Plans are quickly forming for summer and it’s looking very exciting. In a lecture a couple weeks ago it was suggested we do a couple of a few things in preparation for next year one of which was go to events and analyse them. This is going to be pretty easy for me because I have many festivals and gigs planned for summer which I will be experiencing on a number of levels. This is exciting for me as it allows me to have a number of perspectives on events with the fresh eyes of someone who’s been studying management since the last festival season.

I’ve firmly grasped a number of opportunities that have come my way over the past few weeks which include more work at Sound City, Deershed Festival, Bushtock festival contacted me asking for help, and I had a few hours of work at The Great Escape this weekend where I was a basic runner for a small fringe stage. The biggest lesson I learnt from working the Great Escape was one I’ve learnt many times before; NETWORK AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! And so this is what I did. Met many influencers and had endless conversations with intensely interesting people.

Next on my list of events to work is Sound City which in the midst of right now. I worked ticketing on Thursday for The Human League gig, this work was tedious and repetitive but I was praised on my efficiency and the fact that although I had the more complicated job of scanning tickets, checking the status of tickets and putting on wristbands all at the same time as the boy I was partnered with got sunstroke, I just dealt with it and carried on alone with no complaint or struggle. The next day I worked the conference. What a log and tedious day this was. I thought by getting involved in this I would be doing as job which I’d learn anything from, but all I learnt is that registration is a boring, repetitive and mind numbing job not suited to someone like me. On the first day of actual work at the festival I as working artist liaison for the main stage, I made sure that I was always doing something and taking the initiative to do jobs if I saw them arising without having to consult someone and this paid off. Though this work is similar to a lot of the festival work I’ve done before I can tell that I’m developing as some of the other less experienced volunteers came to me before they went to other members of staff to look for jobs. I seemed to be delegating a lot of smaller tasks to others (which I have to say was very satisfying). As I said, this didn’t go unnoticed and my line managers told me how impressed they were with my work, this is always reassuring. I also may have gotten myself artist liaison spots at Kendall Calling and Blue Dot due to how well I seemed to have worked despite mainly having been cleaning dressing rooms, running around doing odd jobs and filling bands riders. Lessons learnt from this job includes being patient with the rudeness of band managers, that unfortunately they are always right, that I seem to have a naturally authoritative manner and that if I carry on maybe I could get paid for this job (haha).

Next up is Deershed which I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously but I’ll recap briefly anyway. So I’ll be assistant stage managing at Deershed which is a promotion from last year though I fear I’ll be completing the same work as last year anyway. I’ll be in charge of bands, backstage areas and overlooking the stage if there’s ever any issues with running times and keeping to the schedule etc. This differs from the work I’ve been asked to do at Bushtock Festival. Here I’ve been asked to come down a couple days early to help with the arts teams and then do a couple hours of stewarding at the secret stages of the festival, less exciting, but it’s only for a couple hours. Bring on summer!!!!!