The idea of a trip suddenly had some appeal.
I filed the email away and told myself I’d think it over.
Thirty minutes, and one argument with my desk fan later, and I had responded to the editor, taking him up on his offer.
The magazine –Showcase– was so utterly grassroots they might have just crawled out of a garden centre. They emailed me back almost immediately to say they could either pay my airfare, or my daily food budget. Not both.
I actually laughed.
“Of course you can’t do both,” I muttered to myself, oddly charmed by the hustle.
I decided to roll with it, told them to book my flights so that I had one less thing to organise, and I’d live off food van rations for the two days I’d be in France.
My flights were booked by the end of the day.
I told my editor what my plans were, packed a backpack with the bare minimum of essentials and grabbed my passport.
During the short flight over, I listened to a podcast to brush up on the rudimentary French I’d retained from school, mouthing phrases silently, trying to re-familiarise my tongue with the language. “Où sont les toilettes?” seemed essential.
Showcasehad only given me one, very broad brief.
‘Write it up like you did that piece on Glasto’.
I stood in the middle of Dinard Pleurtuit airport, staring down at my phone, wondering if they were serious. Deciding they were, I sighed, hoiked my bag up on my shoulder, and set off for the coaches.
My piece on Glastonbury had been a full two-page spread, not including the few photos I’d taken that the editors had cherry picked and polished.
It didn’t take me long after arriving at the festival grounds to realise, however, thatRoute Du Rockwas not Glastonbury.
This smaller festival was alternative, clinging to it’s indie roots, and more folk scene than mass appeal, so I decided to approach it from a different angle and lean into what made it special instead of comparing it to the festivals it wasn’t trying to emulate.
I spent the two days there sitting happily in a dry field, eating festival food and listening to bands I’d never heard of. It was actually a relief. For two, whole days, no one reminded me of things I didn’t want to think about. I barely got phone signal, and I was reminded of the reasons why I wanted to be in this industry. The experience that went so far beyond hearing a song and liking the way it sounds.
For two days with no showers, questionable food choices, no idea what anyone was saying to me, and a lonely two-man tent pitched in a field of prickly, stubby corn stalks - I was happy.
It turned out I’d made the right decision to forego a paycheque for the plot. I wrote the article, andShowcasewere delighted.
I’d also vlogged nearly my entire trip – on a whim, really. It wasn’t exactly a new concept, but in addition to being able to use use it for my own social media, it also gave me content rights over my experience at the festival.
Showcasegot their article, and I also got to publish independent content that didn’t infringe on my content agreement with them.
The vlog series catapulted my content even more than even my series about living and working in Korea. Probably because that series hadn’t shown the kind of things people wanted to watch, which, going off the comments, had mainly been the talent at ENT.
Content creation wasn’t something I took all that seriously, but it was proving useful to my career.
In the weeks following my trip to France, several different kinds of music related media platforms reached out, from other publications, to podcast hosts and – perhaps most excitingly – the BBC.
Well, to be more accurate, a producer who worked on one of the smaller shows for BBC Radio 4 called to ask if I’d be interested in going to Broadcasting House to guest-spot on a segment they were doing on K-Pop. Apparently, a researcher for the show had come across my social media from watching one of the vlogs fromRoute du Rock, saw that I posted a lot of K-Pop content, looked into my published articles and had passed along my details to the show’s producer.
Eagerly, and with no small amount of awe, I agreed, and a date was set for July.
Mum screamed when I told her and Dad. I’d decided to take the weekend out of London and head up to Cumbria – and breathe some real air for a change.
“Oh my God, Ky, the BBC?” Mum shrieked, launching towards me, hands outstretched to cup my cheeks.
“Good job, kiddo.” Dad clapped me on the back, pushing me further towards Mum, who took the incentive to plaster kisses all over my face.
“Our little girl, the real life BBC journalist,” she crowed.
