The Molde International Jazz Festival is made possible by 800 volunteers. You can be one of them!

Last year student Charlotte Dolles from Germany volunteered for the scenography committee that is responsible for the decoration of scenes, venues and wardrobes. She studies event and cultural studies at a German school and she volunteered last year as a student internship and in order to gain experience that she could include in her CV.

“The fact that I did not speak Norwegian was inconvenient, but not a problem,” she tells Panorama.

She enjoyed the work and the food breaks, and in her spare time she had free access to many concerts.

Molde on its head

Monday a week long music festival will turn Molde on its head and make it a vibrant city filled with visitors. Molde International Jazz Festival is a festival with long traditions and it is officialy designated as a key Norwegian festival. The festival is truly international and it has featured many famous musicans such as Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Blues Brothers, Santana, Stevie Wonder, Sting and Motorpsycho among many others. These names clerly tells that the festival is not only about jazz, but also blues, pop and rock.

Highlights this year are acclaimed Norwegian singer-songwriter Thomas Dybdahl and the satirical and intelligent Ylvis brothers – who where behind the viral song The Fox and the talking elevator prank.

100 000 visitors

Locals plan their vacation around this festival and with almost 100 000 expected visitors it can be difficult to find hotel or camp site accomodation during this week. It’s quite an event with about 140 concerts all over town (many of them free) and sporting a volunteer staff of almost 800 people. Locals enjoy beeing a volunteer and make it a social happeningm so this could be an opportunity for international students to get under the skin of the somewhat reserved Norwegian mentality.

One can volunteer as security, ticket sales, transport, media, catering and accomodation – all depending upon the committee you are attached to. One popluar committe is Artist Service or Musician Relations where the job is to support and follow-up all the artists that are flying into town.

Still recruiting

Charlotte Dolles planned to volunteer this year as well, but unfortunatly it conflicted with some German exams.

Hans-Olav Solli – head of marketing at Moldejazz – recently told local newspaper Romsdals Budstikke that the festival is continuously recruiting volunteers. The benefits you have as a volunteer is free access to concerts, the jazz t-shirt, food and lunches, but Solli thinks that most people volunteer because of the experience and fun.

The easiest way to volunteer is to go the festivals Norwegian or English web site and sign up there.