Volunteering experience determined the choice of study

Among all the hundreds of officials who make the Kongsberg Jazz Festival possible each year, there are about the same number of different professional and study backgrounds represented. What most people have in common is that they tend to enjoy music above average, and have a generally good mood, which we dare to add based on unscientific observations. Throughout an intense festival week, it has been nothing but happy faces to look at all the hard-working officials.

Some of them enjoy the tasks so much that it has a direct impact on important path choices. Celina Stokes (21) is today the leader of the successful event Barnivalen. Her experience as a civil servant was decisive for her choice of study and career.

From Kongsbergjazz to Liverpool

Celina joined as a volunteer quite by accident. The previous Barnival manager is a good friend, who took her along to try out as a volunteer in the summer of 2011. Celina and festivals were a happy match. Most of it was true. When she was asked to take over responsibility for the entire Barnivalen from 2012, she took the chance and accepted. At about the same time, she was in the process of investigating various study opportunities. When she discovered studies in event management at Liverpool John Moores University, she just had to apply.

The art of improvisation

Celina has just returned from three exciting years in Liverpool where she was well schooled in all possible aspects of management and organization.
She is very satisfied with the school and the choice of study.

Something that occasionally struck her throughout her course of study was the distance between ideals and realities. - Along the way, I often thought that we learned what I would almost call ideal and perfect methods for event management, but the reality is often far more chaotic than what the textbooks manage to capture.

- We learned a lot of good protocols and project documents which are wonderful in theory. However, the pace during an implementation is
extremely loud. Sometimes you have to skip a few steps to get where you need to go on time.

It is important to have a solid methodology at the bottom, but becoming good at creating events is also a lot about practice and experience.
You learn to cope with unforeseen situations and become good at improvising. This of course varies from project to project, -
but I tend to call it organized chaos.
She made good use of the experience from Kongsbergjazz during her studies, and used examples from here a lot in her assignments.

Meaningful job

Positive feedback, and seeing that people appreciate what you make, is what Celina likes most about her job.
Being an organizer involves a huge amount of planning, and that part of the job often consists of meetings, telephone calls and long days in front of the PC.

When you come out and finally see the concrete result of all the planning - get all the tents and stages set up, and when it finally breaks loose -
people flock, have great experiences and are genuinely happy about what we have created for several days, then I get a really good feeling.
It makes good sense to be involved and create so much joy.

Text: Kjersti Sundland / Photo: Hans Christian Graaner and private/Karoline Stokes