#it's like if Scottish twitter was an indie rock act my friend and i talk about getting huckled all the time now

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

🌹 Mon 11 May 🤖

"Proper missing you all and wishing I was on the road. How are you??" asked Louis, well crying now but thanks for saying hello babe! He said he's "doing good" and trying to be "more creative these last few weeks." A cute old studio pic of him was posted; he's wearing his Loved hoodie in it.

Part two of Liam's Hugo campaign has begun (oh excuse me I mean 'the second capsule') featuring new clothes ("bold designs in red, white and blue, inspired by Liam’s sporty aesthetic") and new pictures of Liam with not many clothes. Esquire posted a segment of Liam reacting to videos of himself ("I tried bless my heart" LOL.) The footage of his first X Factor audition with Cheryl judging is cringe in the wrong way, but the rest is mostly cute and fun. He says that the reason he shaved his head in 2017 was that he wanted to dye his hair blond and his management "wouldn't let him." Huh. He also posted some tiktoks and he and Alesso will be participating in a "virtual dinner" with a menu "curated by Chili's" (jskafgh CURATED I need a meme of that with the blood orange guy) alongside Britney Spears and Paris Hilton among many others on Thursday.

Niall did a guest DJ slot for Radio One from... his bathroom! With his robotic hoover! The robot, we have learned, is named Robert, as are Niall's dad, granddad, and cousin. "I thought I'd keep the name going," he said, so what I'm hearing is that he considers the roomba his child (or at least it's, you could say, filling that vacuum HAHAHAHA) although elsewhere he says it's like having a dog (isss it though?) and that "apparently" he and Harry are the only 1D members without kids now; the apparently is necessary because well, here's Robert! Continuing to be the quarantine poster boy, he said he'd ordered lots of baking tins (or maybe he's just nesting now that he has a robot pet/child.)

And Harry liked a couple things on instagram, most notably Lisa Rinna dancing to TPWK which I mean YEAH. That post is campier then the whole ass Met Gala all by itself, absolute GOLD, though idk if even Lisa Rinna plus that song can top 'Chili's with Britney and Paris' on the camp scale...

[wmshappen]

Getting into events

Photo by Kai Oberhäuser on Unsplash

I have recently been invited to speak at The Big Music Project in Stirling on the 25th February. The event is aimed at 14 to 25 year olds, and is about ‘creating and highlighting the best opportunities for young people’ who are considering a career in the creative industries. I’ll be part of a Q&A with Radio DJ Jim Gellatly and Louie John Lowis (manager for upcoming Scottish acts The Vegan Leather and Be Charlotte). We’ll be talking about the wide variety of jobs one can get behind the scenes in the world of music and events and how to get into them.

Being asked to speak on this topic got me thinking about where it all began and so with it being 10 years of WMSH too, I asked the key members of WMSH’s team how they got here:

WMSH Event Producers

Alice:

The first ever event I organised was a gig in the basement of a club next door to a prison. I was 17, and a KT Tunstall wannabe singer/songwriter. Without a demo, I was struggling to get any gigs. Encouraged by my Dad, I decided to organise one myself. My Dad called the venue to find out the hire fee, and via text message while I was in a maths class, we came up with the plan (“£300 for the venue, £5 a ticket, 60 tickets to sell – easy peasy!”). We booked the venue, and I split the venue hire fee with 4 fellow singer/songwriter friends. I borrowed a PA from a friend of a friend (and almost blew it up) and photocopied flyers on the 6th form’s photocopier which I handed out outside college every lunch time and evening. We sold 150 tickets, and it ended up spawning a series of smaller monthly events which I ran for just over a year before moving away to go to university.

A promoter from the larger, upstairs venue of the club, also took notice of the inaugural event, and invited me to join their team promoting a monthly Indie Club Night. They paid me to hand out flyers, book bands, stage manage and occasionally press random buttons on the lighting desk. We’d spend all day setting up the club for those club nights – but I loved it, hanging out in that sticky and dark club venue having a laugh with the sound techs, and the prisoners heckling us when they’d catch sight of us round back! I’ve been organising events and gigs ever since.

Megan:

Fresh out of uni I got myself an internship at Unity, a PR agency in London. I loved it so much…but there was a lot of post to sort and newspapers to read. Things really changed for me, and I knew I loved the industry, when Unity asked if I wanted to help out at “It’s Skindividual”, a gig for Cancer Research UK. One lucky lady got to choose her dream line up for the night through a twitter based competition. I was down for artist liaison and took a shine to the drummer of the Hoosier’s who were on the bill, so had a lovely old time… liaising about…! I’m also pretty sure that our very own Fraser produced that show, so I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with him from day one!

Lorna:

I always thought the first time I got involved in events was at the age of 16 when I got my first job as a waitress in a hotel and quickly became the wedding planners’ assistant, taking over their job when they left. This was all until I bumped in to my old acting teacher, while I was in Ireland at Christmas and it all came flooding back to me…

I was part of a school drama group growing up. When I got to the age of 12 everyone (including myself) realised that I was definitely not going to be next Kate Winslet or Meryl Streep, so I was put in charge of BOH. I spent the next two years running BOH for the group, along with my teacher, as well as creating flyers to hand out in local schools and organising food and drink for the intervals. We even ran some school discos to raise money for better equipment and props. I really enjoyed this formative role, only leaving to move on to secondary school. After years of studying and working in the fashion/hospitality industry it seems I have come full circle working in venue management and production roles in more recent years.

WMSH & East Coast Event and Manufacturing Fabricator, Nigel

Working in events never occurred to me until as a fresh faced spotty ‘erbert of 19 years, I went to my freshers fair at Leicester uni. As a metal head (it was 1985) I was hooked in by Rock Soc - “Yeah…we have a ROCK disco every Saturday…come along and help us set up” they said. Saturday duly came…and OMG - a rack of amplifiers and speakers the size of which I’d never seem in my life before! 4 Martin flared bins, 4 Mega Mid-range…a radial horn and a bullet box…RSD800b’s for the bass and mid and a turner 120 doing the tops…AWSOME!! 2000watts!!!!!!!

It was a turning point. I skipped lectures in favour of crewing for ents, and then dropped out, having bought a house on the proceeds of crewing.

And that was that. Check out this promo video for Leicester Uni Rock Soc from 1988 (before some of you were even born!)

WMSH Directors

JD:

While a student at university, I was approached by a fashion student pal. They’d had the DJ they booked for their end of degree fashion show cancel last minute and — having mistaken my radio DJ experience for being able to DJ DJ — asked me to fill in. I was strapped for cash, asked if it was a paid gig, and when they said it was, I said yes. Then I borrowed a pair of decks from the student radio station where I had a comedy show and taught myself to DJ in an afternoon.

Towards the end of the fashion show I was approached by a guy who said I was a great DJ. Panicked, I thought 'what would a DJ say?’ and replied “yes, I know,” before going back to it and ignoring him for the rest of the evening. He was a local club promoter and on that basis, he offered me a residency. From there I went on to work with a series of local promoters and eventually started putting on my own nights with a mix of bands and other DJs.

Fraser:

My first gigs were working on the student crew at uni in the 90s, and as soon as I got the job, actual studying went by the wayside.

I developed a great group of student crew friends who have all gone on to work in the industry – our very own tech wizard Nigel, Chris Whittle founder of Experience 12, Guy Robinson founder of Coalition Talent, Graeme Nash who can be found running arena tours across the uk and Angus Jenner who gallivants around the world tour managing peopel like Noel Gallagher.

The early gigs are a blur of loading kit in and out for Coldplay, Blur, Ian Brown, Pet Shop Boys, Andrew WK, and Black Grape. My young impressionable mind was completely blown by the technology, and the adrenalin of making the gig work no matter what because the doors open at 7pm and people come in expecting a show. Problems just have to be overcome.

Which brings me to the Midas XL4. De Montfort Uni had a lift load-in, which normally is fine – you just load the lift and send the kit up. However in the mid 90s, Midas brought out the incredibly popular XL4 which I discovered didn’t go in our lift! It was way too heavy to lift up the stairs so we had to find another way in. Eventually we found a route for the flight case though an adjoining building. The only down side was that required rolling the case though a lecture theatre in the humanities department. So if you where in an English lecture in the mid 90s at De Montfort Uni, that scruffy kid rolling the giant flight case though the back of the room was me. Sorry.

How did you get into the world of events? We’d love to hear your stories!