSH qualification and regularly manages safety within our events. You will find her heading up the team on a variety of our events.

Email:mandy@continentaldrifts.co.uk

Music Manager

Marine Da Rocha

Marine has been with Continental Drifts since 2018 and is our Music Manager. She oversees our ACE funded Global Local project curating stages with new and upcoming musicians and bands at over 25 UK festivals. Marine oversees our music agency and books bands and musicians for parties, events and weddings. She programmes many of our festival stages. and also handles all aspects of administration for the events. You will find Marine at many of our music events making artists liaison look effortless.

Email:music@continentaldrifts.co.uk

Production Manager

Marcia Stephenson

Marcia is one of our most long standing and treasured members of the team. She is crazy clever when it comes to all aspects of event production, she writes a mean production schedule but is equally at home managing our site crews and with a podger in hand. She has produced some of our biggest community festivals and celebrations including Lewisham peoples Day, St Georges Day Trafalgar Square and Blackheath Fireworks. Marcia is the go-to girl for problem solving and making things happen.

Email:marcia@continentaldrifts.co.uk