Graduate scheme
Kudos AV Graduate Scheme
Live events are about the most fun you can have with a risk assessment in your back pocket. This is the way in: learn the whole craft on real shows, then pick the bit you love.
Nobody grows up planning to be an event technician. Most people fall into it, usually after helping out at something and noticing that the crew building the stage were having a better time than the audience watching it.
So we built a proper way in. You start with the same grounding everyone gets, then specialise into whichever of the five directions turns out to be yours. It is often not the one people expect when they apply. That happens a lot, and it is half the point.
Five directions, one starting line
Everyone starts the same way: in the warehouse and on site, learning how kit is prepped, loaded, built and struck. Once that is second nature, here is where you can take it. Tell us which one pulls at you, or admit you have absolutely no idea and we will show you all five. Both are good answers.
AV technician
Sound, lighting, video and LED: the kit that makes a room feel like something. Learn to prep it, rig it, patch it, program it and drive it, then run a department on your own show.
Where it goes: Technician, Senior Technician, Head of Department
Workshop and scenic
Our workshop, our tools, our sawdust. Turn a drawing into a set that goes up clean, looks right under the lights and survives being loaded into a truck at two in the morning.
Where it goes: Carpenter, Senior Carpenter, Workshop lead
Print and graphics
Large format print, signage and fully branded rooms. Colour that matches the brand guidelines exactly, finishing that survives a week on an exhibition floor, and the quiet joy of a perfectly applied vinyl.
Where it goes: Print technician, Print production
Technical design
Vectorworks, all day. Stage plans, rigging plots and 3D visuals. You draw it, the client falls for it, the crew builds precisely that. Few jobs give you that loop so quickly.
Where it goes: Draftsman, Technical Designer
Project support
The brain of the operation: quotes, kit lists, schedules, venue liaison. If you are the friend who ends up owning the group holiday spreadsheet, we have found your calling.
Where it goes: Project Support, Junior PM, Project Manager
Who it is for
- Graduates of live events, music technology, theatre production, design or media courses.
- People who caught the bug somewhere else already: student union crewing, theatre backstage, festival volunteering, a Saturday job with a saw in it.
- Anyone who can tell us why live production is the thing, whatever they studied. Enthusiasm you can point at beats a certificate.
- People with no idea which of the five is theirs. Genuinely fine. Most people do not know until they have tried a few.
How the year runs
- Grounding first: sound, lighting, video and LED, staging and rigging, scenic and print. A bit of everything before you commit to anything.
- Warehouse time throughout, because knowing the kit cold is what stops an awkward moment on site becoming a bad show.
- Real events early, next to people who have done hundreds. Extra pair of hands, then running elements, then owning them.
- Then your specialism, with placements weighted towards it once it is obvious where your strengths are.
What you get
- A named mentor who is on the hook for your development, not just your rota.
- The training and tickets the job needs, arranged and paid for by us.
- A full time, permanent job from day one. Not an internship, not expenses only, not exposure.
- A straight conversation at the end about where you go next here.
What we look for
- Reliability, above everything. This industry runs on people turning up when they said they would.
- Happy to do the unglamorous parts. Everyone here has pushed a cable trunk across a wet car park.
- Curiosity, and the confidence to ask rather than guess. Guessing is expensive.
- A clean driving licence helps, and can be worked towards if you do not have one yet.
Things you will learn that are on no syllabus
- How to coil a cable so the next person does not quietly curse your name.
- That gaffer tape and duct tape are not the same thing, and picking the wrong one is a personality test.
- The difference between a problem and a doors-in-five-minutes problem.
- Every decent coffee within walking distance of every venue in London.
- That if you have done your job properly, the audience never finds out what went wrong.
Applying
Send your CV and a few lines about what pulls you towards live production, plus anything practical you have done, paid or not. Pick a direction if you have one, or leave it open. We read every application and come back to you either way, and if the timing is off for an intake we will tell you when the next one opens.
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