Few brands do as much to work with cutting-edge music than Red Bull. Their Culture Manager Dan Walsh talks us through what the job really takes
Your name
Dan Walsh.
Job title
Red Bull Culture Manager.
Where do you work?
I mainly work in our London HQ, but also spend quite a bit of time traveling around the UK, working at various festivals, and the world researching for my international festival advisory role.
What does your daily job involve?
Official hours are 9am-5:30pm but they do not generally apply to my job as a lot of the time I work in the evenings and weekends. When an event is on you can be working from 7am through to as late as 4am the following morning, or if I’m out at a festival I will be working solidly for the whole weekend. When I am in the office my day will consist of various meetings with artists, event owners and the various creative agencies we work with to plan the events we create and work on the festival partnerships we have. If I’m on site at an event my job will be to ensure that the production we have organised goes according to plan – that the event space looks right, that the artists we have booked are happy and the audience have the best time they can have.
What did you study?
Archaeology & Anthropology at Oxford University.
What was your first job?
My first job out of uni was temping in Toxteth Probation Office to get money together to finance a band I was in back in Liverpool. When I moved to London I did a lot of temp work for various record labels and event companies just to get my foot in the door. I finally managed to secure a permanent job with a company called Big Fish Events that did (and still does) the sponsorship for V Festival and a number of other large events, I learned a lot whilst I was there and it equipped with a lot of contacts that I still work with today.
What do you wish you had known before you started?
How important it is to do work experience, I had no financial security so had to move down to London and learn the hard way, doing a lot of temp jobs to fund my way through things. I also wish I had made more contact with people in the industry during my college and uni days as that would have given me a head start.
What has been your most memorable achievement to date?
Transforming Red Bull Bedroom Jam into the program it is today and seeing the faces of the bands that the program has helped when they are fulfilling their dreams on the stages of some of the UK’s biggest festivals. Working on Red Bull Music Academy in 2010 was pretty amazing as well – 30 events in 30 days was no small feat!
What tips would you give anyone wishing to get into your area of the creative industries?
Be prepared to work very hard, people expect a lot from you as they have been there themselves – there are long hours and a lot of stress but you need to be able to take all this on the chin and get stuck in with a smile on your face. Be prepared to learn and be prepared to listen to those with more experience than you. Show an interest on the scene around you and keep abreast of the latest developments of whatever area of the business you’re working in… and finally the best tip I was ever given by my old boss, if you’re out partying with the boys (or girls) in the evening, be prepared to act like a man (or woman) in the morning!
Who or what inspires you?
Creative individuals inspire me – those with new fresh ideas that make me think ‘how the hell did you come up with that’. Those that stick to their principles and stand up for a strong cause also inspire me and finally those who aren’t afraid to work hard for the collective good, I love the feeling of everyone mucking in together to get a job done.
For more information please see Red Bull and Red Bull Bedroom Jam.