New Live Music Professional Training Program Coming to Cowichan Valley’s Laketown Ranch
/The following is excerpted from a press release issued by the Laketown Media.
Thanks to a grant from Creative BC and the Province of British Columbia, Lake Cowichan will soon see a new program dedicated to helping more professionals enter the Live Music industry.
This new education program will be offered by Wideglide Entertainment Ltd. (“Wideglide”), the Cowichan Valley-based company behind the Sunfest, Laketown Shakedown and Laketown Rock Music Festivals. This new initiative has been designed by industry experts to provide comprehensive, hands-on training in all aspects of event operations and productions to individuals interested in a career in the live music sector.
Wideglide’s new program seeks to address this gap by promoting an influx of trained event workers into an industry that has been heavily damaged by the pandemic.
Through an intensive 6-day course covering everything from set up to tear down (including lighting, sound, rigging, crowd control, operations management, and much more), students taking part in this training program will develop knowledge and skills to secure employment in the live music field. At the end of the 6-day course, participants will take part in an industry Q&A, and be provided with supported connections to employment with regional/provincial festivals, production companies, and other organizations working in the live music sector.
To improve equity within the live music industry, Wideglide will be reserving 30% of program spaces for students from groups that have been historically underrepresented in the live music industry (BIPOC, women, LGBTQ2S, persons with diverse abilities). Through collaborations with local organizations serving and/or representing priority communities, Wideglide will make every effort to ensure that the program’s student population reflects the diversity of the Canadian population.
This new event operations and production training program will take place at Laketown Ranch, a purpose-built 250-acre live music venue located in Lake Cowichan, BC and home of the Sunfest, Laketown Shakedown and Laketown Rock music Festivals. The infrastructure available at Laketown Ranch (including multiple world-class stages of various sizes, a full-service campground, and myriad guest amenities) will provide participants with access to almost every setting and situation they are likely to encounter in future employment environments.
A pilot training course, made possible thanks to a Music Industry Initiatives grant from Creative BC, will take place from April 25 to 30, 2022. A maximum of 18 learners will be accepted into the course free of charge in return for helping Wideglide to test and improve this program before scaling it into a recurring annual program.
Wideglide is currently accepting applications for enrollment in the April 25-30 training session online at www.laketownranch.com/education-program.
