At White Light, we have a long-standing tradition of sharing our skills and knowledge with the public – from holding discussions with industry professionals at international conferences to visiting educational organisations and speaking to students to even running workshops on-site with our clients. Back in 2015, we launched Studio15 which is a cutting-edge studio facility which features a 120m2 dedicated rehearsal and demonstration space, equipped with the very latest technology . Due to the Studio’s unique facilities, we saw the unique opportunity to also utilise it as an educational hub. Following many years working with a large variety of London venues that enabled us to learn first-handed how we could support them in their day-to-day work, we invited them along to Studio15 to give an insight into the technical work we do alongside offering them the unique opportunity of working with musician Bryan Edery.
The sessions take place throughout the year and are tailored to an individual venue’s needs. WL’s Business Development Manager Alicia Earls comments: “We put his program together as a result of long-term work with our partner venues. We’re in the fortunate position of having an incredible facility such as Studio15 and we wanted to share this with our client and ensure that they learned something as well as enjoyed the experience of discovering more about the technical side to the events industry”.
The sessions typically begin by the teams being divided into smaller groups and joining different WL staff members for a variety of hands-on tasks, introducing them to the equipment that is widely used in the event industry. The WL representative will then cover the main dos and don’ts when using event tech and let the participants take centre stage by using actual equipment and trying out everything they’ve learned.
For the second part of the day, WL teamed up with musician Bryan Edery for his unique Team Song workshop. Pianist by trade, Bryan has a strong entrepreneurial streak, which made him notice an opportunity to merge creative and corporate worlds to create his trademark concept. Working with Bryan, the teams are challenged to work as a team in order to write a song that reflects the core message of their company. They are given a time limit of one hour to re-write the lyrics to a well known pop song and rehearse their performance as a group.
Bryan explains: “Companies are embracing the opportunity of breaking away from the confines of a traditional team-building day to go for something a little bit different. The phenomenon of TV programmes like The Choir and have helped people recognise how much fun it is to create and perform music. The physiological effects of simply singing, smiling, laughing, waving your arms in the air and moving about are profound. Doing all of this in an environment with your colleagues, where there’s a little bit of pressure to produce something of high quality, and speak the truth and summarise your message in a limited timeframe fuses everything into a transformative, exhilarating experience. As participants tell me in the feedback sessions, creating something from nothing, using deep-down intrinsic skills that people assume they just don’t have creates surprise and a sense of achievement. The look on everyone’s faces afterwards tells it all. Session times vary from one hour to a half day, up to a full day – depending on what the company’s objectives are and what they want to achieve.”
The day culminates with the teams being lead to the main space where a concert set up is waiting for them to perform their song, giving them the opportunity to step inside the shoes of their client and experience the stage fright. As a result, the day means they are able to experience all viewpoints of those involved in one of their events.
To find out more about Bryan Edery and Team Song, visit www.bryanederymusic.com