A media student has landed a national representative role with the Student Radio Association (SRA) after his impressive work leading live events at the association’s 2017 conference.
Dan Wildman, a Media Production BSc (Hons) final year student at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has been appointed Deputy Events Officer for the association after putting his name into the hat for the lucrative role.
The community radio station Demon FM, just one strand of De Montfort Students’ Union’s (DSU) student-led media group Demon Media, hosted the annual Student Radio Conference for the second time in five years last month.
The conference welcomed household names from the radio industry, inspiring students to make their career aspirations become reality. Names included Radio 1’s Greg James, Radio 1Xtra’s Mistajam, LBC’s James O’Brien and many more.
And, as the current Head of Live Events for Demon Media, Dan played a key role in the production of the conference’s flagship events, Demo Factor and the I Love Student Radio Awards.
Speaking about his appointment, Dan said: “Honesty I was shocked. I put in an application because I was really interested in what the job had to offer, but I never through I’d get it.
“I’m over the moon that I did though and I can’t wait to get stuck in.”
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But, what will Dan be doing in his new role with the national student radio governing body?
He said: “As Deputy Events Officer, a lot of my job will be working alongside and sharing some of the responsibilities of the Events Officer.
“I’ll also be taking ownership and providing support for some areas of events such as the Student Radio Awards and the 2018 Student Radio Conference.
“Lastly I’ll be working alongside the Regional Officers to help them set up and run local student radio events around the country.”
Organising the conference at DMU took a lot of hard work from members of the Demon team as well as support from the university and the SRA too.
Demon FM wanted to pull out all the stocks this year and that’s exactly what they did with their production of both Demo Factor and the I Love Student Radio Awards.
Speaking about his involvement with these events, Dan said: “In my role as Head of Live Events, I worked as part of a team which included Station Manager Hannah Rowe and Head of Programming Ollie McGrath.
“Alongside them, I shared the responsibility of selecting members of the Demon Media team to volunteer throughout the conference on various projects.
“During the conference itself, I worked as the VT operator as well as managing the centre screen vision mixer and camera operator for the I Love Student Radio Awards and Demo Factor respectively.”
All these technical aspects which contributed to their professional output, will not only boost the reputation of Demon Media, but develop Dan and his colleague’s employability, putting core course skills in practice.
On reflection, Dan said: “It was an incredible experience for me to be involved and it is certainly one of the most fun events that I’ve worked on.
“Being part of such a massive production is something that I’ve learned so much from.”
Set up for both live events in The Venue@DMU took over a week before the conference even started allowing time for rehearsal. Dan said: “By the time the conference came around, we knew the production like the back of our hands.”
What does the future hold? “I’m taking it one step at a time for now, but I think I’ve definitely found my place in live events.
“Fingers crossed that my time as Head of Live Events for Demon Media and my upcoming time at Deputy Events Officer for the Student Radio Association will get me to where I want to be.”
Posted on Wednesday 3 May 2017