A FREELANCER’S LIFE
Life on the road
Make time for people, be helpful, and try not to take on too much. Charlie Mussett, director of CHJM Events, is a freelance event operations and safety consultant. He discusses his recent foray into event freelancing and the lessons he has learned CHARLIE MUSSETT
I
’m writing this on an April morning at a sunny table listening to BBC Radio 6 Music, a definite perk and constant companion to my freelance work life. I am absolutely knackered (and housecat number one has decided to sit on the keyboard). I’m back home after working with the great team at Human Race on the Manchester Marathon. I talk to a fair number of students via guest lectures, and do my best to point out that it’s not all hotel bars and golf buggies in fields: We all see the positive social posts after a gig, but less time is spent talking about how tired we are, the washing pile, the nagging emails from the next project, the lack of time to get a haircut and – most importantly – the people we are away from whilst working on the great event we’re now shouting about. That for me was one of the big drivers to go freelance. The rest was chance and the small matter of a global pandemic.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
I’ve worked in events for nearly 30 years, but the vast majority have been as an employee. I started out on the Tall Ships Race with a small consultancy looking after the festival sites and public ops side of things when it visited Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen in the 1990s, then I moved to The Great Run Company to look after mass televised events, including the Great North Run. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have worked with
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