Live At Leeds Marketing Internship

Stephanie Pullen writes about her Live At Leeds Marketing Internship …

I’m an Events Management undergraduate, so getting as much relevant experience as possible before I graduate is high on my list of priorities. In this vein I have done a fair few internships, to the point where my friends have begun to joke that when I “grow up” I want to be an intern. (As much as I have enjoyed my experiences I do hope to aspire above the level of hardworking intern!) I even travelled to Los Angeles and lived there for 3 months in my ever expanding quest for exciting, rewarding and challenging music event related work experiences.

This quest led me to be hired by Mark Dennis, the Marketing Manager at Futuresound, the company responsible for organising Live At Leeds Festival. However, soon after I joined the team, Mark announced he was leaving for greener pastures, and so his intimidating workload was to be delegated between Project Manager Kay Brown, The Session @ Cockpit promoter Ben Lewis, and me! At first there was slight panic, though I would like to say that we have coped admirably, and I am grateful for the opportunity to get even more involved in the festival than I expected to, especially as my role has developed into that of paid intern – the rare bird of the music industry!

Kay’s trust in my abilities, and her crucial but laid-back guidance, has given me loose rein with loads of really great tasks and I have developed considerably. I’ve been included in meetings, worked closely with our press team, I Like Press, and got some great insight into the industry. I’ve been responsible for updating, writing copy for and populating the website. I’ve written copy for the printed guide, was one of the main contributors on the LAL social media platforms, and was able to experiment with programs that are new to me, such as Photoshop.

The team is great to work with It’s very laid back and we all get on well together. I must say that I have never worked in an office where home-baked cakes are such a regular occurrence: and at first whilst doing a very challenging NO CHOCOLATE/CAKE/BISCUITS/SWEET TREATS lent this was not at all ideal! However since Easter weekend I have fully enjoyed this fun office quirk!

After all our hard work over the past months the festival is nearly upon us. How time flies! On the day I will be helping to oversee that the wristband exchange runs smoothly, as well as visiting the venues to ensure everything goes without a hitch. Although I will be working, I will still be making full use of the new Live At Leeds App, to make some time for my own personal schedule!

I am super excited to see Unknown Mortal Orchestra, I have been listening to them a lot in the run up to Live At Leeds and am really into their awesome psychedelic, melodic, west coast vibes, so seeing them on Saturday will be amazing.