An insider's view

I’m writing this blog after I got given the opportunity (thanks Caroline!!) to help the Production Co-ordinator for Reading and Leeds festivals down at the Festival Republic office. I’ve enjoyed going to various festivals in the past, and through my Event Management course and working on a few festivals, including working with the HATs (Helpful Arena Teams) for Leeds Met, I decided that festivals is the route I wanted to go down. So that’s what I’m pursuing right now at Festival Republic.

I’m here at the FR office for all of August up until festival week and then driving up to Bramham Park where hopefully I can be re-united with some of the other lovely Leeds Met volunteers!

So here’s what I’ve been up to so far…

I’ve been emailing bands who will be playing the BBC Introducing Stage and the Festival Republic stage to get to know what they’re all bringing along and sound specifications for their sets. I’m beginning to put together manuals for all of the stages and updating all of the information we have for bands as it changes, and as more acts get added to the bill. It’s slowly but surely speeding up work-load wise so I’m really trying to get organised now so that it’s easier the week before – which I’m anticipating to be a little hectic! I’ve also helped Artist Liaison out during quiet times when I’ve been waiting for bands to email by sending out tickets for people on guest lists. I work quite closely with Artist Liaison anyway because often bands ask me questions about passes which I talk to them about, and also bands ask them questions about equipment which they will hand over to me. I get sent hospitality riders (bands requests of alcohol, food and other weird and wonderful things) which I have a nosy through for my own curiosity and then send them to Artist Liaison too.

The Festival Republic office is in Covent Garden, which if you haven’t visited is really nice – lots of nice shops, restaurants and tempting places to fritter my money away! At the office on a Friday there’s ‘Free Lunch Friday’ – where Festival Republic allow us all to go out for a longer lunch all together as a team building thing. They pay £5 towards each person’s meal, and it becomes all too handy being located here for this, since there are lots of places around with some good lunch time deals on. On my first week we went to a curry house and last week we went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen (one of my favourites!). So that’s a nice end to the week. The staff here are really friendly and helpful too, and going out for lunches on a Friday definitely has helped me get to know them a bit better.

The office is gradually getting more and more empty as more of the staff re-locate to the two festival sites, so I’m looking forward to joining some of them out where all the action is!

I really can’t wait to get up to Leeds Festival… Only two weeks to go until the show starts!

Olvia Sime
Festival Republic Intern
BA (Hons) Managing Cultural & Major Events - graduated 2009