BBC Horizon producer on Hexham's Cosmic Frequencies festival
By Ewan Wishart The Hexham Courant 23 July 2025. Original article here.
A FORMER BBC executive producer has said he is 'excited' about taking part in Hexham's new space-themed festival.
Originally hailing from Barrow, Cumbria, Steve Crabtree, a TV producer with over 25 years of experience in non-fictional sci-fi programmes, is looking forward to bringing his wealth of space-oriented expertise to the first Cosmic Frequencies festival.
During the three-day Hexham-based event, as well as witnessing live music from organisers S.K.X Funkanauts and a special viewing of the cult classic film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, audience members will see space experts like Steve take to the stages of Hexham's Forum Cinema and the Queen's Hall to deliver various talks, ranging from UFOs and space science to the science of the cosmos and the search for alien civilisations.
The event will take place from Friday, August 8, to Sunday, August 10.
Ex-Cumbria College of Art and Design graduate (now part of the University of Cumbria in Carlisle), Steve, has called the festival a 'brilliantly fun thing to do.'
"I'm very excited for it - I know they're going to try and do it every year and make it bigger and bigger. It's a great idea, and it's fantastic for the region; it gets people talking about space," said Steve.
Steve initially worked as a painter for Trident Submarines for eight years, before deciding to follow his dream of combining his two passions, TV and science fiction, by working as a producer specialising in all things space.
In 1999, Steve travelled down to London and began doing running work at Channel 4 and the BBC, before going on to get full-time work at the latter, where he climbed the ladder - eventually going on to be executive producer and series editor of flagship science show 'Horizon' and Executive Producer of astronomy programme 'The Sky at Night.'
"When I worked on Horizon, I was responsible for commissioning 15 films a year, which were all shown on BBC Two," he said.
"The best bit of that job was just coming in in the morning and saying, 'I think we should make a film about Mars or an anti-gravity machine.' It was just the best job and so much fun."
At the Cosmic Frequencies festival, Steve will be delivering a talk titled 'Sci-Fi vs Sci-Fact,' where the Emmy-nominated producer will touch on his TV work experiences, whilst exploring themes around the growth in Astro technology, the bureaucratic process between nations if aliens made contact with humans and his work with Chinese 'superstar' science fiction author Cixin Liu.
"I love these sorts of things (events like Cosmic Frequencies). I've done a few presentations in the past and they're always good fun. Having run the types of shows that I've run, I hope I can bring a different element; it'll be brilliant to have a nice chat about what we think is or isn't out there," said Steve.
More information of the event can be found via cosmicfrequencies.org