A record 25,000 people spent the day in Wollaton Park for Splendour Festival on Saturday 22 July. Nottingham’s biggest outdoor event celebrated its tenth year with amazing performances from Kaiser Chiefs, Busted and Billy Ocean amongst many others, and even though it was one of the wettest days of July, it didn’t dampen our students’ spirits!
Confetti was one of the main sponsors and many of our students worked alongside our technical teams to help make Splendour 2017 a fantastic event. This year the Confetti stage saw some of the Midlands’ top emerging talent support legendary acts, such as R&B favourite Billy Ocean who headlined the Confetti stage and influential punk band Buzzcocks who performed a riotous set. Former Music Performance student Josh Wheatley performed earlier in the day and saw fans sing along to his new single ‘Shiver’.
Over 120 students gained work experience
Last year’s record-breaking numbers in terms of student engagement were smashed again! This year we had over 120 students from across both college and degree courses working in over 209 different roles. Our students worked hard both in the days leading up to the festival and throughout the day to make sure stages were set and some of the world’s biggest names in music were ready to perform.
CONFETTI AT SPLENDOUR 2017 IN NUMBERS
124 Confetti students
209 opportunities
1435 work experience hours
The Live & Technical Events students spent the days setting up the stage lighting and sound and controlled the behind-the-scenes technology. As well as supporting each stage, our students set up and ran the Acoustic Rooms stage from start to finish, helping up-and-coming artists sound and look incredible. These include local breakthrough artists Young T & Bugsey who wowed a packed crowd in the courtyard. Technical Events tutor James Littlehales was impressed with the students’ resilience to power through and help out industry professionals in the typical British weather:
“Splendour provides the opportunity for students to see first-hand how the festival industry works from a behind the scenes perspective. Not only did they endure the cold and wet conditions, they showed how they can apply their knowledge to a real-life scenario and work as part of the crew that makes Splendour a success.”
Our TV & Film Production students documented the entire event through filming and photography, and some worked with our industry partner Notts TV to film and record all the backstage action. TV & Film tutor Jamie Cash recruited almost 30 students to perform technical roles on the day of Splendour:
“Their roles ranged from capturing the action on the Confetti stage and the Acoustic Rooms stage to recording Vox Pops with the general public and shooting GV’s (General Views) around the site. We had a mixture of college-level and university-level students working together, and they represented Confetti and NTU fantastically well throughout the day, acting with professionalism and dedication, despite some testing weather conditions!”
Second year Film & TV student Ellie Kemp spoke about her experience working on the Acoustic Rooms stage and on Vox Pops throughout the day:
“It was great to work with other students, and although it was a bit daunting to approach festival-goers at first, once we got going it became a lot easier, and it was great to see people out and about, enjoying the day. It definitely helped to improve my confidence and my production skills. I also worked on the Acoustic Rooms stage, filming some of the bands’ performances. It was interesting to see the different artists perform, and it was great to be a part of capturing such an exciting experience. I also felt as though I was putting my camera skills learnt from my TV & Film course to good use.”
The Confetti VR Experience
During the festival, we invited people to join the acts on the main stage through our VR experience tent. Many got to experience what it was like to be on stage in front of thousands of people, and our student crew made sure it ran smoothly, resulting in a lot of happy guests.
BSc Games Production student Akshay Soni said: “I enjoyed watching the public’s reactions to the VR experience as I thought that most people would now be familiar with VR, but those at our stand generally weren’t. It was amazing to introduce them to this technology.”
Industry experience lies at the core of our courses, offering our ambitious talented students the opportunity to get real industry experience during their studies and Splendour 2017 gave them the perfect platform. Andy King, Music & Events Curriculum Leader spoke of the importance of such opportunities for our students:
“Splendour is the perfect environment for our students to demonstrate the skills learnt as part of their studies. The experience our students gain is integral to their continued development as industry-ready practitioners and is a clear example of our ‘Do it for Real’ ethos.”
Altogether our students undertook over 1430 hours of work experience during Splendour Festival 2017, making it our most successful year to date for Confetti students!
Want to find out how to Do It For Real and work at Splendour next year? Check out our college courses and degree courses now.
