Music Festival - MUS00230I

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Module summary

From Glastonbury to Glyndebourne, this musical event can take any direction.This module challenges you to work collaboratively with your peers to plan, deliver, promote, raise funds for, and evaluate a music festival.

Although this module invites you to undertake a substantial amount of group work to plan, deliver and promote the festival, you will be assessed individually. You will evidence and
articulate your individual contribution to planning, delivery, promotion, fundraising, and evaluation for the festival. In support of these assessments, you should maintain a digital record of the work completed across the module, as well as items of interest and inspiration from other musicians and the industry.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 2 2026-27

Module aims

This module aims to:

1. Cultivate Professional Autonomy: Provide students with a platform to transition from directed study to independent professional practice, fostering accountability, leadership, and initiative within a live production environment.

2. Facilitate Collaborative Innovation: Enable students to work as a collective agency to conceive, plan, and deliver a complex public event, mirroring real-world industry dynamics and team structures.

3. Develop Specialist Expertise: Allow students to refine and apply their specific area of interest—whether performance, composition, technical production, or arts management—within a high-stakes, practical context.

4. Embed Reflective Practice: Encourage critical self-evaluation and career planning by requiring students to document their workflows and analyze their personal contribution to the project's success.

5. Bridge Education and Industry: Equip students with transferable employability skills, including fundraising, marketing, stakeholder management, and crisis resolution, to prepare them for careers in the creative industries.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the taught part of the module you should be able to:

• LO1:demonstrate effective collaborative skills in the planning and realisation of a complex project, exhibiting professional accountability, negotiation, and adaptability within a team structure.

• LO2: apply specialist skills (whether creative, technical, logistical, or promotional) to a professional standard to support the successful delivery of a public-facing event.

• LO3: systematically document and evidence your individual contributions, decision-making processes, and workflows throughout the project lifecycle.

• LO4: critically evaluate personal performance and the collective project outcome against industry benchmarks to identify areas for professional development.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	10.0
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	10.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

You will submit a “documentation and evaluation” digital portfolio, which will form the basis for a c.15-minute presentation, followed by questions prompting discussion of the documentation and evaluation in more detail. Your submissions will provide a commentary on your individual contribution to the festival based on materials gathered throughout the module (the documentation), and offer an overall project evaluation alongside a reflection on your personal contribution (the evaluation).

Your portfolio should contain the following:

1. Overview (e.g.activity timeline, key facts and figures)
2. Documentation from festival planning and events (e.g. email chains, receipts, budget sheets, audience development, contracts, tech specs, promotional material, video/photo documentation from events or planning)
3. Reflection on individual contribution (reflective writing, goal setting, pre-/post-project skills audit)
4. Evaluation of overall festival (e.g. reflections, venue feedback, audience feedback, evaluation against initial pitch)

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	10.0
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	10.0

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.

Indicative reading

Bowen, Heather E., and Margaret J. Daniels. "Does the music matter? Motivations for attending a music festival."Event management9, no. 3 (2005): 155.DOI:10.3727/152599505774791149

McKay, George, and Emma Webster. "From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury: The impact of British music festivals." (2016).https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59132/1/Festival_Report_online.pdf

Neilson, Francis. "Glastonbury in legend and history."The American Journal of Economics and Sociology4, no. 1 (1944): 9-23.https://www.jstor.org/stable/3484069

Picard, Anna. "When silence blossoms: Innovation, education and tradition at the world's biggest music festival."TLS. Times Literary Supplement5970 (2017): 18-20.https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A634745933/AONE?u=anon~357f3c08&sid=googleScholar&xid=41d6de88.

Schmid, Fabian. "Sustainability in the music festival industry: the power of music to change politics?." Master's thesis, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa (Portugal), 2023.https://www.proquest.com/openview/3c555e8068e15bb70b412f90998b97e2/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y

Stone, Chris. "The British pop music festival phenomenon." InInternational perspectives of festivals and events, pp. 205-224. Routledge, 2009.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780080914374-17/british-pop-music-festival-phenomenon-chris-stone

Van Winkle, Christine M., and Lesley Gaudry. "Volunteers’ Roles in Festival Emergency Management: Lessons from Shambhala Music Festival."Tourism Cases2025 (2025): tourism202500044.https://doi.org/10.1079/tourism.2025.0044

Webster, Emma, and Live Music Exchange. "Association of independent festivals six-year report 2014."Association of Independant Festivals website: http://aiforg. com/wp-content/uploads/AIF-Six-Year-Report-2014. pdf(2014).https://livemusicexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/AIF-2014-FINAL-FINAL-FINAL.pdf