THERE’S more to the arts than meets the eye, as one Worcester graduate found out.
Jacob Briscombe, who has just graduated from his film studies and screenwriting degree at Worcester University, is rethinking his career path after being inspired by an internship at this year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival.
He was one of three students who volunteered as artist management interns at the poetry festival, now in its 28th year, and has now secured another internship as a programme assistant at arts company Severn Arts.
Jacob said: “It opened me up to other avenues. If I didn’t have this experience I don’t think I would have applied to other arts and culture related internships. I didn’t know how much work went on behind the scenes. It’s amazing how much work goes on and each of these roles is important. If you don’t want to be the artist yourself, there are other ways.”
Worcester University students have undertaken internships at the Ledbury Poetry Festival for the last several years, giving them hands-on work experience and helping to boost their employability.
The students’ roles at the festival included chaperoning artists to their events, ensuring they had everything they needed and working collaboratively with the festival producer and technician teams to ensure artists were happy with the set up.
The students also got to attend a variety of events.
Director of Ledbury Poetry Festival, Amy Howard, praised the support from university students in pulling off one of its most successful events.
She added: “The incredible festival interns were absolutely integral to making the festival happen. Without them the smooth running of events would have been much more difficult.”
This year’s Ledbury Poetry Festival attracted several well-known names, including Simon Armitage, Jackie Kay, Roger McGough and Michael Rosen.
