Music students behind the scenes at Latitude Festival 2017

Four music students had the opportunity to spend a behind the scenes day at Latitude Festival 2017.

Tom Trowbridge from BA (Hons) Popular Music Production , Eliška Kubečková from BA (Hons) Music Management, Toby Robinson and Miles Moody from BA (Hons) Music Promotion joined the former Glastonbury and Reading and Leeds stage manager Steve Cheney‘s production company to learn the ins and outs of running a festival.

Photos by the students

 

Eliška, “It was a great experience. Steve was really nice and took us everywhere he could and answered every question. At first, he showed us the festival area, all the different stages and told us about performances that happened the previous days. He also took us to the backstage area, showed us where artist liaison, artist and staff catering and all different production offices were and then we went to the backstage of the main stage, where we saw how the equipment for all the performing artists was getting ready.

We also got to see the process of changing the equipment (below is a picture of Toby helping the crew with the exchange). After that Steve took us to the sound engineers area where we saw how a sound check at the festival works and how complicated it can get when all the performers bring their own sound desks. In the end we went to see the light engineers area and we watched a set from there. And then we were able to go and enjoy the rest of the festival as spectators.
Toby from Music Promotion helping with changeovers
Even though I am not really into technical part of things, I really enjoyed the possibility of seeing how the backstage of a big music festival works and meeting all the people working there.”
“I really enjoyed the possibility of seeing how the backstage of a big music festival works and meeting all the people working there”
Tom, “It was an awesome experience. Seeing the band changeovers on the main stage and how well all the crew members work together, was a personal highlight.”