What's it like to work in a music festival?
April 17, 2017 1:19 AM Subscribe
Specifically in logistics and volunteer management
I have an interview to work for a music festival as an assistant for logistics and volunteer management. Its a full time job and the festival is a few months from now.
It's a festival with a small admin team of about 5 people. It's not a huge festival as it's a genre of music that does not reach a huge audience (think classical), but it is Elite and well established in the city, and the team that runs it seem very experienced (from what I've read on the website anyway). It's also a festival that I had the chance to perform in last year with an ensemble.
My issue is last year I worked as a Production coordinator in a small independent film company, and it was really a bad experience for me. A lot of the issues stemmed from complete incompetence in the management, and using me as a bandaid to fix organizational dysfunction. SO that was quite the unique Hell.... and it's an experience I am not stupid enough to repeat.
IS there a way I can gauge from the interview how Hellish the experience will be?
-- I've volunteered in festivals since my teenage years and I've always had a thrilling experience.
-- Music is actually my passion, whereas the film job was really just a job for me. I've always found that the stress that accompanies musical performances is outweighed by the thrill of music. I'm really in my element in a concert hall. Whereas I had barely any experience in the film industry when I got thrust into that job ( I was suddenly and unexpectedly promoted without being consulted)
-- It's been ones of my career dreams to work for a festival, since I was a teen.
-- Although I've never managed volunteers and hate public speaking, I do have a lot of experience BEING a volunteer and working with other volunteers and I think I have the right attitude for it.
Is there anyone out there who has worked in music festivals for logistics and volunteer management, who can provide me an idea of the stress level of that type of job?
I have an interview to work for a music festival as an assistant for logistics and volunteer management. Its a full time job and the festival is a few months from now.
It's a festival with a small admin team of about 5 people. It's not a huge festival as it's a genre of music that does not reach a huge audience (think classical), but it is Elite and well established in the city, and the team that runs it seem very experienced (from what I've read on the website anyway). It's also a festival that I had the chance to perform in last year with an ensemble.
My issue is last year I worked as a Production coordinator in a small independent film company, and it was really a bad experience for me. A lot of the issues stemmed from complete incompetence in the management, and using me as a bandaid to fix organizational dysfunction. SO that was quite the unique Hell.... and it's an experience I am not stupid enough to repeat.
IS there a way I can gauge from the interview how Hellish the experience will be?
-- I've volunteered in festivals since my teenage years and I've always had a thrilling experience.
-- Music is actually my passion, whereas the film job was really just a job for me. I've always found that the stress that accompanies musical performances is outweighed by the thrill of music. I'm really in my element in a concert hall. Whereas I had barely any experience in the film industry when I got thrust into that job ( I was suddenly and unexpectedly promoted without being consulted)
-- It's been ones of my career dreams to work for a festival, since I was a teen.
-- Although I've never managed volunteers and hate public speaking, I do have a lot of experience BEING a volunteer and working with other volunteers and I think I have the right attitude for it.
Is there anyone out there who has worked in music festivals for logistics and volunteer management, who can provide me an idea of the stress level of that type of job?
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If this is an experienced team that works together well and is at the same venue / location as they have been in the past, this is probably going to be a pretty low-ish stress job. As a rule, something (ok several things) tend to go awry at the last minute for any festival, but if this is an established event, most of the big stuff is going to be fairly settled and anticipated.
Now volunteers, on the other hand, that's a different story. Depending on the type of event they could be primarily ernest and hardworking, or they could be mostly volunteering for the free ticket and disappear into the crowd when it's time for their shift. Hopefully you have the former, and if not, asking for a deposit that is refunded upon completion of their shift(s) is generally a good way to herd the cats. If you've volunteered yourself you should have a pretty good idea about how to treat volunteers with respect and get them engaged with their tasks.
Then there's the admin team. If they don't have their act together or tend to in-fight or contradict one another, it can make or break a festival job experience. One way to test this is to ask for documentation from previous years. If important logistical stuff is all stored in someone's head, that's a problem, because it means your job is dependent on them remembering important things to tell you at the right times, or you needing to shake them down for answers every time an issue comes up. Or see if you can talk to the person who held the position before you and speak to them if this seems like a concern.
Barring any red flags that the admin team is disorganized or problematic, I think you'll be fine. It's a non-huge, long running event for a niche community -- those tend to be good gigs :)
posted by ananci at 10:41 AM on April 17, 2017 [3 favorites]