Solent music students had the opportunity to once again work at Southampton’s Common People festival that was headlined by Sean Paul, Pete Tong, Tom Odell, Loyle Carner and many others. Three students from BA (Hons) Music Management took on roles in artist liaison and event production. Solent was also represented on the Uncommon stage where BA (Hons) Music Promotion band Scarecrow Boat performed on Saturday and Popular Music and Record Production graduate Calum Lintott on Sunday.
Photos by Common People
Harry Skiff spent a week working with Common People’s production company Loudsound:
“It was awesome! My job involved supporting the Events Management and Festival Control team throughout the week in the run up to the weekend of the festival. I met so many people that offered insight on how certain parts of the festival are run such as the logistics, planning and production of the event. It was a completely new experience for me, wherever you looked on the site, there was always someone running around looking after that area. My other roles fell into supporting other areas of the festival other than management, such as focusing on signage, ingress and egress of the festival (people coming in and out) and just generally walking around and making sure that all of the different teams had everything they needed. I would definitely do it again, but invest in better shoes next time as I was on my feet from early morning till late at night and it was killer! I would definitely urge more students to do the same and get a feel for festival work!”
Harry impressed the company so much that they offered him more work at either Camp Bestival or Bestival to gain more experience and carry on working with the Events Management company Loudsound.
Harry, “I would definitely urge more students to do the same and get a feel for festival work!”
Lucy Bourne worked in artist liaison, “It was such a great experience, I learned so much about dealing with artists, what goes on back stage and it built up my confidence on working in the industry. Common People was a great first stepping in to the kind of work I’d like to go in to and it’s helped me establish the fact that I do want to work in a festival or artist liason type environment.”
Lucy, “..it built up my confidence on working in the industry.”
Steve McCormick also worked in artist liaison and ran the Uncommon stage. “I worked at Common People festival doing Artist Liaison and was the contact for all the bands that were playing on the Uncommon stage over the weekend. When the bands arrived, I would make sure they knew their set times and when they were required to be back behind the stage ready to set up. This meant working closely and negotiating schedules with the stage crew team. I was also responsible for feeding and watering the bands and answering and helping them with any issues.
The experience was really enjoyable and despite having been involved in similar roles before, this was the first time I had run a stage on my own and I learnt a lot from it. I mainly gained confidence in my ability to work well under pressure cool.”
Steve, “..this was the first time I had run a stage on my own and I learnt a lot from it.”