THE ticket machines are whirring and the marquees are up, but preparations for Hay Festival began this time last year.

Here's how local businesses feel about the cranking up a few gears from the ambling pace that makes Hay such a special place to the celebrity strewn hub of a literary maelstrom that Clinton coined 'the Woodstock of the mind'.

Ruth Hay began working for the festival three years ago as a temporary box office assistant, returning for a second, longer stint the following year. She never left, and took over the running of the children's festival in September 2001. As such she's had the opportunity to work with the country's leading authors - becoming a specialist in children's literature.

Ruth only gets to look in at the last event of the evening during festival week, which is 'a lot more' than she did on box office.

Although the footfall in the Natwest branch of Hay doesn't increase much during festival, the cash machine has to be well stocked up. The branch also orders in more coins. Manager Sally Parry goes to the children's festival with her daughter.

The popular Kilverts Hotel in the heart of the town is fully booked from one festival week to the next.

Receptionist Simone Hodges says: "We get more and more organised every year."

Suppliers are now used to the increase in demand - the daily meal count increases from 150 to about 700 - but orders have to be put through early. To cope with additional customers in the hotel bar the hotel is erecting a temporary bottle bar in the garden this year.

Proprietor of the recently expanded Hay Wholefoods, Mandy Haughton is 'excited, but slightly nervous' about the prospective onslaught.

"It's great because we're hugely busy all the time," she says.

"We try to be organised but panic more than anything else!"

Sara Bowie worked on the festival for seven years and still can't smell the tents without her first response being, "is everything running smoothly".

Her gallery's clientele fits exactly the profile of the majority of festival goers and she gets a lot of repeat custom from one festival to the next.

The gallery is perfectly placed for 'celebrity spotting' and Sara's best festival memory is of her favourite actor Alan Rickman coming in to the shop to buy a present for his wife.

"He was really charming," she said, "while I lost the ability to speak".

The lighting for the various marquees generally takes a week and a half to install and local company Stage Electrics have had the contract since the festival began.

"It's a nice festival for us because we're all local," says engineer Hew Field. "We sometimes have a night out to see our work up and running - it's nice to see it all happening."

For festival details see the webite at www.hayfestival.com or call 0870 787 2848.

For tickets call the hotline 0870 990 1299. The festival runs from May 23 to June 1.