Not Stuck In The Mud – Mark O’Brien
31 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
Mark O’Brien recently graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English Literature.
This month, with the help of the Culture Vulture, a well established blogging site, Mark has been going all around Leeds, Yorkshire, and even further afield, trying to discover some of the local curiosities, the little-known points of interest, the quirky characters and tales that make this region what it is.
Mark joined the Leeds Metropolitan University Festival Volunteers at Leeds Festival last weekend, to get involved with the various projects we run for the student’s. Read his blog post here.
Leeds Festival Reflection
30 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
Leeds Festival. Beady Eye summed it up in one of their Tweets, it’s a ‘proper festival’. A proper northern festival. You don’t see people making wicker baskets in the village and you’ll rarely hear someone reciting poetry (and if you do the rhymes will be laced with profanities). There is only one thing on the Leeds Festival goers agenda and that is to have the best time they can possibly have and they won’t let anything get in their way. Not even the weather.
It was raining, in fact, it was pouring it down for most of the festival and do you know what rain is pretty good at? Getting me wet. After a while you start to long for the sun to come out and you know it’s really bad when you start saying things like, ‘I’d settle for fine rain’ or ‘Sporadic showers would be perfect’. After a while something dawned on me, for the past 21 years I have taken being dry for granted and when I get home I’m going to take a little time out each day just to appreciate how dry I am.
But the Leeds Festival goers are unlike cricketers, they don’t let rain affect play. Everybody just carried on regardless. It only took a few hours to turn the whole festival into one big mud bath which meant I had to don the wellies. It also prompted a large proportion of the crowds to make it their mission to get as muddy as possible and as you can see from the photo, a lot of them succeeded.
On the Saturday morning the festival bosses decided to wage war against the mud and hay was spread across the arena. Who knew that hay was so good at soaking up mud? The good times didn’t last long though and it took about 10 minutes for the mud to take over again. Nobody cared though. That’s the best thing about Leeds, nobody really cares about anything. It’s just a massive park filled with 70,000 hedonists walking round looking for kicks and luckily for them there are kicks-a-plenty around every corner.
I’ve seen many of great fancy dress costumes but the best one had to be when I saw a man in a banana costume get attacked by a troop of monkeys. I also discovered that I’m quite scared of people in animal masks and, unfortunately for me, there are a whole lot of them around. I’d be walking along looking at the floor, concentrating hard on not falling over in the mud, and then I’d look up and get startled by a wildebeest. I’m definitely going to be having flashbacks whenever I watch an Attenborough documentary from now on.
Oh and there’s music as well. You mustn’t forget about the music. On the Friday I really enjoyed the Little Comets’ set at the Festival Republic stage. Saturday’s highlight came from one of the first bands of the day, Heart-Ships. They are a local band who played the BBC Introducing stage and their energetic set was just what I needed to get me up for the second day. On Sunday I was adamant that I was going to see Madness but after watching their opening song, One Step Beyond, I found myself walking over to catch Mariachi El Bronx. It’s just too hard to resist a bit of mariachi, even Suggs couldn’t keep me away.
After the music had finished each night I ventured out in to the campsites. This is what really sets Leeds festival apart from the other festivals. It’s like a jungle out there, in more ways than one with all those animal masks. The Relentless stage always had a big crowd and so did the campsite DJs but, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really venture there for the music, I went to people watch. Then I’d finish the night off at the silent disco. Hundreds of people with big headphones on dancing away to cheesy tunes, what more could you want?
It was with a heavy heart when I left the last festival of the summer. It might not have the glamour of some other festivals but at the end of the day Leeds Festival is a good laugh. You’re guaranteed a good time and that’s why I can safely say that I’ll be returning next year. As long as they ban those masks.
Matty Dyas
The End of the Festival Season
30 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
So our volunteering at Leeds Festival 2011 has sadly drawn to a close and I have to say I’m a mixture of sad that all the excitement and fun is over but also happy that I get to go home to a lovely shower and a nice warm bed!
We’ve had a fantastic weekend with our volunteers and even though the rain came it certainly didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. From our helpful and friendly HATs teams to our stage crew and film crew to our interns and campsite DJs, an amazing time was had by all.
If you’re feeling a little blue that the experience is over then take a look back over our blog posts this weekend and relive the experience! If you think you’ve got something to add that’s not covered in the blog then feel free to get in touch or leave a comment!
Over the festival season this year we’ve interviewed over 1,000 students who wanted to volunteer and given away over 350 volunteer places at 3 massive festivals.
All our volunteers have had a fantastic time at the festivals and have made lots of new friends who they will be reunited with at our Wrap Party in September, watch this space!
Patsy Robertshaw-The One Who Made It All Happen
28 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Leeds Fest 2011 Tags: Leeds Fest
Everyone involved with the Leeds Met Festival Republic partnership knows who Patsy is. She’s the backbone of the whole operation and its thanks to her hard work that all the staff, interns and volunteers are here this weekend.
Patsy is the Partnerships Manager, but this isn’t her only job. At Leeds Met she also works on the marketing team and is a lecturer at the Business School. She is one busy lady!
Leeds Fest isn’t the only festival she has to help coordinate either. There’s also Latitude and Hove which took place earlier on this festival season.
When the Leeds Met Festival Republic partnership was first set up 5 years ago, there were only 30 positions available to students. This year, Patsy organised the variety of volunteer and intern positions available across all the three different festivals, helped interview 1,000 student applicants and gave 350 students a place at a weekend they would never forget.
Patsy loves the project because not only is it a lot of fun but it is also about employability, career development and works on soft skills like confidence and creativity.
Once she arrives at the Festival she definitely has no time to relax. As she is the On-site Operations Manager her day begins at 8am where she looks after the on-shift HATs, visits the stage crew and film crew, speaks with the PR team and if she’s lucky she’ll get a five minute sit down before having to meet the Campsite DJs before they start their shifts at 11pm. Even then she hasn’t finished, at midnight she heads to the video-tech van to approve the films the film crew have made that day. Then it’s back to the arena and into the campsites for her to make sure everything is running smoothly with the Campsite DJs. At 6am, she can finally crawl into the warmth of her sleeping bag, nap for an hour or so and then do it all again then next day. And the best part; a smile never leaves her face when she’s working no matter how tired she is.
Patsy is responsible for the welfare of everyone who comes to the festival through the partnership and you know that no matter how busy she is, if you need to talk to her then she will come and make sure you are alright.
You can easily see how much passion Patsy has for the project and she can give you many reasons why. Seeing students in a different environment and getting to know more about them is one of the main reasons Patsy enjoys her job so much. She likes watching how students progress into the industry from volunteering and internships into paid work for festivals. Plus there is the personal progression that so many of the volunteers make such as confidence and creativity, trying new things and meeting new people. And as a lecturer Patsy understands how important it is for students to put things they learnt in the classroom into real life practice which is why the internships are so successful.
Patsy’s highlight of the festival doesn’t involve seeing the artists perform or any of the late night entertainment, it’s watching everyone involved with the partnership having a good time and when the Leeds Met SU President dropped by because he really appreciated all the hard work that everyone here was doing.
I think I can speak for everyone that’s come along to Leeds Fest with the Leeds Met volunteers when I say ‘Thank you Patsy,’ because if it wasn’t for all of your hard work, dedication and many sleepless nights, none of this would be happening.
Our Ex-Volunteers Now Enjoying Paid Work At Leeds Fest
28 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Leeds Fest 2011 Tags: Artist Liaison, Backstage runner, Intern, Leeds Fest, Licensing, Lighting, Stage crew
The Leeds Met Festival Republic partnership is all about helping students enhance their employability and helping them gain the skills that they need to succeed in a range of professions from events management to stage crew to lighting to whatever else might be involved in a festival.
Our volunteer and intern roles allow students to come along to the festival and get a real feel for what the work is like backstage and whether it’s the career for them.
Walking around Leeds Fest this weekend we have seen quite a few familiar faces popping up in various roles working at the festival, familiar why? Familiar because they are some of our old volunteers who are now getting paid work from Festival Republic at Leeds Festival as a direct result of their volunteering.
Over the weekend we’ve seen our ex-volunteers working in various teams across the festival as Licensing, Accreditation, Backstage Runner, Artist Liaison on the Lock Up Stage and stage crew for Colour Sound.
Lucy McCann, one of ex-volunteers and Leeds Met Alumnus is now working as Artist Liaison on the Lock Up Stage and also worked as Artist Liaison at Latitude earlier this year.
Mike Blundell who volunteered with us at Hove Festival earlier this year is now working for Colour Sound at Leeds Festival and has some paid work on the Batman Live tour.
Even our lighting intern who only started with his team on Monday has been offered work next weekend working at a film festival in London.
It’s amazing how many doors this volunteering project can open for students with a real passion for the industry.
Overall we’ve managed to see around 15 of our ex-volunteers just at Leeds Fest now getting paid work from Festival Republic. It really is great to see how our volunteers can succeed and, with the contacts they make, go on to make a career out of the area they volunteer in.
Adam Castling-The Everything Man
28 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Leeds Fest 2011 Tags: Leeds Fest, staff
It’s the final day of Leeds Fest and its been great to see how much the hard work of the volunteers, interns and staff has paid off. Tonight’s line up looks amazing and the main stage acts are what I’ve been waiting for since arriving here on Wednesday. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be neglecting you delightful readers though, I’m still going to be posting what’s going on for you all to read.
My first task of the day was to interview Adam Castling. Adam is a Business and Management Graduate from Leeds Met and now works for the university. Just before coming to Leeds Fest, Adam was made the Partnership Marketing Officer. Adam’s job at the university involves him looking after the cultural partnerships the university has as well as the sporting partnerships.
Whilst working at Leeds Fest, Adam takes the role of project manager assistant and HATs manager. Last year, Adam actually came to the festival as a HAT so that he could experience the partnership through the eyes of a volunteer.
Adam was also working hard before the festival this year carrying out the organisation, making sure everything was going to arrive and be set up on time, making arrangements for the campsite and sorting the volunteers’ clothing. Adam even volunteered to drive the video-tech van here so the film crew can carry out all their editing.
Since arriving, Adam has spent his time looking after the HATs, interns and other volunteers. On Thursday Adam had to leave us for a while when he had to go and look after even more of his volunteers who were helping out at the Carnegie Challenge Cup at Wembley and check all the marketing there was up to his standards.
Adam enjoys the partnership purely because of his love of events. He gets a genuine buzz out of watching the events come together and knowing that his contributions has helped make it what it is.
I asked Adam what he thought about the partnership between Leeds Fest and Festival Republic and how it can benefit students. The only way to describe it is that he loves it! The festival industry is difficult to get into and this offers students the experience they need to help with their future employability. Whilst Adam has been here he’s had a chance to catch up with Leeds Met Alumni who now work for Festival Republic because of the volunteering they did whilst still at university.
Adam also thinks the partnership is a great role model for other academic areas to start new partnerships and projects so that students can gain work experience in industries that are of an interest to them.
