Course summary

Are you interested in discovering and learning what it takes to put on a live music event? From large scale festivals and arena gigs to conferences, grass roots venues and concert halls, our Music and Live Events Management programme will show you the ins and outs of the business and prepare you for it all. Taught by established industry professionals and experienced academics, you’ll discover the roles and responsibilities associated with the management and operation of every aspect of the live music event industry and the economics, logistics and information flow that sustain it. With no two days the same in an events role, a Music and Live Events Management degree can give you the skills and experience to handle whatever comes your way. It can also help you gain a network of employers and colleagues who could help you take your career further. This course has a shared first year across multiple specialisms. After your first year, if you want to study a different specialism you can choose to change between: BA (Hons) Events Management and BA (Hons) Music and Live Events Management. Why study at Buckinghamshire New University? Our programme is delivered by established industry professionals with diverse backgrounds within the industry. Your teaching team includes a Mercury Music Prize winner, an award winning concert promoter, former record company executives, touring musicians, and digital & brand partnership specialists. As well as this you’ll benefit from guest lectures and workshops from visiting industry associates, which can introduce you to new and emerging issues across the sector. Our course combines theory and practical work, covering all the fundamental principles of event management, setting you up perfectly to enter this industry. You’ll learn key business skills such as PR and risk assessment as well as work on the real-life, real-time production of small, medium and large-scale events. From the beginning of your studies, you’ll collaborate with fellow students on other programmes, such as music or film courses, to bring events together. In the first year, you’ll learn about the basic structures of the various types of events, such as conferences, exhibitions, festivals, sport events and the entertainment and experience industry as whole; details of how events are planned and organised professionally and about marketing and promotion of various types of events. You’ll also study core management skills, the art of public relation (PR) and risk assessment knowledge. In second year, you’ll work on producing real events, and translating business ideas into practice. This year will foster and develop communication and interpersonal skills, and problem-solving in real time, pressurised situations. Your final year will be focused on an individual project, supported by modules that look at the strategic and long-term thinking that informs the industry. Opportunity modules are a key part of the BNU curriculum. You’ll choose modules in both your first and second year from a broad selection in areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, personal growth, civic engagement, health & wellbeing and employment. Opportunity modules are designed to enable you to develop outside the traditional boundaries of your discipline and help you to further stand out from the crowd to future employers. All our music degrees at Buckinghamshire New University come with membership of UK Music’s Music Academic Partnership (MAP), a ground-breaking collaboration between educational institutions and UK Music, and is designed to maximise the relationship between the industry and educational institutions in order to inform the next generation of industry professionals.