Networking - Volunteering at Manchester Animation Festival

This week I spent time as a Guest Liason volunteer at Manchester Animation Festival. This is my third year attending the festival, but the first year I've spent as a volunteer rather than a delegate, so it was really interesting and insightful to see what kind of work goes on behind the scenes to help the festival run smoothly.

As a Guest Liason, I had a unique opportunity in that I had an excuse to be speaking to the guests, including professionals in my specialism. In particular, I struck up interesting conversations with Laura Vincent from Yamination and Paul "Gripper" Flannery from Gadzooks Animation. I also got to speak with Peter Lord and David Sproxton, which was a bit of an out-of-body experience as they are so iconic. I was also able to chat with Barry Purves, alongside other industry professionals. It really helped my understanding of how small an industry it is, and I am hugely grateful to Steve Henderson for introducing me to certain people.

I found the few days quite stressful when it was busy, and a little dull when it was quiet. That being said, I was so grateful for the opportunity, and it would be unrealistic to expect it to be engaging 100% of the time. In the quieter moments I found opportunities to talk to the other volunteers and gain an insight into their lives and practices, which was interesting as I'm mostly used to talking to LAU students as a point of reference for other animators/creatives my age.

I would love to do this again next year, as I found it much more involved and personal than just attending as a delegate, though I did miss seeing as many films as the last couple of years.