Revealed on
How this class is making ready college students
for the world of music festivals
Wish to strive your hand at a designing a music competition or be taught in regards to the historical past of those occasions? These Northeastern experiential studying programs assist create the following era of competition organizers.
Danny Wimmer Presents had a easy purpose: Minimize down on the environmental affect of the rock festivals they produce.
Fortunately, Duncan Chamberlain had learn up on this matter. Earlier than becoming a member of the corporate for co-op earlier this 12 months, the junior music trade main at Northeastern College took “Making a Competition,” a newly designed course devoted to instructing college students what it takes to make a music competition, significantly ones which might be neighborhood and eco-friendly.
From this, Chamberlain was in a position to make options throughout his co-op to assist the corporate obtain its objectives.
“I stepped in and was like ‘I truly know quite a bit about this,’” Chamberlain stated. “We switched from golf carts (to get across the venue) to bikes, which appears easy, however … it’s a reasonably large deal. It’s a reasonably straightforward factor to do and instantly cuts down affect.”
It is perhaps laborious to think about a complete course on festivals, however they’ve a deep historical past within the music trade and make use of many within the subject. This makes studying about festivals — each the why and the how — significantly invaluable for music trade college students at Northeastern.
Over the past 12 months, the college launched two newly designed programs that supply totally different views on learn how to run a profitable music competition. Making a Competition is a brand new iteration of a beforehand current course that was tweaked by CAMD assistant professor Rebekah Moore.
Moore has a protracted historical past of working in festivals and reside occasions. Earlier than coming to Northeastern, she lived in Indonesia for 10 years the place she ran a global yoga, dance and music competition, in addition to a pair smaller occasions.
“Primarily, I turned the classroom right into a manufacturing group,” Moore stated. “I believed it made essentially the most sense to deal with the sensible abilities (college students) would wish to develop to work in competition manufacturing.”
Moore begins the course instructing in regards to the “why” and “how” of festivals, with a deal with what Moore describes as “the 4 pillars” of competition planning: variety, neighborhood engagement, accessibility and environmental sustainability. (And sure, college students do get to do case research on the extra notable “festivals gone fallacious.”) College students then needed to incorporate these elements when planning their competition.
College students in final fall’s Making a Competition class spent the semester dreaming up “Avalanche Competition,” a winter musical competition in Aspen, Colorado, with a day of jam bands and one other of digital music. Every scholar was assigned to a special group, corresponding to expertise or advertising and marketing, and collectively they constructed the competition from the bottom up, together with determining finances and logistics (like crowd management or how a lot water they’d have to serve the viewers).
“We had been all working collectively, however doing our personal factor,” Chamberlain stated. “That was essentially the most useful factor to occur at school as a result of that’s … precisely the way it works in the actual world. Understanding the idea and historical past behind (festivals) helped me to create — with my group at my job — one thing that was impactful for our crowd. It helped a lot.”
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This summer time, Moore and affiliate professor of music Andrew Mall had been in a position to carry one other festivals-related course into Dialogues of Civilization, this time set in Chicago. For this, the 2 crafted The Competition Expertise, a brand new course that’s totally different from its Boston counterpart in that it blended classroom periods with volunteering and attending festivals as researchers, observing their execs and cons. College students acquired to attend a mixture of larger occasions like Lollapalooza together with some smaller neighborhood music festivals.
On the finish of the course, college students created a white paper on learn how to make Chicago and its music scene extra accessible and sustainable. They introduced this to the Division of Cultural Affairs and Particular Occasions.
“The data about these communities, people and industries that I gained all through this course and this dialogue had been, in some ways, transformative,” stated Kelsey Carson, a second-year music trade and communications main who took half within the course this summer time. “I now have data about learn how to work together with and enchantment to what communities and followers need by way of occasions and music and learn how to make Chicago and different cities extra sustainable and attuned to learn how to embrace and spotlight a various array of individuals.”
We had been all working collectively, however doing our personal factor. That was essentially the most useful factor to occur at school as a result of that’s … precisely the way it works in the actual world.
Duncan Chamberlain, a junior music trade main at Northeastern
Whereas the programs differ of their strategies and syllabi, each deal with the 4 pillars Moore described, in addition to learn how to create competition experiences which might be well worth the time and sources attendees put into them.
Mall stated there’s plans to proceed this Dialogues program in different places across the globe sooner or later. Whereas Northeastern’s music division does provide programs round reside occasions, he stated focusing particularly on festivals is essential as a result of they require a special set of abilities.
“A number of years in the past after I was conceptualizing this course, it appeared like a extremely clear want and could possibly be an excellent power of the music division’s course choices,” Mall stated. “This is among the progress areas within the music trade. If we had been to have a look at even simply income, the income in reside music has been steadily growing for at the least 20 years, if not longer. And there’s a number of skilled alternatives for college students who need careers in music.”
Erin Kayata is a Northeastern International Information reporter. Electronic mail her at [email protected]. Observe her on X/Twitter @erin_kayata.
