Mackenzie Coberley

Major: Event Management
Company/Organization: First Fleet
Company/Organization website: https://www.firstfleetconcerts.com/
Destination: Des Moines
Timeframe: Summer
Advisor/Coordinator Email: rmcclain@iastate.edu

Responsibilities

Some skills to have been gained during this internship were organization, communication, and practicing patience. This environment can be extremely stressful at times. With having to post on numerous platforms and making sure the other social media platforms are staying updated. If you want to gain more skills in the music industry, I would say this is the internship to go for. The more you push yourself through this internship, the more tasks that you will be given and the more responsibility you will be given. It is a fast-paced environment at times, so your organization needs to be on point. Writing everything down really helped for me, and you get out what you put into this relationship. You are given opportunities to make connections, but you certainly do not have to pursue those connections. Your communications skills are more involved with keeping up with your emails and replying when needed. Patience is also key for communication because your supervisor will be overwhelmed with a lot and will ask you to do things for him extremely last minute, and that takes patience to be able to breathe and take a step back to just complete the tasks at hand and finish what he needs you to do.

Accomplishments

Going into this internship I had the background of being on the Student Union Board and the terms and requirements for promoting shows, so I had a decent background knowledge going into this. When I started working for First Fleet, I had to really gain knowledge on learning marketing websites such as Hootsuite (post scheduling website) and be creative when posting about shows sometimes four times a day. This internship pushes you to think outside the box and pitch new ideas to the supervisors about contests and giveaways. You also get the opportunity to work in a music festival setting where you constantly having to update social medias, post about things going on during the festivals.

What advice would you give?

Overall, I have really enjoyed my internship at First Fleet Concerts. Even though you don’t have too much hands on with management companies, you do get to sit in on numerous conversations and email chains, which gives you exposure as is. You also get other opportunities to grow your skills with first dibs on show photography and tickets to all Wooly’s shows. You can gain experience and skills in numerous areas of their business with some paid opportunities along the way. You get paid for all of your festival work and you can possibly work at Wooly’s during their shows.

Career Connections