Folk Festival fundamentals

By Mr Nick Akhurst, Head of Co-curricular Drama, Dance and Technical Theatre

After the success of the 2023 Technical Theatre, the National Folk Festival welcomed us back to help on the Venue and Stage Management team for this year event.

Ten students headed out to EPIC on the last Thursday of March with Mr Nick Akhurst to help set up various venues and help with the concert on the opening night. The "National", as it is known by those who love it, had over 14 venues, 1170 performers and 140 acts.

It takes hundreds of volunteers to keep this festival running, with over 70 people working as venue and stage managers.

The students were fortunate to work with a number of professional event and theatre people, who were willing to share their experience with them. Among these were Collegians John Nicolls and Bill Bruce.

It was great for our students to see the impact that both theatre and volunteering can have on your life. As Bill explained, his work at the National helped him gain work in other fields as he was able to demonstrate his ability to manage large projects and a significant number of staff through his volunteer work.

Thursday was a long day setting up, and three intrepid students stayed late on the opening night and learned valuable skills in venue and patron management along with problem solving. A number were able to return on the Monday and then help close out the festival.

I would like to thank both Lucy Crawford and Sami Cain, the venue and stage management coordinators for allowing us to share their wealth of knowledge and giving the students a chance to experience the excitement of working on a festival of this scale.