Students from the ¾¢±¬´ó¹Ï have helped a Hampshire town step into Christmas.
Six First and Third-Year Event Management students gained valuable practical experience when they assisted with the running of ‘Christmas in Eastleigh’ which attracted 10,000 visitors to the town.
The festive celebration consisted of a Christmas market with more than 60 stalls, Santa's Grotto, fairground rides and street entertainers followed at 6pm by the lights switch-on performed by the Mayor and Cinderella from this year’s panto at the Point Theatre.
Other attractions included the Pannatical steel band, Centrestage youth theatre, a ukelele band, school choirs, a climbing wall and an indoor ‘cave’.
The whole day was event managed by Matt Bunday, a Senior Lecturer in Event Management at the ¾¢±¬´ó¹Ï who was working with a wider event management team from RSWSound LTD, on behalf of Eastleigh Borough Council, who worked closely with market providers Dream Empire Ltd and Eastleigh Business Improvement District (BID).
Students Sarah Evans, Maddy Wallis, Carmen Mitchell, Jessica Prince, Chelsey Osman and Ai Koike were involved in various roles throughout the day, including assisting Matt and other site managers to manage crowds, helping stall holders setup and coordinating the entertainment and responding to any problems.
Final Year student Sarah Evans, who had the crucial role of turning on the bandstand Christmas lights, said: “This was the most fun and rewarding event that I’ve worked on since starting university. It was great to be a part of a larger team and see all the different moving parts of an event.”
Fellow third year Jess Prince said: “I really enjoyed co-ordinating the entertainment for the event across the site. I got to work with a lot of the performers, musicians and entertainers as they made lots of children at the event very happy.”
Matt, who has been involved with organising events locally since 2012, has had Eastleigh Borough Council as a client since 2021.
He said: “During the day the students were able to meet industry professionals, see how crowd management worked and play a responsible and active role within a team.
“It was fantastic to see our students jump so enthusiastically into their tasks. This was ‘real world’ experience of a large and complicated event. By the end of the day everyone was cold and tired but felt they had achieved something that made a lot of people smile.”
Pictured top: Lecturer Matt Bunday (centre) with ¾¢±¬´ó¹Ï Events Management students* (from left) Sarah Evans, Maddy Wallis, Carmen Mitchell and Jessica Prince.
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