FESTIVAL & CARNIVAL LAB 2025
EVENT PRODUCERS COURSE
GLOBAL CARNIVALZ / CONTINENTAL DRIFTS & BRISTOL BEACON PRESENT:
FESTIVAL & CARNIVAL LAB EVENT PRODUCERS COURSE
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUNG CREATIVES
Are you aged 18-35, from a Black Heritage background*? Are you interested in learning how to produce events? Do you want to help produce some of the best and biggest events in the UK?
Festival & Carnival Lab is back in 2025, establishing itself in Bristol!
With our collective experience producing events over 30 years in the Festivals and Live Events Industry, we observed that the representation of people from Black Heritage communities in senior production was alarmingly low across the board in major festivals such as Glastonbury & our UK Carnivals: Notting Hill, St Paul’s and Hackney.
This course will offer 10 people the chance to develop their knowledge & skills in various aspects of delivering and producing live events
The course will run for 9 weeks at the Bristol Beacon (BS1 5AR). Once you have completed the course in full, you will be offered paid work experience at festivals and events (local and across the UK) - last year’s opportunities included: Glastonbury Festival, Download Festival, Boomtown Fair, Wilderness Festival, Notting Hill Carnival, Hackney Carnival, Secret Garden Party, Shambala, Great Get Together
We have selected an exciting team of well-experienced professionals, from all areas of the event industry to provide you with the skills needed to prepare you for work onsite; where you will have the opportunity to put into practice your ‘new knowledge’. Tutors will be from organisations including Bristol City Council, Continental Drifts, Glastonbury Festival, Global Carnivalz, St Paul’s Carnival & more!
The aim of the course and placements is for you to secure enough event experience on your CV, by the end of summer, to enable you to confidently approach production companies and carnivals for work.
You will have full support from all the partners presenting the course, guiding you through the whole process. They will act as mentors to give you the best chances of getting a good job in the event industry.
The course is completely free.
You will receive expenses at the event(s) you work at.
If you are excited about events and love solving problems, working hard, working as a team and want to get involved at a senior level in production - this is the course for YOU!
FULL COURSE SCHEDULE:
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION
Thursday 20th March 2025
WEEK 2: EVENT PRODUCTION
Thursday 27th March 2025
WEEK 3: STAGE & VENUE PROGRAMMING
Thursday 3rd April 2025
WEEK 4: ARTIST LOGISTICS & SHOW ADVANCING
Thursday 10th April 2025
BREAK WEEK - Thursday 17th April 2025
WEEK 5: TECHNICAL PRODUCTION (SOUND & LIGHTING)
Thursday 24th April 2025
WEEK 6: CARNIVAL & CROWD CONTROL
Thursday 1st May 2025
+ BONUS SESSION - TBA
Tuesday 6th May
WEEK 7: SUMMER PLANNING
Thursday 8th May 2025
WEEK 9: FUTURE PLANNING & NETWORKING
October 2025 (date to be confirmed)
+ END OF SEASON SHOWCASE, DATE TBA
…………………………………………
As with all events, the schedule is subject to slightly change and sessions might be moved around
Applications for the course open on 7th February 2025 and will close on Thursday 6th March 2025.
We will review all applications and get back to the successful candidates from Monday 10th March 2025.
BEFORE YOU APPLY, CONSIDER THAT:
You must attend the full course schedule, running every Thursday from 20th March to 15th May 2025 (with a break on 17th May), starting from 6.30pm to 9pm in person at Bristol Beacon (BS1 5AR) + a debrief session with 1-to-1 discussions in October 2025 (exact date to be confirmed after the summer).
You need to have worked or volunteered at events (or any other type of production work) before, showing that you have a good understanding of how an event or production runs.
A lot of our events are located in the countryside/ in nature - you will likely be required to camp for some of them.
Be between 18 and 35 years old of Black Heritage*
You must be available to work at one or more events during the summer (from the end of May to September, and other possible opportunities).
You must fully engage with the process and will be asked to fill in a few data surveys throughout to help us monitor the course and keep improving it year after year.
*Black Heritage includes African, Caribbean, Black British-African, Black British-Caribbean, Other Black Backgrounds, Black Mixed
TO APPLY
To apply, please complete this form by 23:59 on 6th March and do get in touch with us at festivallabcoursebristol@gmail.com if you have any questions
If the form link above is not working, copy and paste this link: https://forms.gle/f22LHm5TEnbcb7nP7
