On 20 November, Amersham & Wycombe College students went backstage prior to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ performance at the Birmingham LG Arena. The Production Day Visits, organised in conjunction with the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural, are designed to offer Music Performance & Music Technology students the opportunity to see how major arena concerts are organised.

To be considered for this unique backstage opportunity, Amersham & Wycombe College students had to apply for the limited number of places and be interviewed by college lecturers. This gave students the chance to experience a real live job application process.  Two students from BTEC Extended Diploma in Music Technology and four from Music (Performance) Level 3 courses were selected. 

“I’m on the Music Performance course, and I didn’t really know a huge amount about the technical side of things, but after going on the Production Day, and getting the chance to ‘join up the dots’, I’ve decided I want to be a Stage Manager – quite the U-turn,” said Music student Katrina Foot.  “The day has been so much more involved than I had expected – I knew we were going to look around, but we got to talk to a lot of people – including the band’s Touring Production Manager Narci Martinez. I was really surprised to find out that the equipment had come over from the US. I expected it would take over 100 crew to get the arena ready for the show, but with a well co-ordinated team of 30 and a few locals, they all worked seamlessly under the band’s Stage Manager,” explained Katrina.

“The main ‘want’ for the course is practical experience, which is something the Production Days offer – students see technical aspects of events which complement the organisational, marketing and promotional efforts needed,” said Music Course Leader Sarah Hayden.  “They also meet industry figures and there are networking opportunities as well.”

“We’ve just set up a new music space within the college where students are now able to gain practical experience, booking bands, doing the sound and lights, marketing and promoting the shows as well as actually performing themselves,” adds Sarah.  “This will provide lunchtime entertainment for the rest of the college, whist enabling the music students to hit criteria for their qualification, such as Event Management, Promotion and Concert Production units.”

To complement this, the College’s Music students have just created an events company and will be launching a new college music venue called ‘The Curfew’ after Christmas – it’s all about creating a vibrant “in college” music venue.  Initially a platform for college musicians, the plan is that the space will draw regular local events too, and eventually turn into something more like a business. The venue is about to be sound-treated and once that’s done, students can start performing.

The college also runs its own record label (Sham records) managed by the college’s music students and has produced several albums featuring student work.

Amersham & Wycombe College holds the privileged status of being a Founder College of the National Skills Academy for Creative & Cultural.