Employability, Enterprise, and Entrepreneurship: Solving Wicked Problems : Enabling authentic community-facing employability opportunities in a pandemic? Host a music festival!

Immersed! is a unique music festival curated by creative industries students at the University of South Wales, working in liaison with the local community in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust and, during the pandemic, the #saveourvenues campaign. It is also core to the learning and assessment of credit bearing curricula in the Schools of Production, Performance and Design for level 5 and 6 students. Immersed! has been running for three years and involves intensive collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including cross-subject disciplines, music fans, commercial venues, charities, professional bodies, booking agents, artists, communities, policymakers and technicians.

In 2021, the project was faced with a wicked problem aligned with that facing the music industry: can we adapt our successful festival brand to engage a range of stakeholders and audiences with a digital concept during a pandemic and meet the learning requirements of the module? Instilling a sense of ‘liveness’ and ‘social’ using technology was the crux of the challenge, along with ensuring students accessed an authentic and inclusive learning experience.

“This  collection of case studies  represents  the  culmination  of  a series  of  discussions in uncertain times – in an unprecedented environment.  Regardless of specialism or discipline,  we have all had to deal with unexpected contexts such as remote learning, remote assessment and remote feedback to our students. What we previously took for granted can no longer be relied upon, and what we previously valued in student outcomes is once again being questioned  " (Norton 2022).