CAREER PACK - Festival Summer Work

It is very difficult as I learnt from my research from the last unit to get your artwork - specifally costume based artwork into festivals, as there is a thorough application process and you are competeing against already established costume and performance businesses. Therefore, in order to still be involved in the festival scene and keep my foot in the door, I am working as many festivals as I can this year; working on the bars and on a pizza food stall. This means that I can still show my work at lots of different festivals by wearing them myself around the festival site, and I can still network with established traders and performers in the scene in order to possibly get more work.

I am going to Hogsozzle festival at the end of may as a puppeteer with Animus Puppetry, Jodie Smith's puppet company. Originally I was to be more involved with the making of the puppets but as I am working on my spectacles for the degree show I haven't been able to be as involved as I would have liked. This will change after graduation when I have more time but for the time being I will just be a puppeteer.

The first festival of the year for me is the Maui Waui Pirate Ball, where I am planning to take one of my degree show pieces to document it in its intended environment. I am then working with Firewater Events, a company I worked with last summer, to work the bar at several festivals this summer including Flatlands, Maui Waui, Illusive and Equinox. I will also be working at Wood Fired Pizza on their stall, selling pizzas, coffee and donuts at many smaller festivals this summer too. Whilst I know that these are not positions within the arts scene, they are paid positions and will offer a chance for me to network with people who have been in the scene for years. Ultimately with festivals its all about who you know as well as what you know. After graduation I also plan to keep developing different costumes for different events, not just for myself but for others too.