Our year as Turner Sims interns: A professional experience we can never forget

Cerys Beesley and Louisa Healey were the inaugural interns at Turner Sims from January 2014 to January 2015. They’ve provided a fascinating account of what they got up to during their year at the venue:

Why did you apply for the internship scheme?

CB: Turner Sims has been a venue that for years, students could use, appreciate, volunteer and even work for, but until the Turner Sims internship was offered to the selected few, I then realised that there was a lot more to this prestigious venue than originally met the eye. Having already volunteered in Turner Sims as an usher for the evening concerts, I applied for the chance to get more involved in this wonderful and professional venue, and gain some more experience in the world of arts venues and management.

LH: I thought it sounded like a career I would be interested in learning more about. I’ve always been interested in writing and editing and this was a job that linked directly to my degree that also offered some marketing experience so it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me. Turner Sims has such a good reputation amongst arts venues worldwide so it was fantastic to be accepted onto their internship scheme.

What were you hoping to get from the internship, and how does that fit into your ambitions or future career plans?

CB: I think as both of us are doing a music related degree there are some people who expect us to be a performer or a teacher after graduating. Not being inclined to pursue a career in either of these fields, we wanted to find a different path. With a humanities degree, there are many career options that are open to us and by gaining experience at Turner Sims we have been guided towards a potential career in the arts world. The internship has shown us how varied the arts world is, and that every path is very worthwhile in pursuing.

LH: I was hoping to gain some experience in some new areas such as marketing and improve my editing skills. This internship piqued my interest in a career in arts management and has opened my eyes to the many different options available and I now hope to pursue a job in this field following my graduation. I definitely think that the internship will help me in this path as I now have a year worth of valuable experience at an arts venue, which will be really helpful when applying for jobs.

What kinds of activities did you do during the internship? What were the main challenges or difficulties and how did you overcome them? What were some of the highlights that you experienced as Turner Sims interns?

CB & LH: In the main, we collated, produced and edited the professional classical programmes for the venue. The number of programmes varied per week according to the Turner Sims schedule, so sometimes we would have a few to be doing at the same time which required really good time management.

By spending time in the offices of Turner Sims, we worked closely alongside the staff and we got a very good idea of their day to day activities and what tasks they have to complete to manage the marketing, publicity and management of Turner Sims.

We were treated as staff members rather than just interns and our opinions were considered when the manager and other staff were making important decisions about the venue, which was really great as we felt really integrated and welcome within the team.

What new skills did you learn over the course of your internship?  What knowledge do you have now that you didn’t have before your time at Turner Sims?

CB: I think for both of us our proof reading skills have improved; we have also become a bit neurotic about it, which hopefully will bode well for us completing our dissertations and for our future careers. I have to honestly say that my computer skills have improved a lot.  Working with Louisa showed me how much one could actually do on a computer and I am glad that I can now confidently put on my CV that I am computer literate.

LH: Co-ordinating between different people to produce the programmes, such as agents, the performers themselves and also programme note authors could be challenging, as we often didn’t receive all the information at the same time. Politely chasing people for the information we required by email is definitely a new skill we both learned!

What advice would you give to future Turner Sims interns? The advice I think we would both give to future interns is try and get involved in as many different facets of the business as possible as you can gain so many different skills in this internship. You should really throw yourself into it and appreciate what you have; not many other students would get to experience this kind of opportunity of working in a reputable arts venue. Overall it is such an excellent opportunity, that if you don’t embrace everything that it throws at you, you will miss out learning all you can from Turner Sims.