Henley Festival helps young people break into creative industries

A festival in Oxfordshire is providing hands-on work experience to young people and emerging talent to help them break into the creative industries through it’s charitable programme.

Henley Festival comes to a close today and is billed at the UK’s only black-tie music and arts festival.

RISE is Henley Festival’s charitable programme which helps provide opportunities for emerging talent to learn, perform and flourish in the creative industries.

The programme was created to champion up-and-coming creatives in visual arts, music and backstage.

Now in its fourth year, RISE supports talented musicians and provides paid hands-on work experience.

CEO of Henley Festival, Jo Bausor said: “I think that we've noticed, especially since the pandemic, that opportunities for young people to break into the industry has just fallen away.

“So many grassroots music venues have closed down. There just isn’t the opportunities that there were.

“Of course there are still these talented creative people that just need an outlet. They need to show the world their work and their music. So, it's at the beating heart of everything we do at Henley.”

She added: “We've had a couple of girls doing our sound placement. One of those was offered a full-time job when she finished her studies, which is for her life changing. There's no two ways about it. Her career will be made.

“It's proper experience - it's not just pushing things around and making cups of tea.”