Engineering a diverse workforce
In between creating and curating themed areas at festivals including Camp Bestival , Lovebox , Boomtown , Shambala , Wilderness and Glastonbury , multi-service event production agency Continental Drifts is doing its bit to nurture the next generation of festival professionals . Chris ‘ Tofu ’ Macmeikan says the goal of its Festival Lab programme is to open the industry up to young people who may otherwise be excluded
Continental Drifts ’ London Remixed Festival at Rich Mix Arts Centre saw 12 young budding event professionals curate their own stage , as part of the company ’ s Festival Lab programme .
Overseen by Continental Drifts music director Chris ‘ Tofu ’ Macmeikan and run by Swans Events , a female-led production company born out of the pandemic in 2020 , the Festival Lab is designed to support the next generation of event producers by developing their ideas , skills , and knowledge via talks from industry specialists , workshops , and hands-on experience .
Over a 12-week period prior to the Remixed Festival , the young producers learned about production , programming , marketing , sponsorship and audience development , culminating in them overseeing their own programme of activity on the Friday evening of the event .
Called Vybe Engyneerz by Continental Drifts , the dozen young people were guided through the various aspects of event production by guest speakers including The O2 arena ’ s entertainment marketing manager Osho Frankland , Excel London health and safety manager Tim Byrne and Hootananny Brixton event promoter Max Golfar .
“ The plan is to work with youths who have no other way to study this kind of thing , and over 12 weeks give them a taste of event production by giving them £ 2,000 to curate a room at London Remix Festival , which they have done a fantastic job of ,” says Macmeikan .
The next step for the team at Continental Drifts is to take Vybe Engyneerz to six of the festivals it is working on this summer – two per event , where they will help run a stage .
Says Macmeikan , “ I ’ m taking two to Glastonbury for Shangri-La , and two
to each of the Camp Bestival events , Wilderness and Boomtown . We ’ re just going to throw all the names in a hat because everybody wants to do Glastonbury . Most of them have never been to a festival , so you have to tread carefully and make sure that they are ready for that – Camp Bestival is a lot more mellow than bashing them into the middle of Boomtown .
“ We are working with poor kids in east London who are from diverse communities ; there ’ s two things holding them back from going into the events industry – one is a familial thing where they ’ re just not used to it , and the other is that they simply cannot afford to pay to study event management at university or college . Hopefully by the end of the summer they will have enough on their CVs to approach an event production company to get an entry-level job .”
Two of the Engyneerz have already been employed by Continental Drifts and another has been take on by Swans Events .
Says Macmeikan , “ We know there ’ s a real lack of key workers at the moment , especially from diverse communities , coming into the game , so this is Continental Drifts ’ way of trying to address that .”
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