My Southbound experience!

Hello again,

Hoping that all your internships are cruising along and you're all learning lots and having fun! I love reading everyone's blogs and seeing all the different types of public relations everyone is doing.

My internship at Sunset Events is going well- I went to my first working festival at Southbound in Busselton over the weekend and it was absolutely amazing. It was a terrific insight into the industry- showing me the hard work involved on the day as well as experiencing the festival backstage and feeling so lucky!! Arctic Monkeys, Regurgitator, The Grates, Aloe Blacc, Naked and Famous, Beirut, Kimbra, Josh Pyke, Crystal Castles, Grouplove, Arj Barker, Gossling, John Butler, The Kooks, The Jezabels, CSS, Pnau and a million more incredible artists made Southbound another festival success!

I must admit I am SO tired after the weekend because it's been hard balancing work and my internship and life in between!It was so rewarding to see everyone's hard work be rewarded with a great sense of achievement.

Here's a rundown of my weekend:

Friday

6.30pm- Finish work and drive down to Busselton.

9.00pm- Arrive in Busselton, get settled and find the house where I'm staying with a few of the Sunset team.

11.00pm- Janelle arrives back to the house from the festival and debriefs me on what will be happening over the weekend. Then help Janelle organise the onground schedule for the two days, detailing all the artist interviews that will occur, when to meet the media and all kinds of things she will be involved in.

1.00am- Bed time!

Saturday

6.00am- Wake up!

7.30am- Head to festival site.

8.00am- Drive around the site for a site tour, drop off media packs at camping box office and weekend box office. Get set up with lanyard, AAA wristband and little space in the office where we are based.

9.00am- I drive to the Mercure Hotel to drop off media packs for Xpress, the Sunday Times and the West. I then drive to the Bay View Hotel to drop off media packs for the Drum and Street Press.

9.30am- Go into town in Busselton to get coffees for staff. Find out where Mitre 10 is and head there to get Janelle a padlock she needed.

10.00am- Head back to site.

10.30am- I drive to the Busselton airport to pick up promo winners that have just got off their helicopter ride.

11.00am- Sort out how to fastrack the two winners in the huge camping lines, a few dramas and a lot of calls on the radio but I finally got them through. Set them up in their pampered camper areas and dropped their bags, made sure were all settled.

12.30pm- Odd jobs

1.25pm- Meet GWN at media tent and escort backstage.

1.35pm- Meet Colosoul at media tent and escort backstage.

1.40pm- Artist interviews conducted by media in artist lounge.

2.25pm- Meet journalists from the West and promo winner and escort backstage.

2.30pm- Promo winner meets Josh Pyke and conducts her own interview with him backstage.

4.25pm- Escorted media to side of stage and watched them film (there are filming restrictions so I had to ensure they did not film or photograph for too long)

6.30pm- I watched some of Aloe Blacc’s set.

9.00pm- Watched a bit of the Arctic Monkeys interview backstage.

10.15pm- I went to the Crystal Castles set to ensure NO media filmed or photographed the set because they had strict instructions from the tour manager not to. Crystal Castles were half an hour late to the stage and came on to a booing crowd! Only one lady who wasn’t aware of the media restrictions arrived and I let her know about the rule.

For the rest of the evening I watched a few performances, waited around in the office in case there was anything to do and hung around. I spent a bit of time following a lady from GWN around to ensure she filmed things legally.

1am- Headed home- very tired!!Day one complete!

Sunday

7.00am- Wake up. Janelle lets me know there isn’t much on for the day and that I don’t have to arrive on site until later. So lucky! Back to bed for a quick sleep!

10.00am- Go and pick up my sister and go out for a coffee on the main Busselton strip and have a wander around.

12.00pm- Arrive on site and see there is not much on the schedule for the day as the media don’t need as much direction now they know what the go is.

12.50pm- Went and sat down and watched CANT perform their set.

1.50pm- Went backstage and watched Unknown Mortal Orchestra perform their set!! It was incredible being so close to the stage and seeing the whole thing in action.

2.40pm- Watched Josh Thomas and guests perform some comedian laughs from the side of the stage!

3.00pm- Watched Missy Higgins backstage- amazing!

4.15pm- Watched the Jezabels set from side of stage, so close the smoke covered my face from the stage!

6.00pm- Met promo winners at the media tent, gave them a quick tour of backstage and then took them backstage for CSS, Fleet Foxes then CSS again.

7.00pm- Met up with a friend and danced away to the Kooks, my favourite act of the entire weekend!!

8.40pm- Watched John Butler from side of stage.

After this great day of viewing acts I waited around in case Janelle needed a hand but she had everything under control (she is amazing).

10.30pm- I left the site for the drive home to Perth as I had work the following day- it was a terrible drive I could hardly keep my eyes open!

1am- Hop into bed for a much needed sleep!

That is my amazing weekend in a nutshell! I am so grateful for the weekend I’ve had and the experience I have been a part of.

There is a lot more I could say and more I could write about my day but I think this gives a good picture of the amazing work Sunset Events does and a little behind-the-scenes of what goes on at the events!

Thank you for reading- I wonder if any of my fellow interns went to Southbound!

Here are a couple of photos I took on my iphone from side of stage! Not good quality but you can imagine how up close and special it was!

Above: The hilarious Josh Thomas got ALOT of laughter from the massive crowd at the Share Stage!

Above: Missy Higgins performs some songs from her new album and older tunes on the Sunny Stage!

Above: Lead singer of the Jezabels Hayley Mary grabs a drink of water during the set!

Enjoying reading all the blogs! Keep them coming!

Lisa