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2nd year of uni, completed!

So I feel that I really didn’t look after this blog very well over the course of the two years and I probably could have written more and expressed alot more through this blog this year, but I guess now is a great time to start right?!

I’ve really loved being in second year, I feel that the course as a whole grew stronger together, especially towards the end of the year! I was abit nervous when we came back in September and saw that we were taking Bucks Live on to another site, but really excited at the same time and as you know, we SMASHED IT! I have loved having that experience in second year and it is invaluable experience, I really don’t know how many other second years at uni can say they’ve done what we have! 

One of the things I have struggled with this year is juggling 20 hours a week at my job, trying to keep on top of uni work and trying to have a social life. I do feel that i’ve grown slightly distant from my house mates and felt abit left out, as they were able to go off and enjoy doing things together whilst I was stuck in work. I also feel that working so much has brought down my work ethic and I haven’t put in as much of an effort this year due to not having as much time, which has slighlty annoyed me as I have seen a slip in my grades but I can really focus next year now!

After an amazing summer last year working my first ever festivals, I was very hopeful for what this summer would bring! After the first groups of people starting to know what roles they would be working in, I slowly gave up and started to settle into working full time over the summer. But good things come to those who wait and I am so excited to work on the Heritage Live shows across the summer this year! A few other things are lined up as well, all of which I am very excited for! 

I am looking forward to next year and can’t believe that it’s already been two years, where have they gone?! Hopefully I can maintain this blog slightly better over the summer and going forward into next year!

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SubWoofers 2018 debrief

After a very boozy afterparty at Festiball and a few days to recover, we all came back together for one last time for the final debrief. It was really useful to do the debrief as a group to find what others would have done differently and see how others in the logistics group felt the day went. 

One of the things which we would change for next year is to have all volunteers and stewards in place/on-site earlier. Especially those in the box office to help with the queues which formed very early and this way if needed, we could have also opened the site earlier. The box office worked really well, but it did need more fencing and a few more staff on their, however, due to volunteers dropping out last minute, this wasn’t possible. Two other thing which would need to be remembered regarding the box office next year is to have a BSL interpreter in the box office from about 20 minutes before opening until the main rush was out of the way as we did have a few deaf people which needed some assistance. Also to remember to radio through regarding if the site is ready to open and that the gates are now open as this is one thing the box office staff forgot to do, but nothing major! 

Regarding staff from both the Hearing Dogs and from the course group, one thing is that people need to have more faith in others. Mainly for the Hearing Dogs, we found that they were very distant which wasn’t helpful in the beginning and then wanted to get very involved and book things without letting us know. It also needs to be better established what they would like from the students next year and what they are going to do as this wasn’t made very clear at the beginning. Within the Bucks Live groups, especially in my group in the lead-up and even on the day, some people didn’t seem confident in their roles. Going forward, own the role you have been given as the team leaders gave you those roles as we do believe that you can do it! 

Keeping with the theme of the Bucks Live groups, I feel that the communication actually become quite strong the closer we got to the event, especially between other teammates and those who had to deal with external clients to book/get information. This was something I really struggled with at the beginning of the year and I think that for next year or future events team meetings should be scheduled into the timetable to ensure that people can’t make excuses for not coming. However, some of the communication from other groups could have been stronger as there were a few times when messages were read and not responded too, but that doesn’t help when you're trying to just communicate through messenger. 

Last bit I shall bore you with now, but I would just like to thank the other amazing team leaders for all of their help over the past 8 months, wouldn’t have been able to stay a team leader for long if it wasn’t for them! Thank you to my amazing logistics team. What we managed to full off was insane and I hope they are all just as proud of what we did as I am!  Thank you to the Alan, Neil and rachet man...without your help and support who could have known that we could even pull something like this off! And for giving us the amazing oppurunity to put something like this on in our second year of uni, I don’t know many other students who can say they have done what we have! The experiences and although very time consuming documents which we have complied have been invaulable to learn them and put them into practise now has been insane. 

Now Bucks Live is over, i’m not sure what I should blog about, but I will find something.

Over and out...

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SUBWOOFERS - 6TH MAY 2018

Credit to swphoto213

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At least we didn’t get bombed (SubWoofers 2018)

Although the title says at least we didn’t get bombed, we did get dropped another bombshell. The first one was Neil leaving in December and now another Alan (our course leader) is also deciding to leave us (insert crying emoji here)... BUT... WE MANAGED IT!! SubWoofers 2018 was a success! I actually couldn’t be prouder of what my coursemates and I have achieved over the past 8 months and the amazing turnout of just over 3000 people! 

Let's do a quick rewind to the Friday before the event and it was moving day! Time to move all of the signage, tokens, outfits and all the other random crap we found in the cage across to the site. This also included taking 2 very expensive TVs for a 20-minute drive in the back of a van, one of the scariest moments of my life! After this, it was back to the SU (who deserve a special mention for putting up with me pestering for laminating and other various office items and hosting FestiBall the same weekend for the best afterparty ever)..

Which leads us to Saturday. One of the hottest days of the year so far and probably close to 200 pieces of Heras fencing to put up. It was a struggle but we managed it! Saturday was also a fun day, have you ever had to witness a vehicle carrying funfair dodgems into a site with very narrow ways for large vehicles to get through? Had to be the highlight of my day! However, once the dodgems had gotten it, it did require the sitemap to be moved around quite a bit. I very quickly learnt that we should have had a site visit with the rides and some of the traders from the offset, as the site isn’t the easiest thing to navigate around. 

Thankfully, the only slight argument I ended up having was with the company which provided the inflatables for us. After turning up on site and just pitching up wherever they fancied, I received a call from their manager saying that we didn’t have the payment ready. After trying to explain that I didn’t have any access to the cash as I am just a student, I learnt to not to book anything under your own name again as it doesn’t help in your favour! Luckily, it all got sorted and the inflatables stayed for the event. 

On the day, I was quite worried about how the other people within the course we're going to react after Winterland and some of the comments I received off the back of that, but thankfully nothing went wrong and I really enjoyed the day! I was amazed that before we had even opened the gates there was already a queue forming, although this did worry me as we didn’t have nearly enough cycle rack to cover the entrance which wasn’t our fault as we had to barrier off the stage which was the most important thing. However, we soon got the queues moving and I think that the box office handled that first rush of people really well! After this, it was straight to the token stall as this was then manic. Looking back now, doing tokens was so much of a better idea that wristbands as a lot of the families brought the middle pack at £20 which allowed us to make more money than the wristbands probably would have done. 

After the first manic hour, I felt I had become slightly useless as everything had luckily fallen into place and the day was running really well. We only had to deal with one complaint/refund throughout the day which was that the customers wheelchair was getting stuck around the site, which was fair enough and definitely something to take in for future events as although we had considered disabled access, we hadn’t considered what all the vehicles, especially the rides, would do to the ground on the days leading up to the event. 

After a long day of the event, it was time to break down the site. Due to the amazing weather, nearly all of the traders had sold out before the show was finished. This did mean that a lot of them wanted to go home earlier, but thankfully they were all understanding and cooperated well. We managed to break down the site quite quickly and everyone was really cooperative and helped to get the site packed down. 

Next blog post incoming, regarding the debreif...

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The gap filler

So the first confession that I have to make is that I am a liar because in the last blog post I said they would become monthly... but girls got uni and a job to attend to so that's why that went downhill. So this post is everything which has happened between February and the beginning of May. 

Pretty much every Friday I would attend team leader meetings with Alan and the fellow team leaders, which was actually really useful and I feel like it helped bring a lot of the areas which we weren't sure about together. The main part of these meetings I struggled with was where I has delegated tasks out and asked people to report back to me and they hadn’t, I felt that I was maybe slightly letting the other teams down when I couldn’t give them the information which they needed because I also didn’t have it.

One of the other things I struggled with in the last few weeks was that I felt like I was pestering a lot of my teammates to pull together the last final things and get all of the information over to me. As there were some group changes just before Easter when we had mainly completed everything, I also struggled with those who had joined later as I felt that I couldn’t give them any tasks to complete and that I was leaving them out. However, I did feel that 3/4 of my group were mainly doing all of the work and I will never be able to thank them enough for all of the hard work which they have put in over the past 8 or so months, I just hope they are all as proud of what the event turned out to be as I am. 

Last time I wrote a blog, we had no bar, but, we did manage to secure one! After months of trying to find a bar, then thinking that we didn’t one, we actually had a cocktail van, a beer stall and a food trader selling Pimms and Prosecco! After months of trying to understand terms of generators and putting it off for so long, we also finally got that sorted. I was a bit worried about the pricing which we gave to the traders which needed power as we had left it so late to get that information to them but thankfully they were all okay with it.

Also after quite some time of trying to sort out a Raffle licence in time to be able to sell Raffle tickets in the lead up to the event, this fell through as it turns out local councils don’t actually also want to be so helpful. The Raffle was one of the slower things to come together as we were very slow on collecting prizes to win and getting out into the town to sort these out.  

In one of the last sessions in the lead up to the event, it was time to establish who would do what for the different plans which needed piecing together. When it came round to the Major Incident Plan, who said they had experience in those? Me. Who instantly regretted it afterwards? Also me. Thankfully working till shifts at work are boring so I was able to crack on with a good deal of it then. Looking back now, I am really glad that I took that on as I have been able to learn now what really should be put into one and get to grips with writing one before heading out into the big wide world of events. I also contributed my parts to the Event Management Plan on the bars and cash handling and some other bits, which was also really useful to see how one should be written and the contents of one. 

The next blog post is incoming very soon, thats actually a promise (only because i have a deadline to reach)...

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SubWoofers January Update

Okay so I know this says January update and we are halfway through February, however, Amsterdam was calling my name and I switched off for a good 5 days for that... but I'm back in the game! You're also reading SubWoofers update, because we finally have a name for our event!!

Before the Christmas break, I was really struggling with the role of team leader and the cooperation from some of my team, it felt impossible to get them to respond to me but I finally feel that I am getting somewhere! We have now pretty much finalized the sitemap for the event and have collected all of the traders for the event, along with confirmed the rides and having 1 bouncy castle and 1 bouncy slide. 

As team leaders, we now have regular meetings each week to update and catch up on everyone’s progress, which so far seems to be going really well! I have found that these meetings have really helped, especially when another team leader has info to pass across which we don’t have time to discuss in the lectures. 

I feel that logistics are making quite good progress towards the event, we are now just confirmed budgets so that we can fully book in the rides and inflatables, as one of our main concerns is that due to these currently only being on hold, that we may not secure them in time for the event. We are now nearly ready to get the contracts out so everything is slowly falling into place!

With regards to the bars, the first 2 companies which we contacted said that they were unable to do it, so after our research trip to Rebellion, I am currently awaiting a reply from them to let us know if they would be interested. We now have an audit of all the signs and resources we have available to us so in the following weeks, we can start going down to the workshop and working on signage. 

I am starting to get excited for the next couple of weeks, although they will be hectic, the event will really start to take shape! Stay tuned for some more updates!

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A quick 2017 review

Every year I end it saying next year will be my year or whatever and I can finally say that this year was 100% my year! Got through the 1st year of uni, worked at my first festival, worked at my favourite festival, moved into my first house and found a job that I like!

I still can’t say how grateful I am for the opportunities this year has thrown at me and how amazing each experience has been. I mean how many 2nd year uni students can say that they worked at 3 of the major festivals this year?! After being so worried that I wouldn’t like it or it might change my mind about wanting to work in the music industry, I have no idea why I was so worried as I would not change a single second of the summer I had.

Working at your favourite festival definitely has its cons as you just wanna get out there and be amongst everything, but I couldn’t have had a better experience being behind the scenes. 

I’m so excited to see what 2018 brings to me and hopefully it will be another incredible year!

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Bucks Live presents...

After a hectic but amazing summer, i was ready to come back to uni and do everything I'd seen over the past months recreated but on a much smaller scale, or so I thought...

Once we arrived back to uni we were told that we would no longer be hosting the normal Bucks Live event on the concourse, but we would be upgrading to a bigger site and working on behalf of a client, The Hearing Dogs Trust. To find out this was all because of the efforts we put in for last years Winterland was insane seen as wed only been at uni for 3 months!!

This year I am in the Logistics group and was appointed the team leader. I was excited to bring to the group what I’d learned over the summer and get some ideas from the events I’d attended. The first few weeks we chucked ideas around the group and then we started to finalize and get things moving. I gave myself the role of the bar and the beer garden, I thought this would be a good task as licensing is something which I've been considering more over the past few months so it will be good to see the real build up to putting everything together. 

Everyone had the responsibility to go and visit a surrounding area to engage with the traders and to see if they would be involved. Izzy and I went to Marlow and we found a small sweet shop which also sold American sodas, a balloon shop which sells the walking balloons and Barkers, a dog boutique! Everyone seemed really keen to get involved and I’m especially looking forward to the walking balloons, as let's be honest, we're all still a kid at heart and if we couldn't get fake snow, we had to get something just as cool.

One of the things which I’ve struggled with as team leader has been communication. In the first few weeks, things were going really well and then as things started to take shape, it seemed as though everyone has disappeared from the uni. Trying to fit in meetings around everyone's schedule has been hard but the progress which has been made has been quite good. I’m hoping that the Christmas break doesn’t make communication even worse but I have faith that the group will understand how big this event really is! That said, everyone is working well towards their tasks and things slowly start to be taking place!

We have been able to start finalizing the rides, inflatables, and traders which we hope to have at the event and plan to have everything booked in and confirmed just after the Christmas break. The group are also currently looking at pricing strategies for the rides and inflatables to see the best return on investment for the event. We are still throwing ideas around about the name as as it currently stands, we are still nameless! 

We have thankfully found all of our traders and we are working on drafting up some confirmation letters to ensure that everyone we spoke to was still interested and so we had proof in writing. My main priority for the team after Christmas will be to get the contracts written up for all of the traders and attractions so that we can then start to focus on slotting them all into the sitemap. After Christmas, we will also start to focus on the signage as I feel that this year it is definitely going to be a bigger task than last year!

I’m really looking forward to everything which will happen after the Christmas break and to see the event start to really take shape. Still seems crazy to think that Bucks Live is now an actual mini-festival!! 

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Saving the best til last!

Creamfields, Daresbury, 2017. 20th Anniversary!

Friday 11th August 2017, I set upon the train on my journey back home north. First to spend the weekend back home with my friends and then to move onto my intern at Creamfields, the best one yet. I was first asked to come whilst I was at Wireless and I was slightly torn as I did have a ticket, however, I knew I would be an idiot to turn down such an amazing opportunity, so I sold my ticket and accepted. My job was health and safety intern, pretty much the same as Wireless, although this time I moved around a bit more. 

So, my real Creamfields journey starts Monday 13th. As my mum only lives 10 minutes away from site, she gave me a lift in. This was also handy for getting free food whilst we didn't have catering! I was greeted by Libby, who I had previously met at Wireless. I was then handed over my little induction cabin and made myself at home. The first couple days were a bit slow, as everyone was at V-Fest and the majority of the site crew didn't need to arrive until a few days in. I went on a site tour to get a better understanding of where everything was going and it was really weird to drive the site and still be able to remember everything from coming last year as a punter!  I also got to meet everyone on site. 

This was pretty much the same the next day as the build still wasn’t really underway. In the afternoon I moved into the production office and helped the girls in accreditation get a head start on the catering vouchers. It was amazing to see the sheer difference in amounts from Wireless to a camping festival! Once these were finished, I helped the health and safety coordinator put out the fire extinguishers, which helped me to again get a better understanding of the site. The progress of the main stages were starting to take shape, as you can see below!

Wednesday and Thursday were slow again and I helped with the catering vouchers still to try and get ahead to show days. I also helped in the production office to sort out the residents passes to those who lived nearby. Some of the requests which they got for free tickets were funny, someone asked for free tickets because he couldn't walk his dog through one of our fields. Thursday evening we also went out for a family meal which was really nice. I got to meet the head of digital and creative at cream and I loved listening to everything which he had done, especially as Creamfields is my favourite festival! 

Friday again was pretty much the same, more catering vouchers and inductions. Some of the site was starting to get finished off and most the structures were up and nearly ready to be signed off. I went to watch the hospitality tent get signed off which was good as I hadn’t really seen that part of the site yet. 

Saturday and Sunday were more inductions and helping out in the office, with A LOT of laminating! I was soon crowned the laminating queen within the office! On Saturday I got together nearly everything to put in the campsite hub boxes, which were given to Festaff who were manning the campsites. Some of the things included signs, tea and suncream. Sunday involved making up the major incident box, which thankfully didn't have to be used! This involved getting local taxi numbers from Runcorn and Warrington, 5 close hospitals and what they specialised in and hi-vis vests with titles on so the crowd knew who was who in the case of an emergency. 

After a pretty chilled week, I knew that it was going to get very busy at some point. Monday sure enough was this day. I pretty much didn’t stop all of Monday and left my cabin for all of about an hour I think! Everyone was arriving from V-Fest and all the catering units had arrived, there was around 150 of them! I did stuggle slightly as I also had to sort out peoples vehicle passes and people were signing the wrong sheets and not filling in the wrong information, but I soon got a system going to ensure everythig ran smoothly. Tuesday was still slightly busy from people arriving from V, but it had calmed down alot. I also had some help from Ellie, the festival directors daughter, which was nice to have the strain taken off, especially when large groups of people came!

1 day to go until show day!

Wednesday I stayed in the induction cabin to ensure that everyone got in safe and knew all the information they needed. In the afternoon I moved across to the production office to help them with little bits. At this point we did have a small problem with the build and break wristbands as we had used all of the original colour and only had overnight load out wristbands left. I ended up having to use 50 of these until the runner went to get some others from the office in Liverpool. 

                                                 SHOW DAY

Thursday 24th.  This was a really weird show day, as although the site was officially open to the public, the arena didn’t open until 5 pm so we had pretty much the whole day to get everything underway. The first night was a silent disco and so at the end of my shift, I went out to meet some of my friends who had tickets. It was really weird being in a silent disco and I thought my headphones were broken as I didn’t realise there were 2 channels on them, slightly embarrassing. During the day I moved into the accreditation office to help keep down the queues, as they were quite behind on accreditation. I really enjoyed being in there and picked up what I was doing really quickly. All I had to do was ask what company they were from, see some ID in exchange for a wristband. We had to write down the number next to their name to ensure we had a record of everyone on site. 

Friday 25th. I was again in accrediation and it was a bit calmer as most people had picked up their wristbands. I went out into the arena a few times throughout the day to get a feeling of the crowd and it did make me abit sad that I sold my ticket, but looking back now, I dont regret it at all. After a long day in accreditation, I went and met my friends and went to watch The Chainsmokers, who I have wanted to see for so long! It was an amazing performance and i’m already looking forward to when I can see them again! 

Saturday 26th. Again, I was in accrediation. As the majority of people have collected all of thier show day accreditation, I was counting out the used meal vouchers to ensure that all the companies had used the amount they asked for, or else they would be charged for them. Whilst waiting around in the office, Tom Zanetti arrived and I was able to meet him whilst be collected what he needed!

After a few more hours in the office data inputting, I was able to leave and left to go into the arena! I was extremely lucky to see Stormzy from the side of the stage! This was such an experience as this was one of the artists I really wanted to see and to be able to see him from the pit was amazing, especially as it was a closed stage! My plan was to go home after this, however I saw some people who I knew that worked as sound techs and so didn’t end up going back until 3:30am! 2 hours sleep for me that night!

Sunday 27th. After a very struggling wake up call, I made it back onto site to a thankfully chilled day. The day pretty much consisted of more data inputting and ensuring that everything was put into the system to pass onto festival management. At 8pm I was finished and went off to watch Chase and Status, who smashed it as always! After this I went to watch half of Martin Garrix and half of Tiesto. It was then time to say goodbye to my friends and went back to safety in production. After 4 very busy days I was looking forward to getting back to some much needed sleep!

On Monday and Tuesday, I started off in the induction cabin for anyone who was just coming for the break. Not many people came and so I went for a drive to see the site. The campsite smelt so badly from all the toilets and it was amazing to see the amounts of rubbish which was left behind! I also couldn’t believe that it only takes them 8 days to get the site back to normal, however the main stage was down within 2 days! It was then time for me to go finish, my last festival of the season was complete! 6/6 shows completed!

I can’t believe that my first ever festival season is now over! I finished it on an amazing show and I would like to thank every single person who I met over the last 3 weeks and made me feel at home. Thank you to the lads at cream, you do an amazing job every year and i’m still so amazed by your work. Thank you to everyone at festival republic for supplying me with such an amazing oppurtunity and guiding me through my first year. Thank you to my mum for all the free food when catering wasn’t on. And lastly, thank you to my amazing uni lecturers for getting me to this point. It’s been such an amazing year and i’ve made so many amazing new friends who will hopefully stay in touch.

Roll on 2018, more festivals and more friends!

WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER X

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Eastern Electrics - 5th August.... 5 down, 1 more to go!

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Pennfest...4/6

July 21st/22nd - Penn

The time had come around for the 4th festival of the summer, one this time which I would be half working and then get to enjoy the rest of the festival. After seeing the lineup whilst doing research for an assignment, it was a festival that I wanted to go too and one of my classmates Phoebe told me that I could volunteer for a 4-hour shift and then get into the festival for free, an offer I couldn't resist! I volunteered along with my bestie Sammy.

We arrived at the site at around 11 am on both days, ready in time for the gates to open, but as usual on a festival things were running slightly late and so the gates opened a little later than planned. We were briefed and given our tops and wristbands and then set off to sell wristbands for £1 for the charity Child Bereavement, who help families going through a struggle with a child. After around an hour, we were swapped onto scanning tickets and wristbands. This was fun as we got to see everyone entering the festival, however, this was not very well organised and we were told a variety of things. Although when we came back on Saturday, the organisation was slightly better in that they had set up a table for the posh loo wristbands so we didn't have to do them ourselves. Also on Saturday, we were moved across to the VIP ticket side, which was slightly different as Sammy was scanning tickets and I was helping with the wristbands. Depending on the type of wristband they had, they got a lanyard, flower necklace and VIP wristband. 

After our 4-hour shifts were over, we were excused and allowed to go and enjoy the festival. As the weather wasn't the nicest, we mainly stayed inside the old school warehouse tent and the lockdown stage, which is what attracted me to the event in the first place. I was told whilst at Wireless that once you've worked a festival, going to a festival as a punter is never the same and they were sure right! There were so many little things that I kept seeing that I would do differently or that didn’t look 100% safe, which I picked up on really quickly due to the health and safety intern! However, it didn't take the fun out of the festival and I really enjoyed myself! Even though the rain really came down and my brand new white converse weren't so white anymore...

I would really recommend to anyone looking to gain event or festival experience to do volunteering roles and it gives you a small insight into the event, not as much as the intern but through doing a variety of events you soon piece things together. It’s also a great way for anyone looking to get into a festival who maybe can’t afford the ticket price or only want to enjoy one act and don't have to pay the full price. 

Next stop... Creamfields 2017!

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Community and Wireless, the detox which didn’t work…

Community 

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SantaPod 2017.

Classic Ford Show - Sunday 4th June. Performance Vauxhall Show - Sunday 11th June.

Volunteering at SantaPod marks the start of my volunteering journey for University and what a great set of events to start off at! As someone who doesn’t have much knowledge or interest in cars, I can definitely say that that opinion has changed since attending these events! Both of the experiences were different but I had a great time volunteering at each and am really grateful to have been able to join such a great team to help them out!

Classic Ford Show

For the duration of this event, I was a general steward, reporting incidents into control and assisting the general public with any questions which they had. We started the morning at 5:30am with a briefing and were then golf carted around the site to get a feel as to where everything was set up. The public were allowed in from around 6:30ish to set up and get their cars onto the correct club stand. I didn’t really have to report any incidents throughout the day and the event ran smoothly, from what I found walking around the site. The clientele was older for this event, many bringing classic Fords which they treated like it was their child!

We also had to help marshall the drag cars down to the strip to ensure that the public didn't get run over, as easy as it seems to think the public would move for a car, some of them didn't have that mindset! My highlight of the day was being able to see the SantaPod famous Jet Car and we were very lucky to see it from the VIP area! Although I did very nearly lose my hearing it was such a great experience to watch and I even managed to get a selfie! Many people started to leave after around 3pm which meant that we could finish the show slightly earlier and start packing away, however the traffic became a really big issue! This was something that the team picked up on and implemented upon for the next event!

Performance Vauxhall Show 

This was definitely a different setting to the week before! A younger set of clients and I would say that although there were a lot more cars, the show was not as busy as the Classic Ford Show. We started the same way as the week before but this week I was a runner and was assisting in parking some of the clubs and the show and shine group. This was a long process but I was able to speak to some of the people that were taking part and found it really interesting to see their take on coming to a car show. After this, I handed out flyers for the next PVS and was able to speak to more of the clients. Again, I got to see the Jet Car but from the bottom end of the strip this time, seeing it go past at nearly 300mph! I also managed to end up taking part in one of the clubs competitions for the best car, I was a bit useless, to say the least! I also sat in a Formula 1 Car, definitely think I should stick to wanting to be an events manager...

I would say that the PVS was my favorite show to work and working both of the shows has opened my eyes into another side to the events world. I was able to work with a really friendly team and learn from them, they even took me out for dinner after! I am really grateful for being able to take part in such a great experience and am looking forward to my next event... Health and Safety Intern at Wireless and Community festivals!

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WE ARE FSTVL 

27th May 2017 - Upminster

We Are FSTVL marked the start of the festival season with sunshine and a great lineup! Was definitely worthy of the Best Dance Event at the 2016 UK Festival Awards. This has got me looking forward to the rest of the festivals I have booked up this summer!

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Media Interview: My performance and room for improvement.

So, it’s now time for the interview and I arrived outside the room around 15 minutes early. As one of my colleagues doesn’t know how to set an alarm, I swapped my slot for his and went in earlier. This didn’t bother me as I wanted to get the interview out of the way, in fact I was happy that I managed to get in early! I don’t think I let on my nerves to Neil, however as soon as I sat down they seemed to have gone and I felt confident about starting. Just before we started, Neil told me that I had timing, which is was relieved about as this was the one which I wanted and felt most confident about talking about and researching about.

For the first question, I answered with I will not be refunding fans for any part of their ticket as the ticket was purchased to see the performer as the fans got to see the full performance. However, if fans had a return ticket for their journey, then I will be compensating them for the part of the journey which they were unable to take. We will be dealing with this on a case-by-case basis and will be asking for proof of journey.

For the second question, I answered with we were aware of the 11:30pm curfew and fully discussed the options with my act before they went on stage. As they didn’t want to cancel/reschedule the show or cut the set short, they make the decision to run over to ensure that fans got the full experience of what they were paying for. My act were also fully aware of the fine which would have to be paid for running over and they made the decision to pay the fine and give the fans what they’ve paid for and came for.

From both of these answers, it let on to a string of other questions, which allowed me to use some of the research I had done. The extra questions which I got asked are not in the correct order in this blog as I can’t remember the exact order. One of them was is there a legal obligation to refund on tickets. I had briefly looked into this, however I couldn’t fully remember so I responded with that I don’t think there is, however I would have to get back to you on that. But we feel that we have a social obligation to apologise as they are our fans and some may have travelled from far away to come and see us and we have a loyalty to our fans. I said that as part of our social obligation we had made an apology to fans on social media.

My next question was how did I go about making the decision to run over the curfew and was it based on anything. Here was when I could use my research and used the examples of Justin Bieber and Paul McCartney at Coachella to show that we had considered the consequences before deciding on our action. I also brought up that the O2, during Justin Biebers concert, that they had spoken to Transport for London to hold back the last tubes and Thames Clipper Boats, however as the decision was made so late to go ahead with the gig, it was too late for this to happen during our show. I also went back and said my act had fully discussed running over and paying any fine which would occur.

This then lead onto the next question of who will be paying the fine, will it be the promoter, the act? Luckily, Neil slipped me a small hint that it would be the venue who would be given the fine. I said that my artist would be paying and again related this back to that they were happy to pay as they wanted to run over and give the fans the full performance which they had payed to see.

The last of the extra questions, of which I can remember, was do you think the fans will respond well to your apology? This lead on from me saying that we felt we had a social obligation to refund the fans for some of their travel. I said that as part of our apology, we would be offering those fans at that concert discounted tickets on our next tour. I then led on to say that I think fans will respond well to this as if they are a loyal fan then they would want to see the act again even though they were late for this performance and they would be happy that they would be getting the tickets cheaper.

I think that my performance throughout the interview went well and I stayed confident. I think I answered the extra questions well and I didn’t feel that I was unprepared for them as they all led on from previous questions, which was nice as it allowed the interview to flow nicely. I think I stayed professional and kept a good manner throughout and I don’t think that I used any ‘ers’ or ‘ums’ which helped keep up my professional image. I think that I started my research early enough to get a good amount of information for each topic and talk about each of them confidently, no matter which one came up.

After the interview was finished, Neil told me that he was a little harder with me than other people but I didn’t back down and kept my point of not paying. I didn’t notice that he was trying to catch me out and I think that I dealt with it well when he did ask some questions to try and get me to switch my answer. I also only had to look at my card once to ensure I was relaying the correct fact and it was good that I didn’t have to rely on it as I didn’t want to be reading off my card the whole time.

In the future, to help myself feel more prepared I think I would ask someone who I didn’t know as well or someone I didn’t know to ask me the questions as when my friend was asking me them I felt slightly unprofessional and giggly. I think I would also try and remember the facts and figures which I have researched so I don’t have to take in a card to make myself look fully professional, as in a real interview I wouldn’t be able to take a card in with me. One of the comments which Neil gave me was that when using my examples, I could extend on them next time as I only gave 2 examples they would need to be stronger and more supported or an interviewer would be able to pick up on them and try and ask questions to catch me out 

Overall, I think I performed well and was proud of my performance and this has allowed me to be less nervous for future interviews and presentations as I feel more prepared for what is going to happen in the future.

[laurenrobinsonlme-blog]

Media Interview: My preparation and research

Its Tuesday 17th January and it’s finally the day for the media interviews. As I’m writing this after I’ve finished my interview, I’ll firstly tell you about what I did in the lead up. I’ll just leave it here that I was so nervous and now it’s over, I’m not too sure why I was.

I think it was around our fourth week into uni and we were told that we would have a media interview for the bulk of our assessment for the module this year. We were given four scenarios which we had to research for, however, we would only be getting one of these for the interview and we wouldn’t know which one until we walked into the room. We received 2 questions which we had to research into and were told we would get the other 2 once we were in the room. I think this is the reason as to why I was so nervous. I will now talk about how I researched and prepared each scenario. I got the timing scenario which I was happy about as it was the one I felt most confident about.

After I had found the examples and previous stories for each scenario, I wrote up my answers which I would say so that I could practise them and get to know what I would say for the answers to the questions we had already been given.

Timing at an event

1.     Will you be compensating fans that missed their trains and had to pay for taxis to get home?

2.     Were you aware of the 11:30pm curfew at the venue?

I first started by looking into stories of artists who had been late onto stage and the approaches which they took into dealing with fans over the issue. The main story which I could find, with detail, was about Justin Bieber in 2013 and how we went on stage 40 minutes late, blaming this on technical difficulties. However, the o2 did hold the last tubes and the Thames Clipper Boats. Justin Bieber did compensate some of his fans on a case-by-case basis. The rest of the stories were quite bland on their information. The first one was Coachella in 2009 and they had two artists who they had an issue with for timing. Paul McCartney was fined $1000 a minute and he ran over 50 minutes over the 12am curfew. Also, The Cure had their power cut off 33 minutes into their set as they went on 33 minutes late. The most recent stories which I could find were in 2016. One was in Belgium, Rihanna was nearly an hour late and lip-synced the majority of her set. This caused people to leave to go to another stage. Lastly, in Atlanta, Madonna went on stage at 10:54pm forcing many fans to leave early. I found on twitter than some people were selling their tickets or getting a refund to upcoming gigs after finding this out. It was apparently the third time it had happened in a week.

Sponsorship of a festival

1.     What is the value to you of having a sponsor involved in your event?

2.     BP have been linked with a number of high profile cases involving environmental damage. Are they appropriate partners for an event in the Lincolnshire countryside?

For the first question, I looked through the lecture slides as we had been delivered a lecture of sponsorship previously in the semester. I also looked online to see if anyone had spoken about the values of them having a sponsor to their event and I found that some events were saying it was a critical element to the funding mix as it could allow them to maybe have better production than other shows, which is a bonus as it could be the difference between people coming to your festival over theirs. For the second question I found out why BP would be seen as a bad sponsor due to their environmental damage. I found about the Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, which killed 11 people. They had a 5 year clean up operation and spent £28 billion. I also looked into the long term commitment which they have given to others who have they given money to and I found that they had pledged £7.5 million over 5 years, from 2018, to the Royal Opera House, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Shakespeare Company. I also saw that they had pulled out of their plans in December to drill is Australia.

Drugs at a venue

1.     Have you taken advice from anyone regarding dealing with this issue?

2.     Are you aware of a problem with drug dealing at your venue?

I first started researching for this topic by looking into venues who have had a problem with drug dealing in the past. I found out that Ministry of Sound, Fabric and Warehouse Project had had large problems in the past with dealing, especially towards MDMA. I found that Warehouse Project test confiscated drugs and warn the public about their contents via social media. When we wrote our first blogs, I based mine on drugs on festivals and so from this I could use some of the research I found for that for this also. I found that the Secret Garden Party do private drug testing so people can know what they are taking in confidence and if they want to dispose of the drugs then they will do it for them. As well as looking at venues which had had problems, I looked into seeing if there were any charities. I found ‘The Loop’ and ‘Chill Welfare’ who were both drug and alcohol charities who offer support to venues and festivals. I also found that on the gov.uk website they offer a service where you can put in your postcode and they will collect any drug related items. This service is available to everyone. I lastly had a quick look into seeing what the legalisation is and I found the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) which prevents the non-medical use of certain drugs and also prohibits unlawful possession and gives the police the power to stop, detain and search people.

Crisis Management

1.     Has your artist apologised for their statement?

2.     Does your artist believe that the Pope knew of the alleged abuse?

I found this the most difficult of the four scenarios to research for and I was only able to to find two case studies. These were the Dixie Chicks in 2003 and Sinead O’Connor in 1992. I already knew a little about the Dixie Chicks as we had watched the film ‘Shut up and sing’ in one of our previous lectures. They slated George Bush whilst performing live in London saying “Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas”. As a result of this, they mutually decided to drop Lipton as their official tour sponsor. Sinead O’Connor was performing live on Saturday Night Live covering ‘War’. Instead of referring to racism, which the song is about, she referred to child abuse and help up an image of the Pope and tore it up and threw it at the camera. In 1995, O’Connor appeared on After Dark and argued that abuse in the families was coded in by the church because it was refused to accept the accounts of women and children.

For my preparation, I created some que cards with pointers of the answers which I had pre-written to help me, especially for the facts which I could use as examples. I also practised in the mirror a few times and got one of my friends to ask me the questions. I definately feel like doing this helped me as it gave me chance to tell my answers to someone other than myself and try and get rid of some of the nerves. I felt that I was quite prepared for the interview, however I was still nervous as hell walking down the corridor towards the interview room.