Students centre stage for Cheltenham Literature Festival

The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival is in full swing, and more than 60 University of Gloucestershire students are playing a starring role in delivering a successful event.

More than 20 Film Production and TV Production students are filming, lighting and editing at headline venues, including The Times and The Sunday Times Forum and VOICEBOX. As well as streaming to Festival audiences, they are producing high-quality content, including filming a knitting class with Olympic gold medallist, Tom Daley.

Music Business and Sound and Music Production students event managed the popular Lit Crawl around a host of Cheltenham venues on Saturday, October 8. One of the third year Music Business students who led that event, Alice Tansley, has now been offered a paid role running the Story Shack at the Festival this weekend.

Journalism and PR and Communications students have also been in the thick of the Festival action, running a news day, voxpopping visitors and interviewing some of the big names to create content to be shared by the Festivals team.

Alongside the technical support roles, students from the Creative Writing degree course were in front of camera this week, with a takeover of the VOICEBOX stage.

Their first event, ‘Journeys through books’, saw them share readings and reflections from a range of voices, celebrating the words that have captured journeys – both real and imagined – across the centuries.

The second event, ‘Regeneration’, explored what it means to be human in today’s uncertain world with young people from across Gloucestershire, sharing short readings from the Regeneration anthology.

First year Events Management students were heading to the Festival today for an audience with Head of Operations, James Kitto, and other key members of the events team.

Andrew Lansley, Innovation Manager at Cheltenham Festivals, said: “Cheltenham Festivals is committed to developing and giving opportunities to new talent across all areas of our charity, so we’re delighted to continue our partnership with University of Gloucestershire in this way.

“Our team are really enjoying working with these talented young people from such a wide range of subject areas. The students have been fully embedded into our operations and have been right at the forefront of delivering a hugely successful Festival.”

Anne Dawson, Head of the School of Creative Industries at University of Gloucestershire, said: “Our partnership with Cheltenham Festivals has fantastic benefits for our students, who also bring a wealth of fresh ideas and knowledge of the latest industry innovation to the team there.

“They gain real world experience of a fast-paced event that attracts audiences from around the world, providing them with stand-out experiences and skills for their CVs. It’s fantastic seeing students from so many of our courses involved behind the scenes as well as performing at such a high-profile event.”