STUDENTS from All Saints’ RC School in York are putting on a Battle Of The Bands as part of an enterprise project to give young people a foot in the door of the music industry.
The event, which will take place on May 26 at The Duchess, will be headlined by Kwamz, a Leeds-based 17-year-old artist, already managed by Blastbeat, who will be promoting his new single, Drifting Away.
Then local bands The Paper Tigers, The Likely Lads, Hot Fudge, At First Light and The LittleMores will vie for the attentions of a panel of industry professionals, which will choose the winning bands to go to semi finals, where they could win the chance to perform in front of 13,000 people at the O2 Arena in London in the grand final.
The overall winner will receive a development deal with Blastbeat International.
The event is being organised by a team of five students, aged 16 to 17, who have set up a music and multimedia company (MMC) called Trafik Jam as part of the Blastbeat programme, which teaches young people business skills at the same time as promoting young musicians.
The team are given different roles in the MMC, such as sales and marketing manager, finance manager and talent scout to organise the event.
They also compete nationally against other MMCs in the Blastbeat programme, being assessed against the enterprise tasks they manage to complete.
The overall winner will be awarded £2,000 in seed capital and £1,000 for their school.
Tickets cost £5 in advance from trafik-jam@hotmail.co.uk or by phoning 07725305136, or £7 on the door.
Mbawemi Mphande, one of the organisers, said: “It gives us experience and a heads up into what it’s like in the music industry, and we hope to hold frequent events if it’s successful.”
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