Tom is something of a hero. Not only is he a firefighter by day, and a touring guitarist, but he’s also a self-taught event producer running some of the fastest-growing festivals in the UK. One of them is Teddy Rocks, an award-winning festival attracting high-profile music acts and run completely voluntarily, that’s raised over £800,000 for charity in memory of his late brother, Ted.
“I never planned on running an event production company. But organically and without realising it, I’ve picked up a lot of skills,” says Tom Newton, founder of event production agency Bearfoot Productions.
It’s those skills that have made the multiple festivals he and his team organize in OnePlan each year a big success. They include Rock’N’Ribs – a three-day festival that will host 15,000 people per day this year – the Upton Country Park Festival, and new for 2026 Dorset Tractor Fest. It’s an impressive range of events, but his passion for the Teddy Rocks festival shows just how phenomenal his achievements have been to date.
From a pub gig to nearly £1M fundraising festival
In 2010 Tom lost his brother Ted to cancer. A year later Tom hosted a gig in a pub to raise money for charity in memory of his brother. “We put 5 bands in a pub, got about 50 people there and raised £400. We had such a laugh and it’s just grown from there.”
Teddy Rocks has gone from that first foray as a pub gig, to being staged in a town hall, then a field, and now a dedicated festival site that in 2026 will have a capacity for 10,000 attendees per day. And it’s all done voluntarily by everyone involved. “Every single person’s a volunteer, so 100% of profits go directly to the cause. We’re immensely proud of that, and we’re hoping to reach over £1,000,0000 donated at our 2026 festival,” Tom says.
The festival has had household names grace its stages including The Darkness, The Fratellis, Jake Bugg and a pop night featuring Peter Andre. But it didn’t start like that. Tom used to contact local bands via social media and it’s grown organically since.
Tom continues: “We had an inside joke about a second-hand flight case with a big orange ‘H’ on it. It turns out, the case used to belong to The Hoosiers. We couldn’t believe it, so we went around sticking an orange ‘H’ with tape on everything we could, including one of my guitars. And then I said, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if we booked The Hoosiers to play at Teddy Rocks?’ I emailed them and they said Yes!”
A self-taught amateur to pro event organizer
Over the last 15 years, Tom’s gone on the journey from amateur to professional event planner. Rock’N’Ribs is one of Bearfoot Productions’ commercial events that in 2026 is moving to Bath and West Showground in the west of England, with a 15,000 capacity per day.
What started in 2019 as a one-day festival attracting 3,000 people has quickly grown into something bigger each year. Tom says, “We didn’t want to put on a standard sort of festival, so we created Rock’N’Ribs as the coolest show we could possibly do. It has a great American theming for vehicles, food and music. And there’s wrestling, a country stage, the rock stage, loads of fun extra touches. It’s a big, brash American festival that’s really fun.”
But as a self-taught event organizer, Tom recalls a defining moment when he realised the path he was on. As Teddy Rocks grew, he went on a mission to find a field big enough to house it. The local government heard about his plans and invited him in for a meeting. “That was one of those life-changing moments when I basically got grilled by a couple of people at the council saying that I need a premises licence, an event safety management plan, and they reeled off about 20 other documents I needed to have,” says Tom.
“So I started studying premises licensing and event management for about 40 hours a week,” he continues. It’s defined how he plans events now. “For me, it’s really important that the local authorities love our festivals as much because of how they’re run and how they’re delivered. Safety and a great experience are so important to us.”
How their event team saves planning time with OnePlan
The Beatfoot Productions team consists of three directors – Tom, Tim and Nico – who work together with their teams making the plans for their festivals come to life. “We have a team of about 30 staff who work with us behind the scenes, with heads responsible for artists management, traffic management, operations and so on, and then up to about 400 people working across the site as crew.”
Effective collaboration when planning is key for them, and the team has found that OnePlan gives them confidence when it comes to event delivery. Tom says, “For Rock’N’Ribs, we put all the display vehicles in rows on the map in OnePlan and we can all see together how it physically fits in the space. That gives our team confidence in our plan.”
As well as the improved collaboration and increased confidence from using OnePlan, the event production company gets a huge time-saving benefit by using the web platform. Tom says he initially saw OnePlan’s advert saying it would save his team 10 days on-site per year. “And you know what,” Tom beams, “it absolutely does! We’ve used OnePlan for two full event seasons now and haven’t looked back.”
“OnePlan saves us so much time, not having to go on site. It definitely saves me one day per week for half the year,” Tom says. “For example, we’re launching a new festival this year which has a 10,000 capacity and I’ve only done two site visits. That may sound irresponsible but it’s not. I can design it all in OnePlan. Without it, we’d have to go to site every week.” And those 26 days saved per year mean Tom can spend that time on the more creative elements of their festival design.
Easy and accurate visual planning
As a touring guitarist, Tom’s played major gigs at Download Festival, Slam Dunk Festival, 2000 Trees and more, for bands including The Offspring and Simple Plan. That ‘s given him first-hand experience when it comes to designing his own shows: “It’s made me think, ‘where am I loading into the stage? What accreditation do I need to sort? What equipment do I need? What dressing rooms do I want?”
What’s more, as a firefighter Tom has ingrained knowledge about the best way to plan a safe, successful site. “When it comes to site design, evacuation points, fire exits, crowd capacities and calculations, it turns out that being a firefighter is really handy. You know, can I get a fire appliance into there, what’s my nearest water source, where are my emergency rendezvous points?”
OnePlan lets him plan his festival sites visually and accurately. He says, “I remember a light bulb moment when I went on OnePlan for the first time, added a Stage object and changed its dimensions, and thought ‘wow, this is amazing’! It’s brilliant and so easy to use.”
The automatic capacity calculators in OnePlan are a valuable tool for Tom: “The calculations for crowd capacity and parking areas are great. It’s nice to have a visual shape on our plan that shows me I can get 7,000 people at one person per square metre in there. And then I know the area in front of the main stage I need to be different. It’s absolutely spot-on. I now don’t need to go to site – I’ve got that much confidence knowing it’s all accurate in OnePlan – the fencing, pedestrian barriers, picnic benches, and so on.”
Planning effectively to manage festival costs
This accuracy is key for managing costs running such a large festival. An example Tom gives is of the big volume of fencing Bearfoot Productions needs to source. “I’ve been using OnePlan today for one of our shows, and we need to order over 1,000 panels of Heras fencing plus 1,500 barriers of pedestrian fencing – that’s immense, about 8 kilometres of fencing that we’re ordering, but I know it’s spot-on thanks to OnePlan,” says Tom.
He continues, “My team can get a feel for our event sites quickly in OnePlan. The items we need, the styling, the measurements and capacities. It means I can quickly work out how a creative idea’s going to work, whether things will fit. I’m a massive fan.”
And the end result of effective planning in OnePlan and having a fun, committed team? It’s shown by getting consistently great feedback from attendees, winning numerous awards for their festivals, raising an extraordinary amount of money for a cause close to his heart, and delivering significant business growth.
Tom says, “Our ticket sales are flying – we’re currently 110% up on ticket sales today so we must be doing something right!”
Photos: Charlie Raven & Will Bailey
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