Trident UK has launched a program called the Trident Perpetual Festival (http://www.tridentgum.co.uk/home.html), a contest for the ultimate music fan.  The lucky winner will tour 30 music festivals around the world over the course of 30 weeks starting in April 2010, for a handsome salary of £30,000 (£52,000 pounds annually, prorated).

This is an awesome gig.  For one thing, the pay is excellent (keep in mind that the starting salary for a bus driver in London is £20,000 or so).  More importantly, however, is that this is a dream job for any music lover, which is what makes this program great.  It taps into the dreams of our carefree youth (who wouldn’t want to tour the world, watching live music?), has sex appeal, pays well, and embraces a key element of British culture – the love of music festivals.  These are people who own and use Wellies on a regular basis, who camp often and who attend rain-soaked, muddy music festivals every weekend, all summer long.

When I ran Virgin Festival (VFest) in Canada, we brought the European festival culture and feel to Canada.  Well, British, as we did encounter our fair share of rain.  To get into the spirit and become immersed in the culture, I traveled to many music festivals in Canada, the USA and Britain and was always amazed by the fans and habit around festivals in Europe.  Music festivals there are not merely events to enjoy as a novelty, or to endure whilst waiting for your favourite band to come on stage; they were an integral part of your summer, your social scene and your growth as a human being.

Trident is brilliant to leverage the European love of festivals and to tie its brand to the ultimate music experience.  I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

I just hope the winner uses some of that £30,000 to buy extra socks, hoodies and ponchos; the rain and mud can be really brutal.