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INTERNSHIP REPORT ENGINEROOM PRODUCTION AUSTRALIA

EVENTMANAGEMENT
Sept. 09 Jan. 10



Sure it cant be too difficult to find an eventmanagement companygoogle will find
something eventmanagemnt.. right, here you go, there are a few. England, Ireland,
America, Australia, New Zealand, actually I dont really care where it is, so why not send
emails to all of them, seriously, what can go wrong?
That was the start of my internship, searching for eventmanagement companies on the
internet and just sending emails to all the ones that sounded good and then hoping to get
some positiv replies. Might have been a bit nave, but it worked. I got a reply from a
company in Melbourne telling me I can work there for a few months if I want to. The only
problem was, they told me if I want to do an internship with them it will be unpaid. So I had
to figure out whether I can cover all the costs, for the flight, a room somewhere and all the
everyday expenses. I applied for a scholarship and was granted one, so I decided to go.
Finding a flat was a bit hard at the beginning. I didnt want to turn up in Australia and only
start searching for one once I arrived, having to live in a youth hostel until I found
something. So I started looking for a room on various internet pages, gumtree, flatmate,
flatshare, etc. Gladly I have some very good Australian friends whom I met on a student
exchange 6 years ago. They helped me with my search and went to some houses for me, had
a look at the rooms and the people living there. I finally found a room about 2 weeks before I
had to leave Germany and it was a really nice room in a huge house in Kensington, a suburb
in the north-west of Melbourne, quite close to the city and to my workplace as well. Living in
Melbourne isnt exactly cheap, so thats something one has to be aware of when looking for
a place to stay. But hey, living in Munich isnt any better really ;)
So first of all here are some pieces of information on Melbourne, hopefully something
helpful. Melbourne is a very big ctiy it is very streched out which means theres no way in
walking to places that dont look that far away if one looks at them on google maps they
are far away! I rented a bicycle and found that pretty handy, public transport is good (not
very good at night time, but still ok), but not exactly cheap. The people in Melbourne are
generally speaking very nice, helpful and friendly but all my friends told me for example not
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to walk back home from the city centre to where I lived at night. Its a huge city and unlike
Munich (where I do walk back home at night) its not too safe at night, there are fights and
things like that one doesnt want to be involved in. But hey, thats no real problem as most
of the time someone will always be happy to give you a lift home, if not one can still take a
taxi (the prices are quite reasonable) or take the last tram/train home (usually around 2am
on weekends). Melbourne is a fantastic city, Ive been to quite a few different cities in
Australia, including Sydney, Geelong and Brisbane, and Melbourne is definitely my favourite
city, I loved living there! Its a mixture of everything. Theres a beach in St. Kilda, amazing
food in Chinatown, very nice parks and a beautiful esplanade at Southbank, its close to the
Great Ocean Road and also Yarra Valley with its nice vineries. The nightlife in Melbourne is
great as well, there are lots of amazing clubs, bars and pubs (usually the ones in the side-
streets are the really good ones). If one is staying in Australia for longer as I did and doesnt
want to take hundrets of travelercheques with them its worth getting an account at the
Deutsche Bank as one of their partner-banks is Westpac and they are everywhere in
Australia (also in New Zealand and the Cook Islands ;), just in case). Considering SIM cards
for the mobile, no idea, I bought a Vodafone one, which was quite good and had a Telstra
one for work (better coverage in more remote areas).
Thats about all the info I have ;) so going on with work now.
The company I was working for is Engineroom Productions, in North Melbourne. Its run by
an english guy, Ade Barnard, who came to Australia several years ago. He did lots of different
events in Britain and the whole of Europe before he moved to Melbourne and now hes
doing some of the best festivals and events there.
So, anyway, I went to Melbourne, found my way to my work place, stood infront of that
house the first day, thinking is that really it? That doesnt look like an office at all. Oh well,
its the right address, itll be fine. I rang the bell and Ade opened the door, showing me the
way upstairs into the office, which is a part of his livingroom and kitchen in his house. I was a
bit irritated at the beginning, because, well, its his house where he is living as well and its
just him, no other employees, its his company and hes running it on his own, working
together with different people on different projects, but they are all more or less working for
him then, if he needs them, otherwise hes doing everything alone. I didnt really expect
anything in particular before I came to Melbourne, but when I arrived I was a bit afraid of
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how its going to turn out, as it was just Ade and me working together and if we didnt get
along very well those four months wouldnt have been fun at all.
All I can say now is that this fear was totally needless. Ade is a great guy, he is very nice,
extremly patient and very caring. And his knowledge of his job is incredible - working with
him was awesome!
He told me everything about the festivals first of all. Which festivals we will be doing, where
they are, how big they are, showed me one of the old production schedules of last year to
give me a good first impression of what it is that Ill be working on over the next few months.
As I said, when I came to Melbourne I didnt have any particular expectations of what my
tasks will be like, but I was presuming it would probably be more sorting things out on the
computer, doing some formatting, some tables, small things that dont really have an
impact. I dont know why I was thinking its going to be like that, but after all I was Ades first
intern and I didnt have that much experience when I cam to Australia. Yes, he said I would
be working on the festivals with him doing site visits and things like that, but I was just
thinking it will all more be watching how to do it with no real responsibility.
My expectations were exceeded. Ade involved me very much in the whole organization of
the festivals step by step. I started with collecting information from all the bands, their
technical specs etc. Made lists containing the backline we were ordering for the different
stages at the festivals (and learned a lot about backline, Ade was very patient, explaining
everything whenever I had a question and another piece of backline that I couldnt make
head or tale out of) and started with the new production schedules for the Falls festivals
Lorne, Marion Bay, Southbound and Sunset Sounds always according to the the one he
gave to me from last year, which was a schedule for Pyramid Rock, another one of his
festivals. I updated the folders we had, containing band info and all the latest riders we got
from the bands and came along to the first site visit in Lorne where we had a look at the new
stage that was being built for this years festival and the makeup of the area.
Before the festivals started we also had a little Reggea concert at a small park near by, so I
came along to that one as well, helped preparing the stage for the band, putting in a sound
system and getting all the equipment to the gig and back. After that we had a tour with an
Australian comedian and musician from England, Tim Minchin, where Ade showed me how
to do a production schedule and took me along to the first two shows in Brisbane and then
one show in Melbourne (I even got an active part in the show ;)!) and I continued working on
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the festivals while we were on tour. We also had a croporate event while I was there, it was
a warehouse opening for DHL where we had to do a production schedule and mainly see to
it that everybody was there in time doing their work and everything was ready in time and
safe. So we oversaw the installation of staging, sound, lighting, food stations, kitchens,
toilets and generators for the event. I always continued working on the festivals, did artist
forms containing info about their backline requirements etc, a Site Induction Program for the
Falls Festival Lorne and Marion Bay, kept updating the Stage Crew Itineraries, did a band list
consisting of all the bands playing at the festivals, the stages they are playing with dates and
times plus their Tour Manager contacts. Ade then showed me how to assign stage access
times to the bands and I did this for all the bands plus did a dressing room schedule for
Pyramid Rock together with Ade and an emergency introduction for the Falls Festivals. Then
I had to do a crew list with all the people working at the festival in Lorne and Marion Bay on
it, their names, when they will be working, the companies and also all the cars coming on
site so the site office at the festival can prepare access passes and vehicle passes. I made a
document for our crew including driving instructions to the festival site, a site map, details
on accommodation (I was assigning the accommodation to the crew at Lorne) and site
inductions. Once I did the last check on the stagebooks I sent them off to the printers about
5 days before the festival started. I then put a folder together for our site manager at Marion
Bay, containing all the info he needed to run the festival and prepared two folders for the
people in charge of all the freight at Lorne and Marion Bay. At the festival I saw to it that our
stagecrew got their meals in time, took it to them on stage, put the new running order on
the stages each day together with a catering plan and a stage clock. While we were at the
festival I also kept working on the next one that was taking place on the 2
nd
of February in
Falls Creek. I had to fly there on the night of the 1
st
and Ade left all the preparation for it to
me, it was a small Aboriginal festival, the Big Fella festival, which only ran for one day from
2pm to 6pm, so it was a great opportunity for me to see if I can handle it and it was nice of
Ade to hand it over to me. He pretty much made me the contact person for everything
there, so I was talking to the people at the resort where it took place, the cultural office
there, the people from the markets (the festival included some market stalls displaying
aboriginal arts and crafts) etc. I was very much involved from the beginning, came along to
the first site visit and drew a site map by myself which Ade then checked and corrected
together with me. Arranging accommodation for the artists there was also my task as well as
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staying in contact with the artists, getting their band specs, sending them driving directions
to the site, show times, details on accommodation and meals and making sure they are all
there on time.
Apart from that I also helped to run the Crusty Demons motorcycle show at an exhibition in
Melbourne, worked with Ade at the Melbourne Cup racing festival parade, running a stage
at Federation Square, and worked with Gemma Fletcher (one of Ades former employees) at
the AIR Awards night (Australian Independent Records) where I was working for her as part
of the stage crew helping with changeovers during the show.
So all in all I was very much involved in all the pre-production, contacted the bands,
ascertained their sound, lighting and backline requirements, contacted venues, was liasing
with supply companies to make sure all the rental equipment is correct, helped to manage
the air-freight, learned how festival and tour budgets operate, to identify equipment and
what work as part of the stage crew is like.
After all the festivals were done I was helping with the invoices for the crew and putting
together a list of changes that might be worth making for the festivals next year.
The last days before I left I started working on the Australia Day festival, calling the catering
people and sorting out the power supplies for their stalls.
All in all Ade put a lot of trust in me and gave me work that was very improtant for the
fetsivals and mattered a lot to him. He always checked it of course, but he also trusted me to
do it the right way and if there wasnt enough time left to check it he had enough trust in me
to send it off without having another look at it. I was talking to people on the phone,
arranging deliveries, driving a van with backline down to the festival site, driving to
Melbourne airport at 2am on the night of the 1
st
of January, all on my own, to catch a flight
at 6am and fly to the next festival, talking to the site manager at the festival, answering the
phone in our production office and I was responsible for the stagebooks, so if any stageplan
of any of the bands was wrong it would have been my fault and we might have ended up in
some trouble, but gladly it was all good. The festivals ran perfectly and everybody was very
happy, including Ade and me of course.
I met so many great people while I was working for Ade and learned heaps. Work was always
interesting and fun, even when it was a bit tough at times, it couldnt have been better.
Ade will gladly take more interns and I can only recommend doing it for anyone who wants
to work in eventmanagement later on (one thing I have to mention here though is that one
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needs to have a good knowledge of English before doing it as one will be talking to clients,
companies, artists etc and needs to be confident and understand what they are saying,
sometimes theres no way making them slow down and repeat what they were saying).
Im very glad I was able to do this internship and I hope Ill be back there working at the
festivals again soon ;)