An increasing number of students are graduating with degrees in arts, event and cultural management, but when it comes to event management, Jenny Dick suggests that vocational experience could make all the difference.
I?m currently studying for a BA in Arts and Event Management at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, a course with a particular focus on event-management training. Each year we produce a live arts event, increasing in size and complexity as we progress through the course. We work in small teams and are entirely responsible for all aspects of the project, from initial ideas to final event production. We learn from the challenges of tackling fundraising and sponsorship, licensing, marketing, ticketing and managing our budgets.
The Elephant Festival is co-directed by myself and my fellow student Melissa Inman and ran in March 2005 as our second-year project. The festival was a real success, with a total of 750 children and their families participating. The idea was to use the arts and Indian culture to raise cultural awareness within the Bournemouth community in a fun and participatory way. It included a two-day educational outreach project in a primary school, Dhol drummers, henna art, a festival day with a programme of craft workshops and storytelling, and a parade through the town centre with performances from Indian dance troupe Geet Kala.
Through doing this project I have gained valuable hands-on experience of every aspect of event management, including skills that can only be learnt from experience: the logistics of working over three sites with a dozen performers took a lot of tact, persistence and hard negotiation to pull off! We successfully applied for £3,650 of funding and our marketing campaign achieved coverage in local and national press, on local radio and local TV news. We developed a strong partnership with our local library service and liaised with schools and arts agencies such as Art Asia and the Asian Arts Agency. We were blown away by the success of the project and the positive feedback from the public. People simply couldn?t believe we were students. We plan to build on our success and run the Elephant Festival again in May 2006 as our third-year project.
Getting ?stuck in? and producing a real event is mutually beneficial to both us as students and to the sector but also has far-reaching benefits to the local community, with potential for even greater partnerships.
Jenny Dick is Co-Director of Bournemouth?s Elephant Festival and a student at the Arts Institute, Bournemouth.