The Herts graduates with leading roles at Glastonbury Festival

Music students from the University of Hertfordshire are taking leading roles at Glastonbury Festival just months after finishing their studies - and in one case before they’ve even graduated.

During their time at Herts, Lucy Norris and Darius Montague spent their evenings working in their university nightclub, The Forum, putting skills in sound engineering and lighting from their courses to use.

This weekend, they’ll each be leading a stage at the biggest festival in the UK.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” said Lucy, who will be graduating in BSc (hons) Audio Recording and Production this September. “It’s my first time working at a major festival and once the week kicks off, I’ll be the person responsible for my stage.”

Lucy’s course is highly technical and gave her hands-on tuition in the University’s professional-quality facilities. Like all music students at Herts, she was also given the chance to take other classes outside her specialism, quickly discovering her abilities behind the lighting desk.

She gained further experience as Tech Team Leader at The Forum, doing lights, sound and video engineering, and leading a team of students working at the venue during her second and third year. She was then offered work with the production company WaveCo, through contacts she made at the University.

At Glastonbury, she will be the lighting lead at Scissors, a new stage featuring predominantly LGBTQ+ acts including HE.SHE.THEY., as well as bands like Porij and even a Q&A with Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Lucy said: “I’d say to anyone looking to get involved in production and live events, it’s all about nerding out on tech! Be social and talk to people, work hard and get involved in anything you can. That’s how you make connections.”

Lucy says she’ll be tasked with setting up lighting rigs designed by her colleague Darius. Once the acts start on Thursday evening, she will be in charge of programming and operating the rigs, and solving any problems if they occur.

Darius is himself also a Herts graduate, having completed his music degree in 2022. He worked his first Glastonbury the summer after he graduated, lighting a small dance music stage called the Rabbit Hole.

After working at other major festivals like Secret Garden Party and We Are FSTVL, as well as a stint at the exclusive Mayfair private members club Annabel’s, he’s returning this year to design a brand-new rig for the Avalon stage. One of Glastonbury’s biggest stages, the 2024 line-up includes Kate Nash, Frank Turner and The Feeling – and in the past has seen the likes of The Specials, McFly and Mel C.

Like Lucy, Darius also took lighting classes outside of his Audio Engineering and Production degree and engineered at The Forum as a student.

He said: “The hands-on experiences at the University definitely helped. The University’s facilities were also really important, as they allowed me to hone my craft in a real-life setting. If they hadn’t been built, I probably wouldn’t have had the same career.”

Viktorija Sevelkaityte, Programme Leader for Undergraduate Music and Sound Technology at the University of Hertfordshire, said:

“The success of our graduates shows that the skills they gain studying at Herts can be used at the highest level. The experiences they have here, and the people they meet, set them up for extremely exciting careers in music, events, engineering and across the creative industries. Best of luck to Lucy, Darius and all our graduates at Glastonbury this weekend.”

The music programme at the University offers an exciting range of five interrelated courses. These include music and sound for computer games, songwriting, music production, audio engineering and live sound, lighting and new and emerging performance technologies. While students choose one specialism, all music undergraduates are offered the chance to take classes from the other courses, for wholistic training across different areas and subjects.

The programme has been developed with an understanding of demands and expectations placed on professions within the creative and entertainment industries, and how these overlap and interconnect. Because of this, graduates are ideally positioned for work as creative technologists or technologically savvy creatives.

Herts’ facilities include two recording studios, a surround sound suite and multiple acoustically treated production suites, as well as two performance spaces complete with top of the range audio and lighting equipment, allowing students to work on their designs in real-life settings.

Find out more information about music courses at the University of Hertfordshire online.