Master of Science - Cultural Events Management (Work Based Project option)

MSc Cultural Events Management studies how festivals, cultural programmes and live events are conceived, financed and delivered, with modules across event design and production, cultural policy and audiences, event marketing, funding and sponsorship, and operations including safety and licensing. The award title itself advertises the Work Based Project option, under which students complete the final stage embedded with an events organisation rather than writing a conventional dissertation.

Leicester provides a working laboratory: the city runs one of Europe’s largest Diwali celebrations outside India, a major comedy festival, and a dense calendar of community and music events, and the course’s project briefs plug into that ecosystem. Assessment centres on planning documents that would survive contact with reality — budgets, risk assessments, production schedules and sponsorship decks — plus a live group event delivered during the year.

Timetabling concentrates taught blocks early so the spring and summer — peak season in the UK events calendar — stay clear for the work-based project, an alignment that lets students take paid festival and venue work while earning credit. The £16,800 fee includes no hidden production costs; event budgets for the live group project are sponsored or fundraised, itself a designed learning exercise.

Honesty about the sector: events careers start hands-on and modestly paid (£20,000–£24,000), hours follow the calendar not the clock, and progression rewards a contact book built one delivered event at a time. The work-based route exists precisely to start that book. As a taught master’s the course qualifies graduates for Graduate Route permission — two years where the application predates 1 January 2027, 18 months afterwards — and taught-course students cannot be accompanied by dependants.