How Live Nation Hired 50 Interns From A Pool Of 15,000

Internships can be an invaluable experience. Here, a young person can gain hands-on experience, showcase their skills, work ethic and shiny personality, meet potential mentors, find pathways into an industry and potentially change the rest of their lives.
The hardest part, however, may just be landing one. In fact, the odds of landing a summer internship this year in the U.S. Concerts division of Live Nation, the world’s largest music promoter, may not have been exactly in your favor. To wit, 2022’s crop of 50 paid interns came from a pool of 15,000(!) – imagine sorting through those resumes – with just .3% of the applicants making it to the other side. (That’s actually less than Harvard’s 3.19% accepted for the class of 2026.)

As part of the company’s efforts to continue creating more equitable opportunities and building more diverse team, this was also the first year that Live Nation’s Concerts announced it was shifting to a paid internship program, which likely upped the amount of applicants.

Pollstar reached out to Aisha Collins, Senior HR Director for Live Nation’s Concerts and Touring division, for the NextGen issue to find out how the process went.

Pollstar: First, tell us about your background?
Aisha Collins: I started with Live Nation in November 2021. Prior to joining Live Nation, I worked in the hospitality industry for 18 years,16 of which have been specifically in Human Resources.

How does the Live Nation internship work – where do they work, how long it goes for, what does it entail?
For Live Nation’s U.S. Concerts summer internship, we wanted to create a program that was interactive, educational, and left the interns with the tools and resources to continue on with their education or to kickstart their career in live entertainment.
The program was developed with Live Nation’s diversity initiatives and students in mind. Many of us had to work through the summer when we were students and therefore missed out on career-building opportunities when internships were unpaid and only offered school credit. By creating a paid internship program, we have opened the door for more diverse students from various universities to receive industry experience that perhaps would not have been considered an option in the past. We developed this program with them in mind and hope to continue to build upon it every year.
Our Summer Internship provides a paid 12–16-week program that includes hands-on experience in many aspects of bringing concerts to life on several teams from marketing, finance, booking, operations, social media, brand management and many more.

What was the criteria for applicants in order to apply?
Our requirements were that participants had to be a junior/senior in college, grad student, or recent graduate of 2020/2021 (since many students couldn’t participate in internships during that time).

What were the numbers on the applicants vs. the spots available for this year’s LN intern program?
We had a total of 50 internship slots available and received more than 15,000 applicants. It’s incredible to see just how many people are interested in working in live entertainment.

What kinds of experiences, academics, personality, etc. were you looking for?
The live entertainment industry offers career paths for people from all walks of life with completely different backgrounds. Live entertainment-specific programs are rarely offered in school, so we’re especially proud of this internship and the hands-on experience we provide.

Many in the industry come from a range of educational backgrounds that may not be music-related or include attending university, which speaks to how important real-world experience is when establishing your career.

We’re always looking for driven, passionate individuals and we can’t wait to meet our fall class.