40 festival directors create globally-recognised higher education diploma

With the festivals, exhibitions & events market expected to grow by 19% in terms of revenue between 2021-2027, a new events management Diploma called Event Crowd has been launched featuring 40 of the industry’s leading professionals curating events such as Glastonbury, The Olympics, Nike Run, BoomTown and Human Race. The online course is backed by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and aims to reflect new event management practices and train fresh talent, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Government has prioritised mass upskilling to support the economic recovery of the nation post-pandemic with education secretary Nadhim Zahawi stating that the UK needs other qualifications alongside T-Levels that play a valuable role in supporting good outcomes for students. Similar to the government’s T-Levels, the Event Crowd events management Diploma is targeted at school leavers, graduates looking to gain a competitive edge, as well as those working in full-time employment wanting to change their career into a dream job – regardless of location, lifestyle, gender or race.

Event Crowd Diploma Founder Dodge Woodall says: “Like every industry, we have had to adapt. As the events industry recovers from a challenging economic period, losing many staff and with production, health and safety changing vastly over the last few years, we felt we had a responsibility to support the industry’s recovery and upskilling of new talent in current times. We reached out to leading events figures across the world and over the last two years cumulatively have created a high quality, up-to-date, world-leading learning experience in events management. With the events industry booming again post pandemic, the demand for fresh talent in the industry is at an all-time high. Event Crowd provides three years’ worth of education in the space of three months and covers things that you won’t learn from textbooks in a library The course is already proving to fast-track graduates into a career in the events industry.”

The World Economic Forum has highlighted the benefit of vocational courses as positively affecting a country’s productivity and increasing creativity. Ben Onslow, age 22, was on his placement year studying BA (Hons) Business Studies at Bournemouth University when the pandemic hit. He was concerned whether Covid coronavirus would affect him getting a job.

Ben says: “I knew I wanted to have a dream career in Events. I focused on what I could control and took the Event Crowd Event Management Diploma. I needed something to keep me motivated and act as a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to be set for when the normal world returned. The course was challenging, taught by professionals at the heart of the events industry but it definitely gave me a competitive edge and, as the pandemic was ending and the events industry started bouncing back, I secured got a full-time, salaried event executive position at Mack Brooks getting to plan and work on large exhibitions. I am hugely grateful to the course for the insight and motivation it kept within me.”

Maggie Jones, the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s director of qualifications and partnerships said: “We saw two things happening during the pandemic. The first is that young people have recognised the resilient and adaptive nature of marketing and want to pursue a career in this field. The second is that many have invested in their own development and self-funded additional learning and qualifications to help them standout in a very competitive market.”

Nick Rusling, CEO, Human Race, one of the most renowned mass participation event companies in the world and Event Crowd contributor said:
“I loved doing this. It’s a superb initiative from Event Crowd; helping people get into an amazingly rewarding and enjoyable industry that going to survive any future changes to modern living. People will always love an event experience. Fact.”

Phil Hayes, CEO, Eventree and Ticketsellers, two well-respected event operations brands and Event Crowd distributor said:
“We like this course so much we’ve enrolled every client-facing member of our team onto it. We think it represents outstanding value as a way for people to enter the industry and we want our client success managers to be qualified in the science (and dark arts) of event management. At the end of the course they will understand our clients’ needs on a deeper level and be better placed to help them resolve any issues they may face, whether related to ticketing or not.”

The Event Crowd event management Diploma is an accessible digital course that can be taken over three months or one year that teaches how events work from start to finish, with access to the main people in the events industry in the UK and around the world. The online course covers six core modules including event fundamentals, industry spotlights, planning, delivery, marketing and operations. The course costs £2995. Visit www.eventcrowd.com for more details.