Olivia Preston
Olivia Preston is a news reporter for Luton Today who covers entertainment and community news with a strong focus on local people and their stories. Her work sits where music, major events and everyday local issues meet, often using one person or one event as the lens for wider impact. She writes across straight news and features, bringing the same clear, accessible style to festival coverage, artist profiles and community reporting.
Radio 1’s Big Weekend and local festival coverage
Festival coverage is a defining strand of Preston’s entertainment work for Luton Today. She reported on Radio 1’s Big Weekend when it came to Luton, attending all three days of the festival and filing a reflective piece on what happened and how it felt on the ground.
The article is framed explicitly as “I went to Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Luton and here’s what happened,” signalling that she takes an immersive, eyewitness approach to major music events rather than treating them as distant listings.
Within that format, she balances descriptive detail about performances and staging with clear judgments on what worked, giving readers a concise sense of the atmosphere over the full weekend. Her treatment of the festival positions it as both a national media moment and a local experience, showing how a big-brand event lands in the town and affects residents who live there.
Profiles of local artists and performers
Preston’s entertainment beat also includes focused profiles of musicians and performers tied to the area. In her piece on singer-songwriter Myles Smith’s debut album, she introduces him as a Luton lad and emphasises his description of the record as “the most personal thing I’ve ever made,” foregrounding the emotional stakes of the release rather than just noting its arrival. She uses the album launch to explore Smith’s journey, making the story about both the music and the person behind it, and underlining how rooted his work is in personal experience. That approach matches her festival coverage: the creative work is always anchored in what it means to the artist and to the place, not just in chart positions or industry metrics.
The combination of a local angle, direct artist quotes and clear summary of the project makes her coverage useful for stories that need to reach readers who care about both music and local identity.
Community issues and people-focused news
Alongside entertainment, Preston reports on local community issues that affect daily life, again through specific people and detailed examples. She has covered a case where school transport was pulled for local children, reporting on a mother’s fears for her sons’ safety, and using that family’s experience to illuminate the impact of council decisions. She has reported on more than 25,000 households near Luton Airport being warned about five months of overnight runway resurfacing works, linking infrastructure plans directly to how residents will feel the disruption over an extended period. Her work includes a profile of a 93-year-old Luton resident lifting weights to ease his Parkinson’s symptoms, presenting the subject as an individual story of resilience and health rather than an abstract medical issue. Across these pieces, she keeps the focus on how policies, projects and challenges meet real lives, often through one household or one person whose story carries the wider theme.
News and features across the Luton Today titles
Preston works across reporting and features for Luton Today, and also files for sister title Hemel Today within the same group. She covers a mix of breaking local news, planned features and entertainment pieces, which gives her a broad view of the patch and lets her connect cultural stories to wider community context.
Her output spans hard news, such as transport and council stories, softer human-interest profiles and music-focused coverage, but her hallmark is a consistent emphasis on clarity and human detail rather than bureaucratic language. The combination of day-to-day news reporting and longer-form features means she is used to turning around timely stories on events like Radio 1’s Big Weekend while also developing more reflective pieces on individuals, from local artists to residents dealing with health and transport changes.
For stories that sit at the intersection of entertainment, local impact and lived experience, her existing work shows that she is comfortable making those connections explicit in print.
4 more entertainment journalists.
Abbie Bray
Abbie Bray reports on how television affects the people on screen and the viewers at home. She is acting head of Screen Time, working across national and regional titles on dramas, soaps, factual entertainment and live broadcasts. Her focus includes Death in Paradise, Beyond Paradise, Vera and Midsomer Murders, as well as Gardeners’ World, Our Yorkshire Farm, Countryfile, Garden Rescue and A Place in the Sun. She also covers presenters, long-running series, sports broadcasts, viewer complaints and Ofcom scrutiny. Before Screen Time, she was a TV reporter for Metro and the Daily Express, then held weekend TV editor, assistant TV editor and deputy showbiz editor roles. Her reporting links TV formats to grief, career changes, casting, audience reaction and the personal stakes behind live coverage.
Adam Bloodworth
Adam Bloodworth covers how culture, nightlife and luxury spaces shape modern entertainment and everyday life. He is a Features Journalist and Deputy Life&Style Editor at City A.M., where he has written and commissioned culture and lifestyle features since 2022. He is also Deputy Editor of City A.M. The Magazine. His beat includes film, TV, music, theatre, things to do, restaurants, hotels, members’ clubs, fashion and LGBTQ storytelling. He has written for The Telegraph, The Independent, VICE, Metro and HuffPost UK. He reviews gigs, theatre and restaurants, profiles venues and reports on live-music infrastructure. His work often combines criticism with first-person experience, judging places and performances by their atmosphere, stories and audience experience. He also interviews public figures and appears as an on-air commentator.
Adam England
Adam England stands out for linking celebrity news to wider trends in music, sport, health and everyday life. He is a writer-reporter on the news team at People, where he covers entertainment, culture and lifestyle through timely stories and evergreen explainers. His work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Independent, Vice, Dazed, Healthline and Verywell Mind. He writes about music, screen entertainment, celebrity careers, fan communities, sport, cultural history, mental health, travel, pets, relationships and social affairs. His explainers include the 2023 NFL Draft and Bruce Lee’s death. He also reports on sensitive celebrity health stories, such as Lionel Richie cutting a concert short after feeling dizzy. His reporting is clear, factual and service-driven. He strips back jargon and mythology, uses lived experience and expert input where relevant, and avoids sensationalism.
Adam White
Adam White is features editor across culture and lifestyle at The Independent. He writes and commissions long-form features, essays and interviews on film, television, music and entertainment. His work examines how fame, fandom and taste shape contemporary culture, from streaming thrillers and celebrity disclosure to festivals, live music and creative careers. His writing has appeared in Dazed, Huck, i-D, Playboy, The Telegraph, The i, Little White Lies, The Quietus and Nylon. He uses a strong, voice-led style that combines reporting, observation and personal immersion. His streaming coverage treats television as something experienced as much as watched. His celebrity essays connect star narratives to wider questions about privacy and public image. His festival writing focuses on audiences and live events as cultural rituals. His interviews with film-makers and authors rely on rapport, extended stories and reflection.