The Rundown
Topics: Apprenticeships, Careers | Published: January 2023 | 4 min read
Jumping into the world of work feet first. Earning while you learn. Getting hands-on experience. These are the lines everyone hears when leaving school or applying for an apprenticeship.
They are all true, and none of them tell you what to actually expect. Which is why the first day of a creative apprenticeship can feel genuinely daunting.
Live events looks like a large hill to climb from the outside. There is a lot of equipment, a lot of terminology, and a lot of people who appear to know exactly what they are doing.
Here is what the first year is really like, and four things worth knowing before you start.
Learning by Doing
Everyone Starts Somewhere
Starting a new job in a new industry can feel overwhelming, particularly in live events. It is worth remembering that everyone in the room started in the same position.
The Best Way to Learn
By doing the thing.
Much of the work happens on site, building events, and there is a great deal you can get involved in without yet knowing the equipment in detail.
Carrying, coiling, rigging, packing, watching. None of it requires expertise, all of it teaches you where things go and why.
Over time you pick up knowledge from the people around you and from your own experience, and confidence with high-end professional kit builds naturally from there.
Get Comfortable Not Knowing
Learn to be comfortable with not knowing everything - whether that is a procedure or a particular piece of equipment.
You are new. There is a lot to learn. As long as you are keen and engaged, your knowledge will build steadily.
Never Hide It
If you do not know something, say so.
Two reasons. Pretending can be genuinely unsafe around heavy equipment and electricity. And admitting it means you get shown properly, so you know it next time.
Confidence and Questions
Be Confident With People
Confidence with the people around you is a real skill, and it stops you thinking of yourself as just the apprentice.
It gives you the standing to contribute in meetings and during preparation and build.
Why It Matters Operationally
Live events change at short notice, on site and off it.
Knowing your own strengths and being able to say so lets a project manager allocate their team properly. Staying quiet about what you can do makes their job harder.
Use Your Managers
Your manager is one of your most valuable resources. They are a manager for a reason, and they carry a great deal of knowledge.
It may take a few weeks to settle in and build a constructive relationship. Once you have, you have consistent access to someone who has been doing this for years.
Ask
No question is a stupid question.
It is easy to feel you are asking too much and becoming a nuisance. But there is no other route to learning.
Two things help: make questions useful rather than idle, and pick your moment. Halfway through a busy load-in is not it.
Reflecting and Progressing
Reflect on What You Learn
Whether on a formal apprenticeship or in a trainee role, you will learn an enormous amount across a year or two.
Some of that comes through lessons or structured training. Much of it comes from the technicians working alongside you.
Ten Minutes Is Enough
Once you have been shown a skill or a piece of equipment, sit down afterwards and reflect on it.
Not for everything - but a quick read back over your notes after a session pays off considerably later, when you are setting that equipment up yourself or writing content about it.
It feels difficult when there are jobs stacking up. It takes ten minutes and it makes you meaningfully faster in future.
Keep Notes at All
Worth saying plainly: write things down.
Cable types, patch conventions, how a particular desk is laid out, the order a rig comes down in. You will not remember it, and the notes become genuinely valuable within months.
What It Leads To
An apprenticeship in live events puts you in contact with every discipline at once - technical, creative, production and client-facing.
Very few routes into the industry give you that breadth that early, and it is what makes the first year worth the discomfort.
Interested?
Premier Live takes on placements and apprenticeships. If you would like to be considered, get in touch on 0116 202 9953 or info@premier-ltd.com.
Tell us about your event.
Fill in the form and we'll come back to you quickly, not with a generic auto-reply, but with something useful.
Prefer a call? Book a 20-minute discovery call at a time that suits you.
Rather email? info@premier-ltd.com. Or just ring us: 0116 202 9953.
Once we hear from you, we'll set up a quick call to understand your brief properly, no lengthy questionnaires, no sales pitch.
We typically respond within two hours on working days.
EXPERIENCED. DEPENDABLE. HANDS-ON. UNFLAPPABLE
The people behind the production.
These are our people - the production managers, technicians, show-callers and crew who plan your event and run the room on the night. The same team from first site visit to final cue.
What We've Been Up To.
A look at the events we've delivered, the brief, the build, and how it ran on the night. Worth a read.
