Long-serving Manchester International Festival technical director Jack Thompson has passed away “unexpectedly,” MIF parent Factory International has announced on social media:
Thompson started out working in regional theatres across the country as a lighting engineer and designer of shows. He then moved onto designing lighting and project managing shows and events worldwide and in interesting places. He was technical director for Manchester City of Drama ’94, which started his move into large scale city-wide event management. He spent the last 16 years working for Manchester International Festival, overseeing all technical aspects of shows and events and was instrumental in the creation of the New Aviva studios.
Several figures from Manchester’s cultural and creative sectors have taken to Twitter to offer their tributes:
