[Week 10] Whirlwind Week

2026 is moving quickly and I’m trying to get up to speed. I’ve received some exceptionally exciting news about awards and accolades forthcoming but will have to wait to share more on those. These reward based revelations were but a mere blip in my week of academic omnipotence as I managed to cover just the four continents with my meetings and conferences this week.

I’m trying to manage wordcount, so here’s diary style for you!

MONDAY

Straight to the STEAMhouse in Birmingham today so I could give the opening presentation at the BAFA (British Arts Festivals Association) conference. This year’s theme “resilient festivals” almost too perfectly aligned withing the ecosystem with wich my research is engaged, it was really nice to present BAFA with a free toolkit that will help their membership to audit, assess and improve the environmental profiles of their event. It was especially nice to present with the wonderful Ottila Ordog of Gobéfest, Manchester, with whom I have collaborated on the GECoP pilot through Manchester City Council for the past three years. Ottilia’s work has been especially impactful on my research efforts, aligning her event to progressive practice and using AGF certification to record and report CO2 emissions.

We discovered together that event organisers working within a behavioural analysis context could work to reduce their GHG emissions by up to 65% without anyone having to understand any of the numbers. This revelation has been the foundation to the paradigm shift in my own research (from empiricism to social constructivism) in how I can add new perspectives to the narrative and knowledge around sustainable events practice.

TUESDAY

I decided I hadn’t had enough of the M5 for one week so blasted past Birmingham until I got to the M56 and turned left. Thank goodness the end of the road led to Liverpool, because today was the day the DCMS came to visit. Newly minted Minister Ian Murray MP was in attendance for roundtable chats and inno-tech explorations, so it’s good to see the new minister in our backyard pretty much immediately to see what’s going down.

 I’ve already covered much of this in a Tik Tok post (yes, I’m a 45-year-old man with Tik Tok) so perhaps I’ll let a 47 second video tell 1.175 x 10⁶ words.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday started at pace with a GECoP project meeting (where I am still involved in the tail end of the initial pilot and subsequent implementation processes) where I found myself back in the digital room rather quickly with Music Futures Co-Director Mat Flynn talking about AHRC / UKRI bids that could fund onward regulatory testing for the project within the city. My conflict-of-interest node started flashing wildly at this point, but it appears my role in any application would be to write the thing, not benefit from any of the funding or subsequent practice-based interventions it might required. Hey ho – I guess that institutional directors will treat their PhD students the same way lectures treat their undergrads right? After the best part of 20 years in academia I guess the system is allowed to bite back once…

A really insightful meeting came in the form of a chat with Mauricio Lizarazo Prada from the Berlin based Music C A R E S – a fantastic organisation that takes a socio-environmental look at music and events practice. We had a great chat about doughnut economics, and I offered to take a look at his toolkits and website and provide some feedback, for which Mauricio was incredibly grateful. I didn’t tell him I had to do it as part of my PhD anyway but comforted myself in the knowledge that I would have offered to help regardless, such a lovely chap he was, doing the good things that he is.

The Music C A R E S website

THURSDAY

Today was a good day, and mainly because of one word: Southampton!

Two things happened:

1. The University of Southampton got it touch to say my abstract had been accepted for their study day in March – whoop!

2. I met with Southampton City Council to discuss my upcoming appearance at their events meeting coordinated by Southampton Forward.

The city is part of the GECoP programme, so it was nice that a researcher from Gloucestershire got to tell them both what they were each involved in. I’ve learned this is a familiar tale repeated all across the UK, where the academic arse can’t distinguish itself from the civic elbow. This is probably the most fascinating dynamic I reckon I’ll get to explore with my research, the interrelation between civic, academic and commercial ecosystems in collaborating to address a shared challenge. Anecdotally I would say from repeated, direct observation that you can have two working together in harmony, but never three.

There was another, much less south coast based customer in my calendar, and that was Canada – where research progresses from a long-established programme in the CLMA’s Sustainable Live. Canada is going to feature several times in this blog during 2026, mainly because of the victory lap of conferences and engagements that follow research programmes of this scale. Thank goodness I’m not writing up!

FRIDAY

There many things that get my out of bed in the morning, but course validation with a bunch of Dutch universities at 9am? Bring it on! Tagged in by my wonderful contact and super-academic Amber Herrewijn I found myself sharing a Teams call with the very welcome face of Rob van Wegen as we went through the structure and sequencing of a new course designed to train and certificate events professionals in sustainability. They said it was the first course and certification of its kind in the world, so I didn’t mention the similarly constituted AGF training and certification (or their new post-grad course) as it was such a lovely morning and everyone looked so happy. I’ve since messaged the team and offered to support with development of the course, I think it can differentiate itself from existing materials enough to offer an alternative to existing training/certification, but also would be a very interesting thing to test alongside other qualifications in establishing what would be best for Liverpool.

Dutch validation was followed immediately by antipodean anticipation as I had my first catch up of the year with Morwenna Collett – a brilliant researcher, access consultant and advocate who came to visit us at Glastonbury last year. Also I’m a consultant for Glastonbury. Morwenna is part of a network I chair called LEAF or the “Live Events Access Forum” which unites key leaders in national organisations across the world to discuss challenges and share best practice in how more inclusive, accessible music events can be achieved. There is some great sustainability work going down under and Australian author Meegan Jones writes solid book we pretty much all use if you teach sustainable events. The funding context (and coordination) from Music Australia really is a great model for governments to see how they can invest in growing their cultural sector – another thing it might be handy to explore – green transition won’t happen without a hand in someone’s pocket, so it might as well be the government.

I then went from New South Wales to just plain old south Wales as I met with RightKeysOnly - a very valuable human to me! Keys is a disabled artist from Wales and PhD research just like me, so we get to share a LOT of catharsis on our calls. This relationship has taken on a new dynamic recently, with Keys being signed up to UnMute – a disability exclusive artist roster for which I am creative director. We talked about their plans for 2026 and where we hope to be able to support each other with our PhDs. Keys is about six months ahead of me, so it’s nice to have someone who is a little more forward on their journey, who is happy to share their experiences too.

My next call hopped over the River Severn to Bristol, where I spoke with my Glastonbury boss about things I can’t type here, so it was a quick cheese sandwich before I was back online and across the pond in Nashville – the most musical city in the USA! My relationship with Nashville, although emergent, is a legacy of my work with disabled musicians in the US, where long running conversations involving research and knowledge exchange have created the foundation for new data to be produced in the states around the experiences of disabled people and the economic impacts of current US domestic policy.

My final meeting of the day, having been round the world in 8 hours from the comfort of my own desk, was just a short time zone hop to Los Angeles to speak with Dr Rhoda Bernard, Director of Berklee BIAAE to speak about Canada and a Christmas tree. Rhoda is currently in LA, along with a lot of my friends, for the NAMM exhibition. I am a bit FOMO about it to be quite honest as I was going to be in LA for both NAMM and the Grammys. I’ve not been to the west coast before, and was very excited initially, but it became apparent with my existing research, study and travel commitments that this would just be one trip too many and that I will stick to familiar faces and places when it comes to my travels to the US this year.

Okay, I failed on wordcount and this is easily my longest post yet. Really not getting the hang of this writing lark am I?