European Sound Specialist Education and Curriculum Exchange

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the live event industry harder than any other sector, we were facing a mass exodus of qualified personnel. At the same time, career perspectives and...

The core target of ESSENCE was a trans-national job and education profile for a European Sound Specialist (ESS) at EQF level 5. We wanted to understand the labor market demands and expectations of sound specialists in different countries, how sound engineering at this level is taught and certified there (specifically in places without or with a less pronounced EQF5 gap than in Germany), and how our emerging ESS vision would fit into those different VET cultures. For VDT as coordinating partner, our secondary goal was to develop skills in running projects under the ERASMUS+ framework and to learn from our partners, whose abilities in this area were already quite advanced. Traditionally, the educational focus of VDT had been limited to academia. Having witnessed dramatic shifts in work environment and conditions over the last decade, we began to understand the importance of vocational education and training in relation to the pursuing the social, aesthetic and sound quality ideals set out in our bylaws. Lastly, we wanted to build skills in dealing with established methods and tools for professional profiles in the European Union, most notably with the ESCO data structure and dictionary, to help with our own national VET projects.