Welcome
*The 2012 application process has now concluded. You will be contacted shortly, should you be successful* 2011 Festival Round Up
Now the 2011 festival season has drawn to a close, we take time to remember the fantastic experiences shared, through a blog post from Leeds Festival written by one of our very own volunteers Matty Dyas, a recent alumnus in BA (Hons) Journalism. Leeds Festival. Beady Eye summed it up in one of their Tweets, it's a 'proper festival'. A proper northern festival. You don't see people making wicker baskets in the village and you'll rarely hear someone reciting poetry (and if you do the rhymes will be laced with profanities). There is only one thing on the Leeds Festival goers agenda and that is to have the best time they can possibly have and they won't let anything get in their way. Not even the weather. It was raining, in fact, it was pouring it down for most of the festival and do you know what rain is pretty good at? Getting me wet. After a while you start to long for the sun to come out and you know it's really bad when you start saying things like, 'I'd settle for fine rain' or 'Sporadic showers would be perfect'. After a while something dawned on me, for the past 21 years I have taken being dry for granted and when I get home I'm going to take a little time out each day just to appreciate how dry I am. But the Leeds Festival goers are unlike cricketers, they don't let rain affect play. Everybody just carried on regardless. It only took a few hours to turn the whole festival into one big mud bath which meant I had to don the wellies. It also prompted a large proportion of the crowds to make it their mission to get as muddy as possible and as you can see from the photo, a lot of them succeeded. On the Saturday morning the festival bosses decided to wage war against the mud and hay was spread across the arena. Who knew that hay was so good at soaking up mud? The good times didn't last long though and it took about 10 minutes for the mud to take over again. Nobody cared though. That's the best thing about Leeds, nobody really cares about anything. It's just a massive park filled with 70,000 hedonists walking round looking for kicks and luckily for them there are kicks-a-plenty around every corner. I've seen many of great fancy dress costumes but the best one had to be when I saw a man in a banana costume get attacked by a troop of monkeys. I also discovered that I'm quite scared of people in animal masks and, unfortunately for me, there are a whole lot of them around. I'd be walking along looking at the floor, concentrating hard on not falling over in the mud, and then I'd look up and get startled by a wildebeest. I'm definitely going to be having flashbacks whenever I watch an Attenborough documentary from now on. Oh and there's music as well. You mustn't forget about the music. On the Friday I really enjoyed the Little Comets' set at the Festival Republic stage. Saturday's highlight came from one of the first bands of the day, Heart-Ships. They are a local band who played the BBC Introducing stage and their energetic set was just what I needed to get me up for the second day. On Sunday I was adamant that I was going to see Madness but after watching their opening song, One Step Beyond, I found myself walking over to catch Mariachi El Bronx. It's just too hard to resist a bit of mariachi, even Suggs couldn't keep me away. After the music had finished each night I ventured out in to the campsites. This is what really sets Leeds festival apart from the other festivals. It's like a jungle out there, in more ways than one with all those animal masks. The Relentless stage always had a big crowd and so did the campsite DJs but, I'll be honest, I didn't really venture there for the music, I went to people watch. Then I'd finish the night off at the silent disco. Hundreds of people with big headphones on dancing away to cheesy tunes, what more could you want? It was with a heavy heart when I left the last festival of the summer. It might not have the glamour of some other festivals but at the end of the day Leeds Festival is a good laugh. You're guaranteed a good time and that's why I can safely say that I'll be returning next year. As long as they ban those masks. Matty Dyas You can read about the Leeds Metropolitan University & Festival Republic partnership as well as more about the memories made over the course of the year here at the University's festival blog.
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Latest Tweets
What's it really like? Leeds Met has been running volunteering projects at Latitude and Leeds Festivals for the last three years. Have a look at the links below to find out more about what it's really like at the festivals. Festival Photos
Meet our volunteers
Lucy McCann is an Events Management alumnus from Leeds Met, who worked for Festival Republic this year at Latitude as Artist Liaison. From working previously at Latitude with our university, she made important contacts and kept in touch with her supervisor at the time. As a result of this she was offered paid work this year. She comments that "networking and staying in touch with people is vital for a career in the music industry."
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