Working to the beat

The inside story on sampling the music business from Blastbeat participants.

Blastbeat is a music and multimedia business project that Transition year students across Ireland take part in every year. Young people organise themselves into music & multimedia companies (MMCs). The companies then produce a Battle of the Bands concert in order to identify the best musical talent in their areas. There are then two national competitions, an enterprise competition for the MMCs and a Battle of the Bands for the musicians.

SpunOut.ie youth writer, Claire Finnegan interviewed Breakout Beats, 12 Transition Year students from St. Josephs College Lucan, Dublin, who have taken part in this year’s Blastbeat event.

Claire: Can you tell me a little about Blastbeat and your roles in the project?

Breakout Beats: ‘We’re not just a company we’re a family’ laughs the group of 12 girls. This has become their company slogan.

Ash: Blastbeat is music competition in which Transition year students get to develop their own music mini company. Everyone in the group gets different roles like sales and marketing manager, finance managers, event managers, I.T. managers, journalist, etc. There are loads of different jobs to do. My role was to oversee everything that was happening, I had to tell people what to do and I was in contact with our mentor. I even had to give out to people if they weren’t doing their job.

Niamh: I was in charge of sales and marketing. It was a fun job! I defo recommend anyone doing this project in the future to fight for this role! I was in charge of ticket sales and advertising and getting the whole event out there.

Jen: Everyone did their jobs and pulled their weight and we all got involved in each other’s groups but in a good way, we were helping each other out not just being nosy auld ones!! We really learned to work as a team and we’ve become really good friends.

Claire: What were the main advantages of participating in the project?

Ash: The best part had to be the day when we had our own Blastbeat music gig, we were going from 9.30am and we ran around so much that day. It was ridiculous to work that hard in the ‘doss year’ but I loved every minute of it and it was totally worth it.

Niamh: The day was ‘AMAZING’.

Michelle: We made €1300, gave some to charity and kept the rest to finance future events of the company. We learned some lessons; we regretted not waiting until the project was over to give away our money as we were strapped for cash!

Jen: It’s a tough lesson when your friends are hitting the town on Friday night and Pat Kenny is keeping you company at home! To make up for the Friday night in, we held a quiz for first years in our school, which was a great success. We used the money we raised to buy things for our Blastbeat presentation, which is coming up soon.

Claire: What advice would you give to anyone thinking of doing Blastbeat?

Ash: It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. Now I know I defiantly want to pursue music management after school.

Niamh: DO IT!!!!

Claire: The girls have their Blastbeat presentation on May 19th in Dublin’s Tripod,  where the Blastbeat finals are taking place. The Blastbeat winning band will win a record contract. I’m hoping to catch up with all the potential winners at the finals so watch this space!

Find out more at www.blastbeat.org.

Interview by Claire Finnegan