An interview with Warwick graduate Pauline Lord

When most people think of festivals, they think of partying, drinking and loud music. But Also Festival – which takes place in Warwickshire in July every year – has recently been named by The Guardian as one of the Top Five festivals ‘for the mind’. And a Warwick graduate, Pauline Lord, is the operational brains of the operation.

Lord tells me that the Also team like to describe the festival as “TedTalks in a field”. But don’t be fooled into thinking that you can sit around lazily in the sun, sipping a pint while casually listening to a speaker. Lord explains: “What we really want to do is challenge our audience – it’s not a passive experience. Of course, you can come along and just have a good time but we like for people to get involved, whether that’s in a workshop or asking a question in a talk. We want to really engage and interest people, and encourage them to look at topics in a different way.”

What we really want to do is challenge our audience – it’s not a passive experience

Pauline Lord

Lord observes the benefits of Also’s size: “Since it’s quite a small festival [about 1000 attendees] we can make it very curated, so if you go to a workshop it’s small numbers and you can really get into the discussion. You’ll see the speakers walking around the festival, and you can ask them questions in the bar. We run follow up talks as well called Double Talks, which is a more informative, informal follow-up session. We like to say: it’s not just a festival, it’s ‘Also’.”

This idea of deeply engaging the audience is at the heart of the festival, and exactly what is helping it to grow. Lord says: “We’re in our sixth year now so we’re starting to build a reputation among speakers.” She explains that the speakers feel encouraged by how interested the audiences are: “The people that come along do want to learn, to get involved. That creates a lovely relationship between the speakers and the audience. It’s a very competitive field, so attracting people is always a bit challenging. But it feels like we know our audience now and our audience knows us.”

Lord explains that a lot of the skills she uses now in her work for Also were first learned from her time on the exec of a society at Warwick, from where she graduated in 2001. “The main thing I did at Warwick was Revelation, which was the rock gospel choir. It was fantastic really, because it was a society that was run at several universities around the country, so there used to be one weekend in the year where we all got together for a week away and put on a concert at the end of it. I really enjoyed that side and I think that’s where I first got into organising events, which has helped shape a lot of what I’ve done in my career since leaving.

Lord explains that a lot of the skills she uses now in her work for Also were first learned from her time on the exec of a society at Warwick

“I was part of the committee in my third year and was in charge of running the events for the choir. I also helped with the concerts for this week away with all the other universities. That was my first taste of organising big groups of people. We did a major concert in the Arts Centre in my third year which was a brilliant opportunity of working with a professional space, which again is such a great thing that Warwick has to offer.”

However, things weren’t as easy after graduating. “I flitted between a few jobs for the first few years and didn’t really get settled properly”. That was until she found her first ‘proper’ job with AKT Productions, which specialised in using theatre techniques for corporate training. “That felt like the first time I was using my interests and my degree in a corporate setting. The company specialised in behavioural health and safety courses, so it was using actors to get people engaged, to really think about the kind of work they were doing and the impact it could have. That’s where I really got to grips with my organisational skills inside an arts context.”

I flitted between a few jobs for the first few years and didn’t really get settled properly

Pauline Lord

But Lord still didn’t feel completely fulfilled in her work with AKT: “I think because it was in a corporate setting I was always looking for something a bit more creative outside of that – I was doing Also Festival for quite a while alongside it.”

Lord left AKT last year to go on tour with her husband, and after having her first child decided to make her work at the Also festival her main job. “My role mainly is operational, so I do a lot of the logistics and planning, the artist liaisons and the volunteer side of things. We have a team of people who do the creative bookings and I come in to support that to make sure that what has been brought into the festival will fit or we’ve got it in the right place at the right time, and how it all joins together. So I work alongside all the different aspects of the team to make sure it ties together nicely.”

You might assume that Also is an arts festival, but Lord makes it clear that it is much more than that. “The people who originally started the festival run an event called Salon London [a talks series], which has been running for about 12 years. They pick a big question, then have it debated by people from an arts background, a science background and a psychology background.”

Our two big questions this year are our relationship with tech and our relationship with nature, and how they can interact with each other

Pauline Lord

The topics they’re focusing on this year are pertinent to issues affecting everyone in the current day. “Our two big questions this year are our relationship with tech and our relationship with nature, and how they can interact with each other. We have someone running a talk on digital etiquette, which should be quite interesting. We’ve got computer scientists and tech experts coming along. And the nature question as well: how we act in the world and our relationship with nature.” As headlines about climate change and data protection continue to flood our news feed, these strike me as the sort of questions that will, as the festival aims to do, engage everyone.

As exciting as the festival sounds, £100 for a weekend is probably more than most students are willing to spend. But Lord explains that they offer fantastic opportunities for volunteers: “We have two types of volunteer: you can be a full-volunteer (we ask for three shifts and that gives you full-access to the festival for free) or we run a £50 ticket, which has been really successful because it means you get a cheap ticket for the festival and in exchange for that you just do one six-hour shift. People do seem to really enjoy that, because you get the best of both worlds.”

It seems to me that Also is a great way to spend a weekend this summer, especially given that as a volunteer you can go for free – and we all know there’s nothing students like more than free stuff.

If you’re interested in volunteering at Also, you can find more information here.