MWI Students Volunteer at Mississauga/Oakville Waterfront Fests

Metalworks Institute students volunteered their time over the weekend of June 19-21 at the Mississauga Waterfront Festival, and the weekend of June 26-28 at the Oakville Waterfront Festival.

MWI student Rudy D’Souza was part of the group of student volunteers who assisted with the staging of the events, with the Mississauga Festival taking place at Memorial Park in Port Credit, and the Oakville Fest staged at Oakville’s Coronation Park. D’Souza says that volunteering at the festivals provided he and his classmates with a great opportunity to apply the skills they learned in class at a real event. They also benefitted from working alongside true industry professionals, and meeting festival headliners like Sam Roberts and Bruce Cockburn.

That being said, volunteering at the festivals still involved plenty of hard work.

“It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. The hours were long, the work was tiring, and the weather was all over the place. It’s not easy, especially the load-in and load-out. It really takes a lot out of you. But it’s amazing how fast you learn when you do it first-hand.”

D’Souza said he was surprised at how friendly and informative the rest of the production crew was. Despite being as busy as they were, the crew took the time to explain how things work, why things are done in a certain way, and how things are done in a safe way.

With the festival experience under his belt, D’Souza says he’s now even more overwhelmed in determining where his future career aspirations lie. But perhaps lighting is the way to go?

“One of the things I found really exciting was learning about the lighting and how it was setup. The lighting tech really spent a lot of time, at both the MWF and OWF, explaining to us how the whole system works, and I then really enjoyed when I got the chance to fool around with the lighting at the Metalworks booth at OWF. But after these two weekends, I'm even more unsure of what I’d like to do when I finish school.”