Wintec students get real-world experience at Fieldays

Wintec students in their Fieldays vests (l-r) Jesse Wood (National Diploma in Journalism), Blair Voorend (National Diploma in Journalism), Candice Gollan (BMA and National Diploma), image by Wintec tutor Geoff Ridder.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Fieldays and Wintec is at the forefront in the celebrations.

To commemorate the event, Wintec has published a 50-page, one-off exclusive magazine to mark the celebration. As well, the students who produced the magazine will be onsite publishing stories and photographs online during Fieldays 2018.

The magazine, a collaborative project in the School of Media Arts, has been added to the commemorative “goodie bag” by Fieldays volunteers and will be delivered to around 1,300 exhibitors and all media attending the event.

Journalism tutor Richard Walker worked closely with Wintec marketing and student support account manager Tash Monk and Mystery Creek marketing and communications manager Taryn Storey to set up the magazine.

“It has been great working with the tutors and students of Wintec to create the magazine,” Taryn said. “I have found working on the magazine very successful.”

The project required Wintec journalism students to co-ordinate their work with photography and graphic design students. Photography tutor Stef Young set her students the task of illustrating the magazine while graphic design tutors Aida Khangholi, Jordan Foster, and Luke McConnell asked their third-year design class to individually pitch magazine designs. The winning design, chosen from more than 30 student efforts, was by Makaely Wingate.

The magazine is a culmination of 15 years of work by photography, graphic design and journalism students and staff who have studied collaboratively to create the Wintec Fieldays Exhibitor.

The Fieldays Exhibitor started in 2004 as a project to create a simple four-page pamphlet that was aimed at the exhibitors. Students wrote, photographed, and designed the publication every day to a strict deadline to ensure the delivery to the printers who printed each magazine overnight.

The magazines were picked up by a staff member at 5am, after their coffee stop, each day of the Fieldays.

Exhibitors often read the Fieldays Exhibitor over their morning coffee after students and staff distributed them in all weather conditions – fog, frost bite, rain, hail, or shine could not stop the Exhibitor getting through!

Down the years students and staff never missed a deadline or failed to deliver the magazine, tutor Charles Riddle said.

As the magazine became popular and grew up to 36-pages an edition, the delivery of the 1000 copies every day became too much for the students and the kind Fieldays volunteers took over distribution of the magazine, often using quad bikes (much to the students’ disappointment).

Several editors in residence, including ex-Waikato Times editor Venetia Sherson, and Canon award-winning writer Aimee Cronin, have worked on the Fieldays Exhibitor. This publication is a prime example of an industry and Wintec partnership.

In 2010, The Fieldays Exhibitor received an official commendation and trophy from the Fieldays committee in recognition of the contribution the publication had made to Fieldays. This year was also the year the magazine remained in print but went digital with dedicated student teams managing the live publication of Fieldays news.

In recent years, students have added Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and video to the list of tools they use to cover the event.

This week, Wintec journalism and photography students are onsite at Fieldays, wearing their Fieldays exhibitor vests and gaining some real-world experience reporting from the event. You can read their stories on waikatoindependent.co.nz.

Preview image: The Fieldays Exhibitor cover image by Wintec student Souem By.

This story was written by third year Media Arts Communication student, Candice Gollan.