International Festival & Event Management With Entrepreneurship

Advanced Entry Only

Home to spectacular festivals and major events such as the International Festival, Fringe and Edinburgh's Hogmanay, Edinburgh attracts travellers and tourists from around the world all year round, making it a great place to study International Festival & Event Management with Entrepreneurship.

You'll learn how to plan, design, market, operate and develop events, as well as how these events can be used to help local economies and communities. You'll also gain the essential skills required to establish, develop and manage your own successful business venture.

With options of a 24-week work placement and study abroad, this course offers excellent preparation for your career in festival and events management.

Please note this programme is only available for advanced entry to Year 4.

Similar to our International Festival & Event Management, this route allows you to specialise in Entrepreneurship.

The course combines a sound knowledge of the dynamic field of international festival and event management with entrepreneurship, to add value to your career prospects.

Benefit from studying in the heart of a city rich in culture and creative industries. Events, tourism and hospitality businesses flourish here so you'll have plenty of opportunities to gain industry experience and make contacts via an optional work placement, or live project and part-time work.

There is an opportunity to study abroad through our international exchange links and you may study a European language, which will prepare you for working in an international environment.

During the course, you'll develop practical event management skills as well as a broad range of management techniques that can be applied to other industries. Specialising in entrepreneurship will also give you the creative and business skills you require to be your own boss.

You'll gain transferable skills in research, academic writing, communication and interpersonal relations, presentation and time management.

This course has a number of compulsory and optional modules that feature throughout the duration of the course. Some of the optional modules include: Music Event Management and The Study of Food, Wine & Gastronomy.

We offer tuition that is supported by highly experienced teaching staff and strong industry links.

This course contributes towards professional accreditation with the Institute of Hospitality.

Lead Academics

David Jarman came to Edinburgh to study his undergraduate degree, a period during which he combined study with summers spent working at the Edinburgh festivals. Through the early years of the century David built up his festival experience, completed an MSc, and travelled. This provided a great platform on which to develop his academic teaching and research career with Edinburgh Napier, from 2007 on.

Gary Kerr is a Lecturer in Festival and Event Management in the Business School at Edinburgh Napier University, where he lectures students on International Festival & Event Management degree programmes. Gary has a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Warwick and is completing his second PhD at the University of Salford on the social, political and cultural dimensions of science festivals in the UK. As part of his research, he has interviewed over 30 UK science festival directors. He has worked in numerous roles with various festivals including Staff Manager, Event Manager, Venue Manager, Production Coordinator, Creative Producer, and Creative Director. He was Stage Manager for the Olympics & Paralympics Homecoming Parade (2016).

Internationally, Gary has held the role of Quality Controller of the Innovator Festival (UAE) and Local Content Manager and Producer of the world-leading Abu Dhabi Science Festival. In these roles Gary consistently provided his clients with ongoing feedback on the quality of the festival's content and ensured consistency in the delivery of a high quality festival. Gary teaches at up to 20 universities across the UAE each year and is a Visiting Professorial Teaching Felow at The University of Warwick

Dr Jane Ali-Knight is a Professor in Festival and Event Management and a Visiting Research Professor at Curtin University, Perth. She is currently leading and developing the festival and event subject group as well as lecturing at Universities internationally and facilitating training and development in the field. Her core activities fall into three main areas: event and festival related programmes; research and publications and conferences and professional events. She is currently a board member of BAFA (British Arts and Festivals Association), Without Walls, Vice Chair of Women in Tourism and is a Fellow of the HEA and Royal Society of the Arts.

Dr Martin Robertson's career in academia followed his professional development and managerial experiences within the areas of conference organisation, tourism, travel and economic development (private and public sector). He has maintained his contact with the industry environment through Business Events and Conference Management and through Art Festival logistics and also through event resilience and leadership research. This drives his continued desire for a learning, and teaching experience - alongside subject related research, that is professionally and socially useful. 

Martin's concern for teaching and learning application and excellence has been successfully applied in his roles over the last 20 years as an academic. Most of those years have been spent in leading roles for degree programmes, both as a faculty wide Director (3 years) and for 15 years as Programme leader (PL). Currently he is PL for MSc Business Event Management.

Dr Louise Todd is a Lecturer and Programme Leader for the MSc International Festival and Event Management. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Royal Society of Arts and Royal Anthropological Institute. Louise's research interests lie in tourism, cultural events, art, experience design, visual culture and marketing communications. She has published her research in journal articles, book chapters and presented at international conferences.

Louise has experience in designing and delivering research dissemination and public engagement events and activities on a national and international basis. In August 2017, she was invited to present key aspects of her research into the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and its stakeholders as a public performance during the Fringe. She has also been involved in the design and development of Knowledge Exchange and CPD activities, including an externally funded Executive Programme she co-delivered in Singapore to members of the Tourism industry. The content of this was informed by her co-authored published research. 

Recent graduates have taken up a wide variety of employment and study opportunities, reflecting the breadth of the festival and event industries.

• International sporting events, such as London 2012, Glasgow 2014, Baku European Games
• Conference and events management for city centre hotels
• Exhibition management for diverse clients across multiple destinations and venues
• Work with cultural and artistic festivals, both within teams and independently
• Further study in business related subjects