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BA (Hons) Events Management

BA (Hons) Events Management

Event Managers conceive, plan and deliver all kinds of events throughout the creative industries, from pop-ups to large-scale music festivals.

Programme Specification

Course Costs

Admissions Policy

Events Management course information

We’re looking for people who want to push creative boundaries, challenge perceptions and set the agenda for creative events.

The world of events and festivals is full of well-organised project managers. However, the most successful Event Managers are those that can also design experiences. Focusing on that blend of project management and design skill is what makes studying Events Management at Arts University Bournemouth unique among event management courses. This course will provide you with the skills that you need to become not only the experienced manager that is at the heart of every event but an experience architect, a designer of time.

The ultimate creative process is to conceive and deliver unique experiences that stand out from the crowd and becomes a source of inspiration to others. During your studies you'll work with peers from your course and collaborate across many relevant courses at AUB to design and deliver live events and festivals in each and every year of your course.

The practical nature of the course means that you have opportunities to build a portfolio of work experience that potential employers will find attractive. Alongside your academic studies you'll also be offered further opportunities to add to that portfolio including a formal work placement. It is the stories that you tell about the many projects you worked on and the contacts that you make with our stakeholders and Alumni that will help you to seamlessly transition into the career you want to pursue.

The Alumni from this course are among some of the most successful and creative Event Managers in our industry. When you join us you'll be taking the first step towards joining them. We'll connect you with our network and a range of industry practitioners via guest lectures and site visits to events and festivals. Many students secure employment via the network of contacts that they develop on the course.

Our graduates have gone on to use their design and management skills in festival production, experiential marketing, brand activations, fashion shows, wedding planning, managing world-class museums, and fundraising for leading charities. By developing your practical design, project management and research skills, we'll help you become not only an experienced manager that's at the heart of every event but an experience architect, a designer of time.


Course duration	3-years (full-time)
UCAS course code	WN12
UCAS institution code	A66

Level 4 (first year)

Forming small production teams with support from your tutors and the audio-visual technical team you'll learn to design and deliver unique experiences that are safe, well organised and that have an audience. You'll deliver your first live event during the first semester of your first year.

With guest lectures from specialist speakers, you’ll be introduced to different sectors of the events industry and the way they operate. We'll also take some time to research and understand the potential impacts of your work on the environment and the communities and stakeholders that engage with your work. Finally, your live event project will be a themed one-day festival that you deliver during the summer term.

Level 5 (second year)

In your second year, you’ll progress to more specialist study, building on experience gained in your first year. Your live event project will be an opportunity for you to work with an external client, designing an experience that fulfils their requirements. You'll also develop your research skills by learning how to develop programmes that respond to specific audiences, understand how events and festivals can be vehicles for positive change in society and learn how to pitch for investment for a new creative enterprise.

In the summer term, you’ll undertake a six-week work placement which will allow you to put your skills into practice, working in an industry setting.

Level 6 (third year)

In your third year, the focus is on your independent learning, preparing you to transition into the world of work.

You'll work with an organisation in the event industry, researching their business to operate as a consultant and make recommendations for the strategic plan of your host organisation. You'll also research a topic in depth and produce a dissertation that allows you to become an expert in your chosen sector of the event industry.

Finally, you'll design a major event and pitch your idea to your colleagues, stakeholders and alumni. Working as part of a production team with funding from the course, support from your tutors and the audio-visual technical team, the culmination of your studies will be to conceive and deliver a unique experience that stands out from the crowd and becomes a source of inspiration to those that will follow you.

Awarded degree

All students are registered for the award of BA (Hons). However, exit awards are available if you leave the course early, having successfully completed one or two levels. If you successfully complete a level of the course, you'll automatically be entitled to progress to the next level.

For the award of a Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 120 credits at Level 4. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the first year of your course.

For the award of a Diploma of Higher Education (DipHE), you must have achieved a minimum of 240 credits of which a minimum of 120 must be at Level 5. This qualification may be awarded if you leave the University following successful completion of the second year of your course.

For the award of a BA (Hons) you must have achieved a minimum of 360 credits of which a minimum of 240 must be at Level 5 or above, of which a minimum of 120 credits must be at Level 6. This qualification will be awarded upon successful completion of your course.

A BA without Honours may be awarded if you've achieved 300 credits, at least 180 of which are at Level 5 or above, and at least 60 of which are at Level 6.

Watch our course video

Course leader Kevin Chambers explains more about what can be expected from studying BA (Hons) Events Management at AUB.

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Live events

Each year you'll have the opportunity to collaborate with creative practitioners and external clients to develop and produce live events. In your third year, you'll work on an ambitious major event, putting all your acquired skills and knowledge to the test.

Take a look at our events

Student gallery

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People sat at a round dining table with low lighting and decorations hanging from the ceiling

Alice in Spring takes place in Bournemouth town centre

A figure in costume reads from a scroll from a villa balcony. The words The Italian Villa appear on the wall below.

A fashion show in progress, with models walking up and down a catwalk

Person sitting on a sofa looking away from the camera with a large piece of card in front of them. There is an image made up of circles of various sizes in the centre.

Alice joins the Mad hatter for a tea party to promote Bournemouth's Alice in Spring event

A fire juggler performing in costume with fire sticks on a pavement outside a building.

A crowd of people gather outside an Italian villa. There is a large fountain and pond in the foreground.

A band on a stage lit with purple lights with a crowd in front.

A selection of cards with different patterns sitting on a rack. One shows a chicken sticking out of a Game Boy. Another show's a wolf's head with the words 'Cloud Cloud Cloud' above it.

How to apply

Once you've found the perfect Undergraduate course, you can apply to study via UCAS, including direct entry applications to second and third year.

When applying through UCAS, use the institution code A66. All of our courses take place on one site, so we don't have a campus code. We'll then use your completed UCAS form to make decisions about your application. You can find out more on entry requirements in our apply section.

When you apply to one of our courses, it's important that you help us get a good picture of both you and your work – so you'll need a great personal statement. We want to know more about why you're interested in the course, your key influences, and what you hope to do after your studies.

If you're invited for an interview, many of our courses will ask to see a portfolio of your work so we can get more insight into your ideas and abilities. To help you, we've created guidelines outlining what we expect from your portfolio for each course.

Find out more

Fees and funding

The fee that you pay the Arts University Bournemouth provides the necessary equipment and training for you to complete your course.

You may also choose to buy some items of personal equipment such as a laptop or tablet computer, but this is not required; desktop and laptop computers are available for you to use in common study areas, including a loan system in the Library.

Studios and resources

You’ll learn in flexible spaces with the very latest in digital technology.

We provide all the resources that you’ll find in an events business. You’ll be able to work with equipment sourced specifically for your live projects, including lighting, sound, projection, staging and exhibition materials.

Events Management resources

Students will have access to the resources that you’d expect to find in a real events business.

Ten rows of empty seating viewed from the front of a large lecture theatre.

Lecture Theatres and Seminar Rooms

We have a number of lecture theatres and seminar room scattered around campus to assist students with their studies.

A wall covered in colourful storyboards and different-coloured music stands.

TheGallery

Our in-house gallery, TheGallery, is a major resource for contemporary art and design in the South of England

Teaching and learning

The course objectives are met by deploying a wide variety of teaching and learning methods including live projects, lectures, seminars, group critiques and tutorials.

In consultation with the Course Leader, staff are responsible for co-ordinating individual units of study, and for selecting appropriate methods of delivery, according to subject matter and student experience. The methods employed introduce you to the disciplines required of a creative practitioner and promote the development of transferable skills.

The study time allocated to each unit in the course incorporates a balance of formal teaching, tutorial support and independent learning. The course is structured progressively to provide increased opportunities for independent learning as you reach the later stages of the course.

Teaching is directed at supporting individual engagement in learning and there will be opportunities for you to work in teams to enable you to learn the value of peer co-operation.

Lectures, seminars and tutorials are by team members, as appropriate, in the creative environment of the Events Management course spaces.

A Learning Compass has been developed from the course aims. The Compass follows four major themes:

Create, Collaborate, Produce and Progress

The themes are linked by a series of statements taken from the course aims. It's intended that the compass will allow you to navigate your way through the course and onto your chosen career paths. This will allow you to easily interpret the aims of the course and their relationship to learning.

The progressive promotion of independent learning reflects your anticipated maturity as a student and allows you to direct your learning towards individual goals. The teaching in Level 4 is directed at providing you with the knowledge, concepts and skills to take increasing responsibility for the management of your own learning.

Contact hours include all scheduled teaching sessions, but also supervised time in the workshop or studio. In line with national guidance, we include in our calculation of contact hours all the time which is scheduled in the studio for independent study which is also supported by staff (either academic staff, or technicians).

The information provided below gives the proportion of your study time which constitutes contact hours. Where there are optional routes through the course, we have used the figures for the most popular option.

Year 1 (% time)	Year 2 (% time)	Year 3 (% time)
44	45	43

Assessment and feedback

Each unit is assessed separately, and the assessment forms part of the unit. Assessment both provides a measure of your achievement, and also gives you regular feedback on how your learning is developing.

For every unit of your course, we'll inform you of what you are expected to learn, what you have to submit, how your work will be assessed, and the deadline for presenting your work for assessment. This is made available through Unit Information, which is on your course blog.

You'll receive a final mark for each unit in the form of a percentage, which will be recorded on your formal record of achievement (transcript). Each component of assessment is graded using a notched marking scale, whereby only certain marks are used within each grade. The only marks available within any ten-point band are *2, *5 and *8 (e.g. 62, 65, 68). These marks correspond to a low, mid, and high level of achievement within each grade band.

All learning outcomes must be passed to successfully complete the unit.

On successful completion of your Honours degree course, you'll be awarded a degree classification based on your unit marks. The final classification is determined using all unit marks at Levels 5 and 6 using two different algorithms, which are detailed in the HE Student Regulations. If the two algorithms produce different results, you'll be awarded the higher class of degree.

If you've joined Level 6 through either the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) route or having completed a Foundation Degree (FdA), the final classification is determined using only your unit marks at Level 6.

For further information on assessment, progression, awards and classifications, please visit viewpoint.aub.ac.uk.

What our graduates are doing

We're proud to have been ranked second in the Times University League Table for Graduate employment within the Hospitality, Leisure, Recreation and Tourism subject area.

Many of our Graduates have gone to do incredible things, such as running festivals like Wilderness, Secret Garden Party, Bestival, Boomtown and The End Of The Road Festival, working at venues like London’s Roundhouse and working for companies like Spotify and ITV.

Our students can be found in all parts of today’s creative industries. Here are just a few: