The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly come as a blow for several of the country’s most crucial industries, leaving businesses in limbo and facing existential crises. No more so than for those working in the live events sector – worth an estimated £30bn a year to the economy – with successive lockdowns and social distancing measures putting the brakes on the industry. Across the country, it has hit those working in gigs, theatres and live performances particularly hard.
For final year students at Wakefield’s Backstage Academy, the versatile skillset learnt studying over the COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened their resilience and eagerness to reinvigorate the sector. The experience of adapting through adversity has set them up for the best chance of success upon entering the industry; driven to cater to the UK’s pent-up demand for live events post-pandemic.
Offering degrees, short courses and bespoke training in live events, the South-Kirby-based institution held an end of year showcase of student talent last week. The campus’ Final Major Project Series saw the culmination of third year students honing their skillsets and the coming together of the craft they learnt over the pandemic and threes years of study.
For Backstage Academy’s Live Events Production course leader, Johnny Goodwin, this year’s projects are significant – not just because they serve as a capstone contribution to the students’ third year final grade – but because the 2021 themes address the feasibility of the industry’s survival post-COVID. The showcase is a demonstration of the skills the industry’s newest tranche of practitioners will need upon entering the industry (such as live streaming) in hastening its bounce-back to pre-pandemic levels.
“You could say there is something primal in the coming together of people to enjoy culture through a shared experience – whether that’s at gigs or in theatres. These Final Year Projects from our Backstage students have really brought that to the fore, demonstrating not just the skills learnt, but more significantly, the importance shared experiences have on the human condition,” Goodwin said. “More than a quarter of UK adults reported they had attended a festival in the year leading up to the pandemic – stats like that really serve as a testament to the importance and our love of live events.”
He continued: “From day one, our students are fully immersed in the industry, working with some of the sector’s biggest names, using best-in-class equipment, in state of the art studio spaces, and working closely with practitioners whose day job it is to create the most breath-taking live experiences,” he said. “Our students’ Final Major Projects are undoubtedly big, ambitious productions this year. They serve to push the students’ skillset to the next level – putting into practice everything they’ve learnt along the way with us.”
All students participating in the Final Year Projects studied Live Event Production, Live Visual Design and Production, or Stage and Production Management degrees. Third year Backstage Academy students taking part in the Final Major Project series included Live Events Production student, Ross Wickison and Stage & Production Management student, Tara Nesbitt. The duo walked TPi through the production process.
LIVE AGAIN
“The Live Again project was a theatrical performance telling the story of live events – from before, during and hopefully post-COVID – through actors and musical performances, bringing together lighting, visual and sound design and effects to narrate each performance.
“We held the show in Studio One – Production Park’s biggest studio – with a 40x40m footprint and 16m high roof, which has the ability to hang 110 tonnes of gear from it. It’s been excellent to have an opportunity to work creatively with a huge space like that, one which is usually a commercial facility used by the likes of Kylie, Robbie and Muse.
“The event starts off with a live music set-up, in a Hootenanny-style with a live MC, but gradually becomes a pastiche on the impact the pandemic has had on the live events industry; with the MC becoming a central character/protagonist. You see her world presenting a major music event upturned, to her being stuck in her room crossing off future dates and looking at how she coped with the turmoil.”
The performance was led by Nathan Curry (Theatre Director), Sara Templeman – (MC/Protagonist), Tangled Feet Theatre Company, with support from actors (Simon Jones and Carla Garratt) and aerialist (Jessica Andrade).
“We utilised a huge amount of tech – from LED walls, lighting, line arrays and 3D sound – but also some automation, using computer controlled electric hoists. We even created a cuboid structure with a hologauze projection, which drops out of the main rig, and flies over the MC, representing her confinement during COVID-19.
“For a group of final year students, we’ve been really ambitious in producing an arena-sized show like this. In total, we had 128 fixtures, 3km of power cabling and 1km of data – these are the sort of numbers you wouldn’t even see on an arena-sized show! For us, it was a big learning curve and amazing opportunity; and one that makes you realise how much goes into a show of this scale and size.
“We all had our roles within the production – across technical and broadcast teams – but we also worked closely with Tangled Feet; who served as our technical directors and assisted in the story-making whilst also giving us more experience working with a client.
“Although we were planning and designing the event, we needed the content element from the talent, and it’s been great to have Tangled Feet as an amazing partner. From a technical perspective, it truly was a spectacular show, but it was intertwined with a poignant message of the importance of live events.”
ESCAPE THE REAWAKENED
“For this project, we decided to design and produce an escape room based on a zombie horror theme. We started the project in October 2020, so it’s been almost a year in the making; with weekly planning meetings and working with our lecturers to help us put it together.
“We created an environment and the set design, using technology such as zombie projections onto hologauze – which makes the material invisible but allows us to project onto the surface and create jump-scares for those taking part.
“We also used a 3D sound-system to put immersive sounds into the environment in real time. Run like an escape room, we asked participants to solve the riddles in order to get through different sliding door mechanisms to find a vaccine. The event also gave us a good understanding of implementing COVID-safe policies, as we ensured people entering the room were in bubbles and undertook several risk assessments.
“More than anything, it’s been exciting being back doing what we do, especially after a long time of not having any work. As well as that, it’s been really great to be able to bring friends and family in to experience what we’ve created!”
WAKEFIELD ON TAP
“This event, organised by Sasha Kite and Elicia Freemantle, was held in Wakefield’s Ridings Shopping Centre. It was a heritage installation project looking at the nightclubs, pubs and venues in Wakefield and how they changed over the years.
“Taking over an empty shop unit, it was the first final year project event to take place off site, with more than 200 people attending over the course of the week-long installation.
“They put together a video of old footage of the old night clubs in Wakefield in the boom-time when people had money from the coal mines – back when the City’s nightclubs beat Stringfellows as the best clubs in the country.”
UNREAL
“This was a really interesting project where two of our students, Kris Plummer and Jack Bartford, were looking at how to stream the most realistic experience of a live event they possibly could. They put together a DJ set in one of the studios, but used cameras and streamed A/V from the live event, combined with a VR representation of the space using Unreal Engine.
“They had a DJ perform – Graham Thorne – with real-life stage and the lighting/sound-systems – but recreated the environment in Unreal Engine, so they could stream the lighting that was happening in the space and make the sound realistic to the venue. It took place earlier in June, with the audience invited to see the real event and then experience it again virtually after the show on a monitor.”
OFF-BALANCE
“This event saw a team of students put together a cross-genre evening, made up of nearly a dozen artists for a live-stream event, accessed by a QR code on the promotional poster, or via a Twitch link on their social channels.
“It served as a support platform for acts to get their music out their before the re-opening of venues, giving emerging artists access to high production values, and giving them a recording of their set so they could use it for future promos.”
MAN VS NATURE
“Situated in our Soundbox Studio, this performance took the form of a piece of installation art, using a video wall, lighting, 3D sound-system and props such as a car, oil drum and old TV sets. It looked at the detritus of the modern world, with the video taking you through a narrative around mankind’s impact on the planet, which was overlaid with audio of the Dalai Llama and David Attenborough. It was a really impactful and poignant piece of art.”
GAMESHOW
“Taking place on the 23rd June, this project was a live streamed game-show, but without an audience. With questions and fun tasks on the theme of working in the live events industry, it had teams of students going head-to-head with staff, hosted by a compere, Tizzy Von Tassel from The Goodtime Gals.
“As well as being great fun, it demonstrated the teams’ skillset for adapting between live event gigs and TV productions. The lighting array was particularly impressive and the live-stream element added another layer of complexity.”
The Head of Backstage Academy, Rachel Nicholson, gave some context to this year’s performances.
“Undoubtedly, the past 18 months have been incredibly difficult for us all, but particularly so for the live events industry. It is unsurprising then that the impact of the pandemic on the industry is prominent in the minds of graduating students and has become a recurrent theme for their projects this year. Despite the challenging circumstances, the students have truly demonstrated their capability and adaptability through their projects, drawing on the technical proficiency they’ve learnt with us over the past three years in order to achieve their ambitious goals.
“We’ve always been very hands-on as an institution, giving students industry leading products to work on – through the support of our industry partners – but it’s been great to see their training really come to fruition and put those skills into practice.
“The use of Hologauze, Unreal Engine, VR visualisation and live streaming in the students’ projects demonstrates the their competence with, and enthusiasm for, the cutting edge of industry tech; which will certainly boost their employability and industry-readiness in the eyes of the industry.
“For some students, the whole end of year project has been around developing the policies, processes and risk assessments needed to create productions for a post Covid world – which is just as important as being able to light it well.”
“One of the good things about the courses here is that we cover everything – going through this process has prepared them for the new challenges that the industry is facing – making them more employable. The cohort of students graduating this year will have learnt to be more adaptable and deal with uncertainty – part of what we’ve been doing over the Final Major Project is finding ways to carry on, reach an audience and make work that you can still put out there.
“I would say that it’s been a difficult year, but that shouldn’t overshadow the student’s achievements, as they’ve risen to the challenge fantastically. We started the project in Winter 2020 and had no idea what the rules would be in the summer. Students had to think outside of the box and consider how we could deliver productions to an audience who might still need to be at home or could be on site in some form or another”.
Miles Marsden is Backstage’s Industry Partnerships Director. “We have about two-dozen industry partners at Backstage, without whom we wouldn’t be able to train up and invigorate the next generation of industry practitioners. Their support is vital – but they really rose to the occasion this year, giving our students access to the world’s most cutting edge tech despite the difficulties faced by the industry,” he said.
“For the Final Year Projects, there was an increased demand on that gear as students wanted to end the year with a bang. The students used everything we have in our ‘toy cupboard’ and we were very grateful to our industry partners who were forthcoming in giving us even more.
“As we’re training tomorrow’s professionals, it’s very much in their interest to get their gear in front of these students. There’s been a number of people leaving the industry over COVID, either retiring early or moving careers. Our students will be graduating with cutting edge skills and will be out-of-the-box ready to fill any shortages in the industry as and when it bounces back to pre-pandemic levels.
“These industry partners have jobs on offer for our students. Not just any form of temp work placements, they have real career opportunities at major companies. It’s a two-way street of the fact that our students get to be familiar with their products and not only are they tomorrow’s professionals, but they’re also tomorrow’s specifiers.
“When venues are buzzing again, these students will be at the front of that queue – they’ll become the next generation of industry practitioners bringing to life the most amazing live events. I can’t wait!”