All hands on deck for extravaganza

Williamstown High School students James Priday and Joshua Nielsen are excited to be part of the audio production team in this year's State Schools Spectacular on Saturday. (Damjan Janevski) 297271_04

Williamstown High School students Joshua Nielsen and James Priday are among the thousands of students making final preparations for this weekend’s State Schools Spectacular event.

However, their focus will not be on remembering the words of a song but ensuring the audience can hear the voices of the students performing.

The pair are aiming to put their lessons from workshops with audio production company Norwest to the test at the large-scale production, involving 3000 students from more than 200 state government schools.

Joshua said most of the production crew consists of 15 to 18-year-old students, which creates a mix of stress and excitement during the show.

“It’s scary how even a small problem could stuff up the whole show, but it is also exciting how close we are to making the show come alive,” he said.

Joshua said he is learning about what goes into producing a large-scale show.

“In the future, I hope to study further sound technology and get into the music industry as either a sound technician or a sound engineer,” he said.

James said the audio production side of the show is “unbelievably complex”.

“I want to contribute in a major way to an event which people will enjoy,” he said.

The Victorian State Schools Spectacular will be held on Saturday, September 10 at 1 pm and 6.30pm at John Cain Arena.

Details: johncainarena.com.au/event/victorian-state-schools-spectacular-2022

Matthew Sims