We recently caught up with Rebecca Mason, alumni from ACC Manchester‘s music pathway, who has had a successful career in music communications since leaving college.
Meet Rebecca Mason: ACC Manchester Music Alumni
I’m currently the Head of Publicity for Events & Special Projects at Inside Out, the UK’s leading independent music communications agency. Previously, I worked across artist publicity campaigns for a wide range of global musicians over a 7 year period at both Inside Out and Sonic PR.
How did your career start?
My music career began in the North West, where I’m from. Having left school at a young age (I was homeschooled from Year 5, with very supportive parents who allowed me to explore more experience led education within a career path I thought I wanted pre-music industry), I made my first steps into the industry with no formal qualifications or experience, just a passion for music and determination to find my path in the industry. Around the age of 17/18, I created my own music blog as a way of connecting with local musicians and peers while giving myself something to add to my CV. I spent most of my evenings and weekends writing reviews of new music I liked, learning about grassroots artists in Manchester and Liverpool and interviewing them for the website.
E and Rolling Stone to broadsheet newspapers like The Guardian and The Times and fashion and culture like Dazed and, i-D. But after 7 years of artist publicity, I felt it was time for a new challenge and moved into my current role handling music events and special projects.
What does your day-to-day work now look like?
I now spend most of my days publicising and consulting on some of Europe’s most unique and exciting festivals, including Green Man, We Love Green, Iceland Airwaves and Beyond The Music. Each campaign has similar requirements, from advising festival teams on booking and marketing decisions to generating press releases and assets, pitching news stories around announcements and strategising feature ideas unique to each event.
Of course, the most fun part of my job has to be inviting journalists to attend our events. I’m lucky to work in a role that allows me to travel to the various events we work on and experience different music communities and cities alongside some of the brilliant journalists we have built strong relationships with over the years. I never dreamt that working in music would see me making visits to Paris and Iceland, but those kinds of trips have become a staple in my calendar this year.
I’m also very fortunate to have brought Access Creative College to Inside Out as a ‘special project’ client, which was a real full-circle moment for me. It’s really important to us as an agency to platform the next generation of creative professionals, so finding new ways to bring ACC into the conversation has been very rewarding. We’ve already seen ACC featured in Billboard UK twice this year, as well as getting ACC’s higher education partner dBs into the likes of Rolling Stone UK and The Line of Best Fit.
Aside from the regulars of handling client campaigns, I’m always in and out of meetings and calls with various journalists and industry contacts, whether it’s discussing an idea for a feature or chatting about new projects we can collaborate on. I’ve gained some of my closest friendships from these kinds of meetings, and it’s always fun to connect with new people.
What does the future look like for media in music?
The media landscape is constantly changing, and we have to change with it, so building my knowledge and understanding of different areas like broadcast, podcasting, and social media is something I’m always focused on.
As the year continues, my focus is on developing our roster of event and special project clients at Inside Out – I’d love to work on some festivals in the US, Canada, Asia etc, and to branch out beyond into wider creative communities.
My advice to anyone interested in a career in Music PR is to use your initiative, focus on experience and build a solid understanding of music media. I never felt I was a “music journalist” when I started my blog, but it didn’t take long for PR agencies to start contacting me asking me to cover their artists. Once that started to happen, I quickly found myself in regular conversation with people who were working on some of my favourite artists, and those same people are the ones I work alongside now.
This job is heavily led by relationships, that’s not to say it’s “who you know” but it definitely helps if you have built your own connections to music journalists, artists etc – no matter how small they may be. Most people in this industry are very friendly and helpful. Don’t be scared to reach out and ask them for advice or just a quick chat, you never know what a quick phone call could lead to. None of the job roles I’ve had in this industry were advertised; I took a risk with cold call emails, and luckily, my self-motivated experience and connections proved themselves to be enough to get my foot in the door.
Want a career in media or music?
Access Creative College offers a range of media and music courses in campuses across the UK. Apply for one of our creative courses today!
