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On The Table Read, “the best creativity magazine in the UK“, learn about what opportunities are out there for graduates to find success with their entertainment industry talents.
The entertainment industry is evergreen, overcoming every challenge to keep growing and growing. The British entertainment is booming, with the film industry in particular booming – though iNews notes the lack of good quality crew. While there are countless opportunities, there are even more graduates vying for those positions. For students, the question is what path is best to finding success in entertainment – and what they need to do to get there.
The classic route
Before the digital age, entertainment acts got famous through touring. Visiting small events, whether that be private parties, gigs or dancehalls, was the way forward to success. Indeed, this is still a potent way to get found – and can also combine recreational life with work for students. The arts scene is alive and well in London, as are gigs taking place in pubs and bars.
The Musicians Union still provides full guidance on how touring happens, the rights of performers and acts, and how they can ensure a smooth run at the gig scene. As a result, there’s still a great way to get to the big time from simply going out and playing music to audiences.
Winning the show
In addition to the gig scene, there is the option of talent shows. While this somewhat takes away from the skills that students and graduates build in wider society, given the more open and even audience that they bring, talent shows nevertheless provide a fantastic way to get ahead.
While British shows pull in lesser audiences, there are huge opportunities across the pond – as US News highlights, the biggest TV shows in the USA still gather huge Nielsen ratings, and local talent shows and pageants are also supremely effective in promoting local talent and getting faces out into the big time. Students, who will typically have a greater sense of what’s required to get ahead in business, and what their rights are, are likely to have a better time in the rough-and-tumble of industry, too.
Heading to social media
There remains an undisputed king of getting found, however – social media. TikTok and Instagram take the perch in providing opportunities to talented individuals, and as Planet Radio highlights, some of them are absolutely huge.
Calvin Harris got his break from MySpace; The Weeknd on YouTube; and Halsey on Tumblr. These are legitimate routes to success and, really, must be combined with other ways of self-promotion. For instance, live gigs are best held with a social media presence to consume after, and many talent shows will insist on a certain level of social media interaction – a two-way street – during the production of their shows.
It’s still a hard world out there – but students stand to gain a lot, and especially online, where their naturally tech-savvy ways will help to navigate the social media world. Keeping at it is the key – for most artists, success won’t ever come in a day, and it can be a good while before the scale tips.
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