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.
Leeds Met Festival Volunteers 2011 
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